The Spanish people are certainly fine horticulturists, and it is perhaps worth mentioning that this has been made possible by the astonishing work done by the Muslims in times past.
Sometimes it doesn´t rain for months on end, and when it does it can often evaporate before it reaches the ground.
Summers are dry and very hot.
The solution was to carve the mountains into terraces and make channels for the melting winter snows on the higher Sierra Nevada, which make their twisting way down eventually to the villages and towns, providing clean fresh water which is used on a rota basis.
Two of these channels, or acequias, run through my garden, and men from the pueblo take turns to tend the water and keep the acequias clear. On Monday mornings I take my turn to flood my orchards. I´m the last property in line for one acequia, so I can use it whenever it runs, since after me it goes down into the river at the bottom of the canyon. I´m first in line for the other acequia, which feeds the pueblo, so I have to get my watering done early to avoid bothering others lower down.
In the lower garden, below the public footpath, there is an ancient ruin where the first people to inhabit this bit of the mountain lived.
In the early 90´s a local man who had spent his working life as a builder in Germany decided this was a fine spot to build a ¨cortijo ¨ or farmhouse, so the house is well built and well located for water and sunshine.
Thanks to him there are twenty odd different things to eat in the garden, and I like to reflect as I eat one of my oranges that the juice within, thanks to our Muslim brethren, fell as snow on the mountain peaks.
I feel hopelessly indebted to those who made my paradise what it is today, they have made it a very special place to be.
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