first months
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Once we had moved in we needed to do something about the garden and the electricity situation.

A small 220V generator was negotiated into the house purchase price, but it was annoying to have to run it, just to put TV on in the evening. We had a 12 volt basic lighting system run from a car battery so it was not quite living by torch light.

We eventually went for a small photo-voltatic solar system (small in size I might add, not in cost). This has performed excellently, we have a 1.3 kW inverter which supplies everything with the exception of hair dryers and the washing machine. We tend to run the washing machine either at night or after a period of cloudy weather as the generator is linked in to allow any spare capacity to top up the battery bank.

Now attention turned to the jungle, being of a sedentary lifestyle the idea of hacking at an acre of undergrowth with a scythe did not overly appeal, I bought a small petrol brush cutter / strimmer. This has proven worth its weight in gold, though when the blade hits a wasp nest its weight was a definate hinderance.

After a few weeks work I managed to get the terraces to the stage where you could walk on them without losing sight of your knees, I hope to get a rotavator down this autumn to prepare the ground for a winter vegetable crop.

Wasps and other beasties are an ever present nuisance. Catching wasp nests early makes things a little less dramatic, I can't believe that I actually paid someone to clear wasp nests during the first summer. All you need for wasps is a standard garden / hand held spray and some diesel, apparantly the diesel dissolves the wings, whatever, it works well and the  battle with the wasps is definately going my way.

The ants on the other hand seem to be gaining the advantage, I have found no "local remedy" for ants and they seem to be everywhere. I tried to sow some grass seed of about a 5 square meter bank, a couple of hours later the whole area was moving, ants from accross Spain had come to steal my grass seed. I put paid to that with ant spray but it was a small victory and I know that they will be back, also the grass did not grow either, so in the cheme of things one could say the ants actually came out on top.