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Andalusia or Andalucía?

The autonomous region of Andalusia (Andalucía in Spanish) is in the southern part of Spain. It spans from Atlantic coast in the west to the sheltered coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the east and from Málaga's Costa del Sol to the borders of Castilla – La Mancha the famous flat lands and Don Quixote windmill country.  With an average of 300 plus days of sunshine a year the coastal area is an all year round destination. Not so in the inland provinces of Cordoba, Jaen and Sevilla which ha ve baking hot summers that can reach +40c and cold winters which can be 0c or less overnight. The Mezquita, Córdoba Andalusia is divided into eight provinces, each with a provincial city of the same name. Some of them are far more famous than others: Almería , Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Sevilla. The three land-locked provinces are Córdoba, Jaé n and Sevilla, the rest are coastal. Each province and city is full of culture, history, traditions, fabulous monuments and cre...
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Making Mulch With Fallen Leaves

Finally I´ve done it. I´ve swept up the billions of fallen leaves, mostly walnut, popped them in black plastic bags, punctured them with air holes and stuck them away to rot for a year or two. Couldn´t be simpler.

It makes a great mulch (top layer to suppress weeds and improves fertility) or dig it in as a soil enricher. Leaves can be added to the compost pile or worm bag but not all at once, so it´s easier to shove them all in bags and forget about them. They ought to be decomposed or semi-decomposed before dug into the soil and should not be added to compost piles in one huge lot.





My worm bag has no lack of weeds and kitchen scraps so the leaves, and there are a lot, aren´t really needed there (and there´s too many to add in one go). It´s not a big job and I should sweep up the leaves that fall daily at this time of year anyway and having a bin liner to empty the dustpan or shovel into saves time and trips to the compost heap.

I try to vary the mix of leaves adding whatever else is available too, the ones there are plenty of is olive leaves. They take a lot longer to rot down so I don´t add those, they could be kept seperate though.

I also have a fair few oleanders, but don´t like to add those leaves as every part of the plant is posionous - must find out if they can be used or not!

If you´d like to know more about composting with worms or want to know where to buy red worms in Spain leave me a comment or drop me a line.
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