Steve Carson

I am investigating nitrogen fixing shrubs for my garden here in the south of Spain.
I read that Spanish Broom is nitrogen fixing which sounds too good to be true as it grows wild everywhere here with very little water and can be obtained for next to nothing.
Are there any reasons not to use it amongst my fruit trees here? I have never seen it used locally amongst the millions of olive trees, almond or cherry trees so I thought I had better check.
S

Ah, I will try that rock trick with the bindweed in the rest of the garden.

Cardboard is toxic??? The keyhole garden is half built now and has 4 layers of cardboard at the bottom! This is very concerning. How tall is tall enough for the keyhole garden not to be affected by any toxicity?

I still have time to remove the cardboard if necessary. I don't want to have doubts when I am eating my lettuce!

So my garden has quite a lot of bindweed. I am planning to build a keyhole garden. Will a few inches of cardboard at the bottom be strong enough to stop the dreaded weed invading? I have some of that plastic weed suppressing roll, would it be ok to put some of that under the keyhole to be sure or does the keyhole need to have access to the soil beneath?

interesting, I reckon I can divert the roof's gutter to about 1/3 of the way up the garden and it would flow down with gravity. I would need a way to slow the flow and maybe switch it off at times so I guess it would need some kind of tank

The alley is on a slope with a large drain at the bottom. House is a 100 years old with no sign of flooding yet!

I have been reading and watching Youtube about swales, trenches etc for conserving rainwater.

I live in southern Spain, hot and very dry in the summer, cold and some rain in the winter. I would like to convert my garden into a small food forest. It seems like a good idea to sort the water situation out before planting or anything.

Looking at my garden it looks like it will naturally collect water without the need for getting the spade out and digging some earthworks as it is walled at the base.

Does this sound right? Here is my dodgy drawing...



Cheers,
Steve

Thanks for all the helpful replies guys.

Around here there is a massive monoculture of olives. I have also seen almonds, figs, pomegranates, cherries and other stoned fruits going so I will give them a go. And I will check out some of the plants you recommend that I have not heard of.

Is the best plan for low maintenance/high yield to go for some kind of forest garden then?

Water does not seem to be too much of a problem here. It comes out of mountain springs. Most of the locals use drip irrigation on their veg patches. I have a tap in the garden so I guess I should just do the same?

I see a few mention of zones eg Zone 5, Zone 9 - what are these zones? Am I zone 9?

Cheers,

Steve

I have a large walled garden in the mountains north of Granada in Spain. We are 944 metres above sea level, in summer it is very hot and dry, in winter it is cold due to the altitude.

I am interested in growing food and permaculture.

The average annual temperature here is 13.90°C/54F
In the warmest months the average temperature is 34.10 degrees C/93.38F and for the coldest months the average temperature is 0.20C/32F

We get a lot of summer days of around 37C/98.6F

The annual rainfall averages 559 mm/22 inches, which is 85,3 mm lower than the averege rainfall of Spain (644,3mm)

It is difficult to find english resources to help me grow in this climate.

It seems that there are a lot of permies in the USA - is there an equivalent kind of climate anywhere there which might have a few more permies and hence more info online?

Or can anybody point me at any useful resources for this area?

Thanks,
Steve