Mother's Garden is a 10-acre smallholding which in many ways is typical of this area of Southern Catalonia. The land is a patchwork of vines, olives, almonds, hazels, walnuts and fruit trees. It attracts a rich variety of wildlife - eagles, bee-eaters, wild boar etc - in spectacular mountain scenery, making it ideal for ornithologists, walkers, landscape painters, photographers and keen cyclists. And there are other attractions too. Besides farmers many artisans are established here - painters, sculptors, basket makers, people producing beautiful ceramics, wooden toys, stained glass and jewellery. New additions to keep on track with our aim to be as self-sufficient as possible we now have three beehives, while in our new chicken house there are three young brown Catalan hens with Archie and our brood of black Vilafrancas.

Nearly all of the 1400kg crop from our 750 vines last year was sold to Torres, the leading Spanish wine producer. We have two varieties, Carinyena and Garnacha, and, like everything else at Mother's Garden, the vines are farmed organically. Last year we kept 200kg of the grapes to tread and press at the farm, and at the time of writing there is a full 120 litre barrel in our storeroom. The coming months will tell if it's drinkable! This year or next we hope to plant a further one or two hectares of vines, while also developing our wine export business on behalf of other small local vineyards. If any UK wine importers would like to sample some of these excellent wines please email us at mothersgarden.es@gmail.com

http://www.winesearcher.com/riojaxxx.html

The very hard winter of 2001/02 was a disaster for our trees and they had to pruned back very hard last year. Hence we had no production in November and it will be 2004 before we can expect a return to the

level of our previous modest crop. In the meantime, as with wine, we know some excellent producers in this area and will be exploring the export potential. If any UK importers would like to know more, please email us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive

Last year we dispatched a very small quantity of almonds - about 100 kilos - for sale in shops in East Anglia under our new Mother's Garden label. It was a trial run and we are currently discussing plans for the autumn. There are three small groves on the farm, but we are looking to buy more ecological almonds and possibly hazelnuts from groves bordering our farm.

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/
almon026.html

After bottling and jam making any surplus from our fruit trees (peaches, plums, pears, apricots, quinces, apples, figs) may be sold to a local ecological cooperative, and we aim to plant more apricots in the coming years.

Plans to take some of the many artisan products and works of art and craft to England this summer to display and sell at country fairs have had to be postponed due to book launches.