Amusing pet movie of the week...

This is Eddie the crazy Beagle.  I suppose it's one way to scratch your back...

The book is finally out!

Just a short post, to let everyone I haven't told yet know, my book finally is available to order!

This is the blurb on the back cover:

A guide to over 130 of the most common edible and medicinal plants in Western Europe, aimed at the long‐distance or casual hiker along the main pilgrim routes through Western Europe. The author has had some 40 years of experience in foraging and though a Dutchman by birth, has been at home all over Europe including Germany, Ireland, England and for the last 8 years in Italy along the Via Francigena pilgrim route, where he feeds his family as a subsistence farmer, cultivating a small piece of Ligurian hillside along permaculture principles, and by gathering food from the wild. 

You can order it directly from the publisher, from Amazon (for those in the US) or send us an e-mail to order directly from me on tuscanytipple at libero dot it. 

Close to the Edge

 "A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace,
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace,
And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar,
Then taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour.
And assessing points to nowhere, leading ev'ry single one.
A dewdrop can exalt us like the music of the sun,
And take away the plain in which we move,
And choose the course you're running."

Todays post starts a little unusually with some 1970's prog rock, I picked a short version of Close to the Edge by Yes, I'll explain the relevance in a minute...

I'm talking about permaculture again and wild food foraging.  What's that got to do with THE EDGE I hear you ask.  Having traveled a little to other parts of Italy recently in the name of permaculture, a friend coined the new term 'permaculturing around', I realised that I am in a very privileged position in living in an area with an enormous variety of edible plants.  I find some 150 different species of edible and/or medicinal wild plants during the course of a year within an hour's walk from my home.  I had always put that down to the favourable climate of Italy in general compared to the more northern climes where I grew up, but it turns out that we live on a special place within Italy and I started wondering why.

One of the main objectives of permaculture is that we observe nature, see how ecology works and then apply those principles to our designs, because nature does not need any outside intervention and is therefore self-sustaining.  Wild food foraging is a great exercise in observation.  You start to look around you much more and seeing things you normally miss.  Soon you start realising that certain plants prefer certain conditions such as micro-climates, soil conditions, the way they often associate with other plants and how those plants can in fact be an indicator of existing conditions.  One of the main observation you start making is that you find the greatest biodiversity on 'edges'.

It makes perfect sense of course once you start thinking about it:

If you go into the middle of a forest there is only little light available so you won't find many ground covering plants, whilst in the middle of an open field you will find that certain herbs and grasses will quickly dominate the scene.  However if you look at where the two meet you will find the greatest biodiversity, not only of plants, but also of animals.  There is more light available then in the woods, also the forest acts as a windbreak, catching seeds and organic material on the edge and animals normally at home in either of the two environments will occasionally come to the edge where they can feast on the greater diversity of the plants.  In addition a number of species evolve that specialise in colonising the edges of different biotopes, meaning that on the edge there is a greater variety of life than the combined sum of the two.  This is known as the 'edge effect'.

There are many more examples for the edge effect.  Where water meets land, land animals come to drink, fish catch flies, predators eat both and frogs are happy inbetween.  There are aquatic, semi-aquatic and land plants meeting at the same place and all the animals that go with them.  This happens next to lakes:

...rivers

...and of course by the sea.  Then we have have mountains meeting valleys:

or the edge of a path.  Water runs off the path giving an opportunity for many plants to flourish on the side of the path.  Sometimes the seeds hitch a ride with whoever goes along the path:

Or you may even have several edges meeting at the same time, such as wood, land and water.

Any birdwatcher worth their salt knows that the greatest variety of birds are found in river estuaries, where the river meets the sea.  There are seasonal 'edges': spring and autumn edge around the poorer seasons of summer and winter.  In short edges is where things tend to happen in nature.

Now coming back to where I live.  Within a radius of about 25km as the fly crows... the cry fl...flow cries... around here we have two major mountain ranges of up to 2,000m altitude, the Appenines and the Apuan Alps, we have the Ligurian Sea and the sheltered Gulf of La Spezia, 2 river valleys meeting just below us, the Vara and the Magra, which combine to exit into the Mediterranean and we have extensive woodlands all around us.

If you imagine flying towards us, as you come in from the sea, which is in a general southerly direction of us, you follow up the wide river delta and the hill we live on is the first one you encounter, rising up to 300m.  Should you fly further upriver along either river, you will find the valleys narrowing directly afterwards, giving rise to a much more continental climate within only a few kilometres.  Uphill from us, you'd be flying above a complete cover of chestnut and oak woods.

So we get all the species of all those different biotopes as well as the edge species, cormorants and eagles, saltwater fish and freshwater fish, woodland edge species and plants that like growing in the open, migrating birds such as bee-eaters and passing flamingos and all that goes with it.  And of course aforementioned wild plants.

And that's the reason I live at such a privilegded place.  Also the farmers around us are mostly small-scalle subsistence farmers growing crops mostly for own consumption.  That means few chemicals are used, there are many edges between relatively small plots of land, vegetables are interplanted within vineyards and olive groves, little machinery is used and a lot of natural ground cover plants are allowed to flourish amongst the cultivated fields.  Sometimes cultivated crops are allowed to go to seed and sow themselves out, becoming part of the general flora.  Examples are alfalfa, which is sown as nitrogen fixing cover crop like this one on the edge of a wall:

this Jerusalem artichoke, which has long seized to be a cultivated crop in Italy since the introduction of the potato in Italy:

or this sow thistle just on the edge of a pavement in downtown Milan, surviving on the little dirt which accumulates by the side in a little crack away from the pounding feet of pedestrians:

"Down at the edge, round by the corner,
Not right away, not right away.
Close to the edge, down by a river,
Not right away, not right away."

 If, incidentally you are wondering what that Yes song is all about, apparently it was inspired by Herman Hesse's novel Siddharta, a story telling the life of a young Brahmin in India during the time of the Buddha.  He spends his whole life trying to find himself and the meaning of life until he finally settles down as a ferryman by the edge of a river, where he finds peace and wisdom by observing the ever-flowing, ever-changing yet un-changing river.

 "Crossed the line around the changes of the summer,
Reaching out to call the color of the sky.
Passed around a moment clothed in mornings faster than we see.
Getting over all the time I had to worry,
Leaving all the changes far from far behind.
We relieve the tension only to find out the master's name."

It's all a bit cryptic, but good song anyway...


So how can we utilise the EDGE effect for ourselves.  First of all when going out foraging look for edges, that's where you are most likely to find a great variety of plants.  Keep your eyes peeled next time you are out on a walk.  Secondly when designing a garden create edges.  I designed my pond with as much edge as possible, not just one simple round or oval, but with a wiggly outline, narrow bits and wider bits.  The more edge, the more biodiversity.  Instead of planting your veg in straight lines, try wavy lines.  That way you can also fit more plants into the same area.  Plan vertical as well as horizontal to maximise the space and create edges.  Hedges aren't called that for nothing, they make excellent edges which encourages wildlife and biodiversity which will benefit your garden.


The edge effect also works within human society.  On the edges between different social groups, various sciences, age groups mingling etc is where we can learn most.  Look over the edge of your own horizon to open it up.  Where philosophers meet physists new knowledge arises, when the young listen to the old and vice versa we learn from each other.  And aren't those people who live on the edge of society, those who don't follow every trend like sheep, the ones who will ulitimately change the way we behave, think and live?  I certainly hope so.  


On that philosphical note, let's all move away from the comfortable centre and become 'cutting edge' and there's hope for the human race yet.

teaming with Microbes - a book review

Currently I'm sitting indoors rather than outside helping our helpers finish the pond as I somehow managed to injure my foot.  Not sure what happened, but it's swollen to the size of a pumpkin and I can't walk any more.  Look away now if you are of a delicate disposition:

As you can see the left foot is much larger than the right one.  The almost funny thing is I know what I can do about it, which is apply a comfrey poultice, only thing the nearest comfrey plant I know of is too far away to hobble to and too difficult to explain to Susan where to find it, as she is a) not the best at plant identification and b) is likely to get lost in the woods trying to find it.  And yes I know, I also have a fungal problem, but I'm already working on a solution for that:  I'm making a salve made from field marigold, curry plant and St. John's Wort, which should help.  More of that in another post soon.

But talking about fungi, this leads us neatly into our next subject: a book review on the above book, 'Teaming with Microbes - The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web' by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, since I don't have anything else much to do at the moment.  I did threaten a post on soil science the last time around and that is what this book is about.

Note the pun in the title, the authors are trying to explain how healthy garden soil is not only full of life, but that we should work in cooperation with that life to create a healthier environment for our garden plants.  The book is divided into 2 parts: 1. The Basic Science and 2. Applying Soil Food Web Science to Yard and Garden Care.

Part one was maybe surprisingly the far more interesting part, because by understanding the underlying science you can come to your own conclusions, which, as in my case, may lead you to different conclusions than to those propagated by the author.  The book begins with an explanation why understanding the soil food web is important. 

In general we tend to think of food chains as a kind of pyramid, where the top predator sits at the top of the food chain, but of course, it is much more complex than that, both above ground or within the soil.  Much smaller parasites eat big predators from within, parasitic fungi eat live nematodes or plants, etc, so it makes much more sense to think of the interrelationships between different life forms as a web, where everything tries to get it's sustenance from wherever it is available.  It's a fungus eat nematode world out there, a constant feeding frenzy.  Apparently one single teaspoon of healthy soil has more than a billion lifeforms present in it.  It's a world we have yet to explore properly, which is as alien to us as outer space or the deep sea.

Yet we depend on this soil life in highly complex ways.  The first part goes on to describe the various forms of soil life, each in their own chapter.  Plants deliberately excrete sugars to attract the smalles forms of life, bacteria and fungi, to their roots.  Plants need these life forms to make what they need to feed on available to them.  The most famous example of course is the way legumes attract nitrogen fixing bacteria, which form nodules around the roots.  Nitrogen is ingested by bacteria directly from the atmosphere, which is also why it is important that a quarter of the soil's composition consists of nothing but air.  As these bacteria get ingested by other life forms, the nitrogen is released into the soil through excretion and becomes thus available to plants.  It is important that all parts of the soil food web stay in tact and in balance, for these processes to happen.

Fungi also play an important role as they can break down more complex organic matter and break it down.  Their rhizomes can also travel for literally miles to get to food sources quite some distance away, unlike bacteria, who rarely travel far.  Dying rhizomes create small channels in the soil full of decomposed organic matter, which also let water and air penetrate the soil.  Other notable members of the soil food web each with their own chapter in the book, include algae and slime molds (I particularly liked the example of the slime mold that gangs up as a colony looking like a puddle of dog vomit and moving across your driveway at the speed of 1cm an hour),

 

 

protozoa (incl. amoeba aka jelly babies),

Nematodes (not all nematodes are bad!)

Arthropods, i.e. your more visible bugs and insects and other creepy crawlies, earthworms, your most visible sign of soil health, i.e. the more the better, gastropods, i.e. snails and slugs (yes they do have an iportant role to play, as long as they are part of a balanced system),  and finally the bigger animals, such as birds mammals and reptiles.  as you can see the book boasts some impressive microscopic photos, which may or may not give you bad dreams tonight.

The overall conclusion is that each part of the soil food web plays an important role in supporting plant life and you mess with it at your peril.  Whilst many of us regard fungi as a nuisance as they attack our crops in the form of leaf curl disease on peaches, botrytis on our grapes or other fungal diseases, applying fungicide, even one considered safe by organic farmers such as Bordeaux mixture (copper sulphate and lime, the blue stuff everybody seems to spray on their vines and tomatoes) destroys all fungal life, poisons the soil and breaks an important link in the soil food web.  Also adding liqud nitrogen feed has a long term negative effect.  Whilst initially plants will grow better, it also destroys or at least severely damages the soil food web.  In both cases you create a dependency having to constantly re-apply those substances and in the process making the soil poorer.

The authors also argue that tilling and double digging has a severely negative effect on the soil life, especially on the fungal rhizomes, which act like the communication web of a healthy soil.  Theses mile long rhizomes get disconnected and distroyed, leading eventually to compaction and therefore again, leading to extra work again as the soil needs to be dug over again year after year.  The life that lives in the soil is perfectly capable of doing the job for us if we only let it.

The second part of the book then deals with practical solutions by setting up 19 rules to using the soil food web, using just 3 tools.  I don't agree fully with their conclusions.  The 3 tools to create and work with the soil food web according to the authors are: composting, mulching and applying compost teas.  As for composting, they give you the usual compost recipes.  Whilst I agree that, if you make a compost pile you need to mix 'green', nitrogen rich materials (such as freshly cut grass and kitchen wastes) with 'brown' waste (such as old leaves and woody wastes), I am off building compost heaps as a major tool.  The reasons for me are thus:

1.  Producing a compost heap at one corner of your yard, then involves transporting the final compost to where you need it, which partyicularly in my case with our steep land, involves considerable effort.  Not to mention the effort of regularly turning your compost.  
2. While turning the compost and transporting it around, you disturb the soil food web you have created, thus going against the principles the authors advocate.
3. If I produce a compost I use whatever happens to be at hand rather than following some sort of recipe, which depends on specific materials being available and possibly necessitating importing materials to get the 'correct' balance.

What I do instead most of the time, as I have many gaps in raised beds as it is, I simply fill these raised beds with any organic matter which happens to be available.  The authors also advice against the use of any animal or human manure.  I on the other hand succesfully use donkey manure, which effectively is the same as horse manure, which has a good nitrogen balance and occasionally throw it on top of a pile of other organic materials and plant straight into it.  I have done this on the raised terraced beds for my tomatoes during last winter and now have the most wonderfully rich, mosture attentive soil where those exceptionally healthy tomatoes grow.  If I find myself with spare compost in the future (at the moment I'm busy filling in beds left, right and centre), I shall make myself a wormery, which is one of the most effective and fast ways of producing rich compost.

Mulching on the other hand is nature's way of adding organic matter to the soil.  As you add mulch, it encourages beneficial fungi and bacteria.  Worms will drag down some of the material into the soil and mix it in.  Apart from that it of course suppresses weeds and minimises evaporation, meaning you need to water less.

For the compost teas, this is something I should try in the future.  The authors advocate a method of Actively aerated compost teas (AACT).  This involves some equipment to blow bubbles through some water with some compost added to it, which means extraction of the good bacteria and fungi is very quick and non-smelly.  These teas are not only applied to the soil, but also sprayed onto foliage, strengthening the whole system and making it more resilient against harmful diseases and pests.  Once I get around making one of those I shall write about it in a bit more detail.

Interesting also were the points made about the different preferences of different plants as to the symbiosises.. symbiosae symb... which parts of the soil food web they like to associate with.  There are two basic types: bacterially dominated and fungally dominated.  The bacteria are always the first to join any feeding frenzy, followed by fungi, who take a little longer to establish themselves.  Most annual plants prefer a bacterially dominated soil, whilst perennials prefer a fungally dominated soil.  That makes perfect sense again if you just observe nature.  Pioneer species, such as the legumes, form relationships with nitrogen fixing bacteria, whilst of you look at a mature forest with long-lived trees... where is it that you find mushrooms? 

So this is useful information for my bed building again.  If you remember in my last post I was building a raised bed, where I am planning to plant perennials.  We build it up using mainly brown materials, including whole branches and old leaves.  These encourage a fungally dominated soil.  I even threw in an old tree mushroom, to speed up the process.  For your annuals on the other hand you should add plenty of green manure for them to flourish.  My tomato beds also include some chicken manure which is rich in nitrogen.

On a final note on the book, they dedicate a whole chapeter on lawn maintenance.  That seemed to me a bit of a waste of time.  I don't think a lawn has any place in an ecologically balanced garden, as you constantly try and stop it doing what it wants to do, i.e. evolve into a forest.  But all in all this is a really useful, well written and easily understandable book, which I can heartily recommend.  Anybody out there short on money like myself, I do have the e-version on my hard drive and be happy to share it with anybody who wants it.

Finally, the pond really is taking shape now.  Yesterday, already with an injured foot, we constructed the raised bed below the pond, which will be home to some soft fruit bushes:

It's about 5m long and will be filled up with predominantly brown materials.  The pond itself is almost ready.  It just needs another fott depth and some terracing within to give different levels of depth:

 and from above we diverted the way the water comes down into a little feeder channel, so rain water drains into the pond:

Now I just need my foot to get better...

of pond digging, celebrating and desert cities

This week we've had 4(!) helpers around to give us a hand around the land, notably with the pond digging.  Unfortunately it's also been VERY hot so working hours were restricted to early morning and late afternoon, but still, a lot got done and I'm really happy with the progress we've made.

Here we see Theresa and Peter digging on the pond:

 The basic outline is there, but as we get deeper we are hitting some seriously hard clay and the pick axe is required.  This is the overall progress so far:

Ben and I in the meantime busied ourselves building another raised bed / reverse hugelkultur on the very top terrace right next to the road.

The idea is to slow erosion along that particular stretch, so we are filling it with all manner of organic material, such as wooden branches, leaves and leaf litter from the side of the road.  This will eventually build up the soil and I am intending to plant some perennials there.  More of that at a later stage.  I also have a blog post on soil science in permaculture in my head, so look out for that.  This raised bed was Ben's idea, as he has also just returned from a permaculture design course and was keen to practice his new found skills.

Hannah in the meantime went to pick fruit such as pears, apples and plums to make jam:

It wasn't all hard work though as we spent the evenings celebrating together with pizza and music as you can see in the following photos.

All in all I think they've been having a good time.  Ben and Theresa left us yesterday (for the time being) and Hannah and Peter are still with us for the moment.

On a different note, I had to go to Milan yesterday for some boring bureucratic business.  I was a little apprehensive about it all, as I always have a bad conscience when dealing with any authorities...  Anyway, after I finished my business I had 5 hours to kill in the city with no money in my pocket.

Man was that depressing!  I know why I moved away from the city...  I just aimlessly wandered around the streets, trying to find a shady spot to eat my sandwiches and relax and maybe take in one or two of the sights if I happen to pass them.  At one stage I walked for about 10 or 15 minutes and the only plant life I spotted was this:

...a lonely solitary sow thistle.  It's in theory edible of course, but even if I wasn't worried about the pollution, it would be cruel to pick the one plant managing to survive in this desert.  Cities are just human moncultures, which is why they don't work.  Finally I spotted a creative citizen making use of the limited space to create some green:

 

Then I found something almost resembling a park... but fenced in and 'proudly sponsored' by an insurance company:

Finally my feet carried me into one of the leafier suburbs where they've created this:

I don't know what the solution is to the growing world population, but stuffing them all as tightly as possible into cities and then putting an odd plant in as an afterthought surely isn't it.  I was glad to get back on my train out of this depressing place.

The promised post on edges is soon coming up, so keep tuned in folks... ;)

Designing a Pond - The Permaculture Way

Today I'm going to start taking you through the permaculture design process of a pond.  Since the last helpXers had to rush off early, due in part to the abundance of mosquitoes on our land (Sarai was particularly attractive to those beasts and she suffered what I suspect to have been an allergic reaction after bitten well over a hundred times) I have been looking for solutions to this particular problem and I have come up with two: 1. constructing bat boxes to attract those natural predators and 2. designing and setting up a natural pond.  Now the second point doesn't appear to be such a good idea as mosquitos love just that: some water to breed in.  However a well balanced pond will also attract a greater biodiversity and more predators of the mosquito, and I'm hoping that that will eventually balance itself out, but of all that more later.

The first consideration is where to place the pond and given the steepness of our land (an average 40% incline) I don't have all that much choice.  I could put it at the very bottom of our land where it is least steep.  It would be easiest to construct there.  However there are two arguments against that: 1. it would be at the far end from where the action is, i.e. in terms of permaculture zoning almost in zone 5.  So maintenance would become a chore and it would gradually become part of the far and beyond.  Secondly, permaculture teaches us to catch water, which is a source of energy, at the highest point possible within a landscape.  On a steep slope that is on or just below the so-called keypoint, the point of a slope where it turns from convex to concave, or in other words at the point where the slope is at its steepest and begins to level out.  (For more on keypoints and the keyline system as invented by PA Yeoman check out this link).  Catching the water quite high up it can still be of use to things planted below if there is excess water.

So this where I decided to construct the pond as you can see on the map below:

 The central section shows the boundaries of our land facing in general easterly direction.  the green area is the neighbouring land, which is north-facing and has been totally neglected for the last 10 years or so, resulting in the collapse of the terrace structure and a jungle of brambles and bamboo, which constantly encroaches onto our land.  So our land, together with the land to our south and the land to our north forms a kind of amphitheatre, which traps humidity and heat, shelters from prevailing winds and forms a natural drainage for any water from above, which trickles usually at speed into a small seasonal stream down into the woods below and towards the river a few kilometres away.  The blue blodge is where I want the proposed pond, the little blue blodge with the cross is the nearest water tap, the grey blodge is the caravan at the top of the land and I marked the principle trees in the neighbourhood of the proposed site in green.  This position would therefore also be within my zone 3 and more easily accessible from the key area, which is the caravan.

The other reason for choosing this particular point is that it is the natural point at where the water tends to run down, therefore also being the area that had suffered the worst damage from the landslides of Christmas 2010.  Since then the area has virtually not been touched and is therefore a pretty useless area as it is, so I may as well catch and slow the water where it comes down and make some use of the area again.

Now that we have determined the location of the pond we begin with the survey of the site.  I have given an idea of the greater area above, now we need to look at the specifics of the proposed area.  To start of with it was covered in brambles and bamboo spreading from the negligent neighbours site.  I needed to clear this first to get a better picture of the topography and plant and animal life other than brambles and bamboo.  This is what it looked like after the initial clearing of the worst shrubbery:

To the south of the proposed site, on the neighbours land, there is a gigantic lime tree of some25-30 metres height, blocking off much of the sunlight.

On the terrace below, so to the east of the site, there is an old pear tree, however it does not take too much light away, as it is positioned lower.  Also it was damaged during the 2010 landslides.  In fact there used to be a pear tree standing at the very spot where the pond is to go, but it was one of the victims of the floods and as it fell it also took a fair portion of the lower tree with it:

It may be looking a bit poorly, but it's still producing, so we'll leave it for the time being.  Despite that, the sun does not make too much of an appearnce here.  In the summer we have sun early morning and mid-day, whilst in the winter it would be in the shade for most if not all of the day.

Just above the site is another pear tree, which now sits precariously on a brink, as the landslide took away the soil all the way up to the tree.  This is a problem which needs to be addressed within the design.  I need to somehow extend the soil, building a pathway on the lower side of the tree for access and to extend the soil beyond the tree, and I also need to think of netting below the tree, so that ripe pears and leaves do not fall into the pond.

One other important point is that just one terrace up (did I mention we are on terrace number 6?), there is mains water access, which could be used in times of drought to keep the pond topped up.

Now we take a closer look at the site itself.  The original terrace structure was destroyed by the landslides and the landscape lies around in a hapharzard way as it was formed by the water (we had some 500mm rain in one day back then.  We were lucky to have been spared by the much more publicised floods of October 2011, which destroyed much of the Cinque Terre and other nearby towns).  So next we'll do a PASTE survey: Plants, Animals, Structures, Tools, Events.

Plants: I have already mentioned the main trees and the bramble and bamboo.  In addition there some lime tree saplings emerging, one just above the proposed site.

I don't mind that, as lime has multiple uses, the roots should stabilise the soil, the young leaves are edible, the flowers are bee attractants and have medicinal properties, young shoots are used in basketry, the wood is useful for carving things, so I'm all for it, as long as I don't let it grow to 30m plus...  Furthermore, once I cleared the shrubs, there was little biodiversity.  Species recorded were bracken, campion, sorrel, mugwort, a few undefined members of the asteracea family also know as DYC (Damn Yellow Composites, due to their difficulty to tell one from another) and quite a bit of pellitory-of-the-wall.  A couple of wild vines also creep about the place as is ivy and bindweed.

The low biodiversity point to low soil fertility, in fact just looking at the soil will confirm that.  The types of plants indicate a poor alkaline soil, particularly indicated by fern and sorrel.  The soil analysis also confirms that.  By placing some soil in a jar with water and shaking it you can make a simple soil test.  Different soil types sink to the bottom at different rates.  Sand will settle first, followed by silt and finally clay, giving hopefully 3 distinct layers in your jar.  If the solution is alkaline it may take a long time for the clay to settle out and the water at the top to become clear, as in that case the clay particles will repel each other rather than clump together and sink to the ground.  This point is going to become very important at a later stage, when we are talking about sealing the pond. 

Animals: Animals that we have observed or have seen or heard evidence of on our land include: Mammals: mice and rats, cats from the neighbour, dogs, incl. our own, bats, foxes.  Birds: small song birds, incl. sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, wrens, robins, birds of prey, bee-eaters (seasonally), seagulls, from the nearby sea (just overhead really), cucckoos, woodpeckers, owls, penguins...(oh no, no penguins...), jays and crows.  All manner of waterfowl can be found a few km away in the river.  Reptiles: grass snakes, slow worms, various lizzards and gheckos and a mating pair of T-Rex (or did I imagine that one...).  Amphibians:  I have seen the odd toad, but as there is no water as yet, not much in evidence yet.  Insects:  Bees, wasps, hornets, bumble bees, mosquitoes (did I mention those before?), all manner of flies, those big buzzy, bumbly black bugs which like to live inside bamboo sticks and eat nectar, centipedes, stag beetles, various noisy crickets and far more critters than I care to mention.  Worth pointing out that I haven't encountered many earthworms on the actual site, another indicator of the poverty of this particular spot.

Structures:  By structures we mean imovable (wo)man made features in the landscape.  The only ones directly related to the pond site is the already mentioned water tap in easy reach and a few metres to the north of the site the terrace has been repaired and strengthened with a sloping wall of old car tyres.

Tools: Are really more movable structures with a specific function.  There are none in the vicinity.  I suppose the water tap should really be under tools rather than structures.

Events: These can be both social or natural events.  As this currently is an unused part of the land, there are no social events happening here.  As for natural events, as already pointed out, it is the area worst affected by the landslides.  Also being in the shade for much of the time, especially in winter, frosts are likely to occur there.  We do get through many winters without a significant frost, but this small area would be particularly frost sensitive, even when the top terraces stay above zero.  In the event of a general frost, as seems to be happening more frequently in recent years, temperatures would be even lower here.

I have already mentioned a few of the limiting factors above: a lot of shade, danger of frost, encroaching weeds from neighbouring land, potential catastrophic rainfalls, poor soil fertility, alkaline soils, cats going for any introduced wildlife.  Looking at resources, there is a woodland below from which building materials can be gathered.  Also the local skips are a great source for material, the town of Arcola not being far away from the land.  Another resource, and a welcome one too as my bones are starting to creak, are helpXers or any passing permaculturists (preferably young and fit ones!).

Sooooo, having done our observations and survey of the site we go to the analysis stage of the design process.  As I am being my own client in this particular case it makes interviewing the client a tad monotonous:  "Well Mr. V., what is it you would like us to do with your plot of derelict land?"  -  "As if you didn't know, and stop talking to myself!".  So lets go straight to the column of  

Needs and Wants:

Let's start with needs:

1. Reducing mosquito population by introducing a greater biodiversity
2. Prevention of further landslides by slowing the water
3. Food source by introducing edible pond plants

Wants:

1. A tranquil place for meditation and fish watching
2. A soft fruit garden below the pond

I would like all that built in as natural way as possible and money at this point in time is not available AT ALL.  As for time scale, I would like to have the basic shape ready before the onset of winter rains, so that by spring we can plant the pond and introduce livestock (by then some funds may be available).  For future maintenance, ideally it should be a stable eco-system looking pretty much after itself.  Occasional topping up with water and cleaning out excess organic material is fine.  

Considering all those points I have come up with a rough shape design (the final shape will depend on the contours of the land):

I just realised I put south on top, sorry.  I marked the two pear trees and the way water is running in case of rain.  To the left of the pond, which is below and to the east in real life, there is room for a substantial raised bed, which could be a home for some shade tolerant soft fruit, such as raspeberries and redcurrants, which would get any excess water from the pond above.  The deeper parts of the pond I coloured a deeper shade of blue.  The squiggly shape means there is more edge to the pond and the more edge you have the greater your potential biodiversity, according to the 'edge principle' (more of that in my next blogpost, which is already half written).  The length of the pond will be aproximately 7 metres so as to catch all the bits where water wants to run down.  At it's greatest width it will be maybe 2.5 metres.  The greatest depth I want at about 1.2-1.5 metres, specifically to host some plants, to which I will come a bit later.

To create some lower banks at 30-45cm depth for some of the marginal plants, I'm intending to 'terrace' the inside with upturned glass bottles.  Below the higher pear tree I am intending to build a walk way out of 4 old pallettes, 2 vertical and two horizontal on top.  This space between them can be filled with stones and organic material to create access to the tree from all sides.  During the summer when the pears ripen and in autumn when the leaves fall, a net can be suspended from the pallettes under the branches to prevent organic material from falling into the pond.

In addition a walkway must be maintained all around the pond for full access to all parts, as I am intending to grow edible crops inside the pond and as I also need to be able to get to the far end of the pond to cut back the neighbours jungle at regular intervals.

One more word about the soft fruit bed, I intend to raise the bed in a technique I invented, which I call the reverse hugelkultur.  Rather than building a mound with old wood as with a traditional hugelkultur, I fill in a gap with wood topped by all manner of organic material making for a nice rich and deep soil.  The wood for this can be gathered from the forest below.

I started digging some the last couple of days and whilst I haven't got the final layout this should give you an idea what it looks like at the moment as see from the pear tree above:

Now as for plants.  This is my wish list in no particular order:

• Water hawthorn – aponogeton distachyos – Edible tubers, stems and flowers.  Originates from South Africa.  Planting depth: 45cm, but in its natural habitat goes dormant during dry summer months, so can stand lower water table.
• Golden Club – orontium aquaticum –  Edible roots and seeds, but needs to be thoroughly cooked or dried.  Planting depth 15-45cm
• Buttercup – ranunculus lingua – Not edible but good ground cover for pond edge, removing nitrates and suitable for clay.
• Bulrush – scirpus genus – Various species with edible roots
• Water Hyacinth – eichhornia crassipis – Edible carotene rich leaves and flower spikes, though tasteless.  Cleanses waste water.  Produces biomass, fibre, fertilizer and insecticide.  Beneficial for fish.  Very invasive though.  Plant on pond edge in 15cm depth max.
• Water Fringe – nymphoides peltata – Flowers, leaves and seeds edible, especially interior of stems.  Medicinal uses against headaches, burns, fevers, ulcers, snake bites & swellings.  Prefers alkaline conditions in shallow water.  Can be invasive in rich soils
• Common Fish Weed – lagarosiphon major – Submerged oxygenating plant
• Water Violet – hottonia palustris - Oxygenating, semi-submerged plant with attractive flowers, giving shelter to fish.  Plant in up to 80 cm depth
• Sweet Flag - Acorus calamus – Edible roots leaves & stems.  Roots as ginger, cinnamon and clove substitute.  It has various medicinal qualities.  Leaves are used in basketry, it is an insect repellent and a fibre for weaving can be made.  Sunny position in shallow water or mud in alkaline conditions.  It grows up to 1m tall
• Flowering Rush – butomus umbellatus – Edible roots and seeds.  Very ornamental.  Sunny position in up to 30cm depth.
• Watercress – nasturtium officinale - Doesn't need much of a description
  
• Fool’s Watercress – apium nodiflorum –A native plant growing abundantly around here and cleansing water, as well as being edible as described previously here
• White Water Lilly – nymphaea alba – Edible roots and leaves.  Medicinal uses.  Supplying shade.  Plant in minimum 1.2m depth
• Arrow Head – sagittaria sagittifolia – Erba Saetta – Edible roots and  leaves.  Medicinal uses: anti-scorbutic and diuretic.  Plant in 30-60cm depth in sunny position
• Water Chestnut – trapa natans – Castagna d’Aqua – Edible seed.  Plant in up to 60cm depth

I will not find all of those plants and some of them may not be so shade tolerant.  But hey I've grown tomatoes on a northfacing slope and they're doing fine!

As far as livestock is concerned, Goldfish are pretty hardy, they eat vast amounts of mosquito larvae and they are easy to spot if you are just sitting by the pond-side contemplating.  Might add a few more algae eaters or other native fish as well as snails and frogs of course.  There should be plenty of shelter for all of them.  No doubt dragon flies will also be attracted to the pond.

As for sealing the pond I am hoping to utilise the fact I mentioned earlier concerning the alkalinity of the soil. If possible I want to avoid using plastic liners.  I want to try a technique that involves sowing clover on the base of the pond before filling it with water.  As the clover begins to grow you kill it by drowning.  This will then alter the water and soil towards a mild acidity.  As a consequence the clay particles will not repel each other anymore,, enabling them to clump together and seal the ground and leaving clear, unclouded water.  I have not tried this, but it should be an interesting experiment when we get to it.

Here is another couple of views of what it looks like at the moment.  First as seen from the north towards the neighbours jungle:

To the left you can see the curve in the land where I can make a raised bed for the soft fruit.  And next the reverse view:

Right!  All I need now is a few able-bodied helpers.  Any volunteers?

Available to Travel & Wild Food of the Month: Lamb's Quarter

After months of slaving on the keyboard, the book is finally at the printers and should be out by the end of the month.  You never realise how much work this actually is until you read and re-read your draughts until you can't see the wood for trees any more.  And then you keep remembering things you should have added or learn of a new one, that you simply can't leave out!  I'm already working on a second improved edition in my head.  I really just had to tell myself to stop, otherwise this book would have never got finished!

Anyway, now that I'm free for a bit I actually need to earn some money for a change.  It's all very well being able to feed yourself from the wild and what we grow on our land, but occasionally I need to pay a bill too and I'm still looking for that elusive pasta tree, until which time I just have to still buy pasta from the shops.  So inspired by foraging pal Robin Harford in England, I have decided to come with a similar format to him.  I am willing to travel to anywhere you are within Italy to Southern France and possibly beyond to do wild food walks.  I am offering a walk introducing you to whatever is available at the time and place, followed by an evening slide show presentation.  In return I ask you to organise a lively group, a venue, somewhere to put my head at night and a voluntary donation, suggested to be a minimum of €20 a head.  On request (and at extra cost of course), I'll drag cousin Bart along to also cook a gourmet wild food meal.  Apart from in English, I can also do it in German and Italian and at a squeeze (with the help of my wife and lovely assistant) in French and Dutch.  If you are interested or know someone who might be, please get in touch on tuscanytipple at libero dot it.

Now quickly to the wild food of the month, Lamb's Quarter chenopodium album:

 The second half of June and now the beginning of July it has been exceedingly hot and dry and most wild plants are starting to wilt or just bolt to seed.  Not this one.  It's smooth, slightly succulent leaves are holding on to the water and it still remains green and fresh.  In Britain the common name is actually Fat Hen, whilst Lamb's Quarter is what our cousins from across the pond call it.  I don't use the name fat hen, because of the possible confusion with another plant with this same common name, which is also known as smearwort (Aristolochia rotunda) and no relation.  The Italian, as so often, have come up with a much more descriptive common name: farinaccio, which refers to the slight floury bloom on the surface of the leaves, farina meaning flour in Italian.

The plant grows a metre or so tall and the slightly serrated, diamond shaped leaves grow on strong erect stems.  Young leaves can be eaten raw in salads, but it is recommended that you cook them, because the leaves contain saponins, which are the same toxin contained in many varieties of beans, but which are broken down down by heat.  Thus cooked lamb's quarter makes an excellent spinach substitute.  Cooked with beans they are said to lessen ther effect of bloating and f... flatulence.  They are great in vegetable tarts too and they are rich in nutritious value containing high amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fibre as well as calcium, phosphorus and iron and vitamins A, B1 and B2.

It grows abundantly on the side of the road and as a weed on cultivated ground and as I say is quite drought resistant.  So happy foarging and buon appetito!