The «Conquest of the West»

Spreading westwards was an HCM blockbuster starring intrepid gardeners like those in the photo and was the annexation by the neighbourhood of part of a wasteland, to turn it into a green area.

A new project which, as usual, we embarked on out of need. In the summer of 2019, we were offered a load of trees, and we decided there was no room for them on the allotment so we would plant them outside it. We already had a precedent in this area with our sunflower plantation.

In the end, they only gave us a few trees, most of those in La Conquista (The Conquest) belong to someone, or were donated, or grew spontaneously on the plots… it´s like having a blank canvas which we paint over as the years go by, planting what we want where we want. And with the trees came back adventitious plants and insects.

But there´s no point in planting 60 trees and over 60 bushes if you don´t look after them. Thanks to our planning and the installation of drip irrigation, we don´t have to water them by hand. But there´s no escape from cleaning the tree wells, fertilising, pruning the trees once a year and the bushes twice a year, staking the weak ones and protecting their trunks, and marking out the small ones so that when they clear the land they don´t get trampled on or damaged. We also must program and check the irrigation system and repair it, fumigate and manage pests, or replace the ones that die.

Although it´s a lot of work, it is gratifying to do it during the year and shape our small conquest. To turn a wasteland into a wood or a field.