Harbingers of spring

Just a quick update as I haven’t posted in a while. The weather until the end of February stayed fine, with some warm sunshine. Above you can see the cats basking in the sunshine. On the 1st March the rain returned and it did not stop until yesterday. Today the sun returned and the first harbingers of spring have arrived. Below you see the almond trees which we planted last winter are starting to flower for the first time.

The early plum tree is also just bursting into bloom. We planted a bed of peas today and did a bit more digging. The lettuces in the poly tunnel have started growing, the broad beans are in flower and everywhere are signs of life. With all that water, we’re going to have to start fighting the weeds soon. The forecast is for sunshine and warm temperatures for the next few days. Hope this is going to be more or less the end of the winter; it seemed long, damp and grey.

Almond tree etc.

Well, you’ve got to feel for them. Our friends James and Alison from Northampton come over for just a few days and the weather, as always, is at it’s worst. They arrived on Saturday morning and landed in Pisa in the middle of a thunder storm and they left again today, finally seeing a bit of sun, but in between… , Saturday it rained all day, Sunday and Monday most of the day with another spectacular thunder and hail storm last night. We had them and our neighbours around for dinner on Sunday. I made a curry for a change: chicken in curry and yoghurt marinade, Saag Aloo (replacing spinach with Swiss chard), a spicy dhal, basmati rice and chapattis.

And this morning we woke to clear blue skies and fantastic views over the Versilia. By mid-morning we were on our patch at Arcola and doing basking shark impressions (i.e. we were basking in the sun… Why do they call them basking sharks?). We planted the almond tree, which got a good watering. You can see Susan standing proudly behind it above. And we cleared another terrace and a half of vines and weeds; 11 ½ done, 4 ½ to go. We got back early, because Susan had not done her homework yet for tomorrow’s class. I busied myself sowing a few more things indoors: white and red cabbages, parsnips and corn lettuces. The weather is to remain fine for a few days, so hopefully we are going to get plenty of work done.

Of Kiwis and Almonds

‘I love fuzzy male kiwis, though clean shaven Australians can cause problems.’
W.M., Hobart, Australia

This week went really quick somehow, I don’t know what’s happened to it. The weather has been a bit of a mixed bag, mostly cloudy with occasional showers. I sowed some lettuces indoors, radicchio and green lettuce as well as some leek.

After I had acquired the almond tree last week I read up in my Royal Horticultural Society book on Pruning and Training, that you should always plant at least 2 together for pollination. So we spent some part of the week finding another specimen which wasn’t too expensive. During our search we came across some well priced kiwi vines. I always quite fancied growing kiwis and if they grow in the relatively cool climate of New Zealand surely they’d flourish here I thought. I didn’t know much about how to grow kiwis, but I had heard that they need one male plant to a few female plants. The male plant does not produce fruit, but is needed for pollination. The technical term for this apparently is dioecious. So not being able to resist a bargain I bought a male and two females.

The RHS book on Pruning and Training does have a chapter on kiwis, however it’s very technical without much of the way in instructive pictures. It did however say, there a various ways of training kiwis, but one way definitely not to use is twirling it around a stake. This is exactly the way they sell them in this country. The other thing it said was, that it was quite tolerant to different soil types, except clay soils which, of course, is exactly what we have got. Well to find slightly easier instructions on how to plant and train kiwis I searched the internet and came up with 2 useful websites (one of them with the above quote. It appears that the growth of kiwis is somewhat similar to grapevines, only they are even more rampant! It suggested that plants trained to an Espallier system should be planted 5 metres apart and a strong support system should be constructed. A kiwi plant can apparently live up to 50 years and when mature is capable of producing up to 250 pounds of fruit. So there is a lot of weight to be supported.

Today the rain held off for long enough to plant these kiwis and build their trellising. I hope they’ll forgive me the clayey soil and the fact they had been twisted around a stake. The plant you see above in the foreground is female in case you ignorant people can’t tell the difference. On the way home we stopped at the local supermarket and guess what? I finally found that second almond tree I’ve been looking for all week. As soon as it stops raining again I shall plant that somewhere near the first one. And for dinner tonight it’s the national dish of Ponzano Superiore, Torta di Verdura or as it is locally known Scherpada. It’s a pie stuffed with a ricotta, Swiss chard mixture. Swiss chard or bietole in Italian is a great, versatile vegetable. According to John Seymour you grow it as cattle food, but I think it’s delicious and it’s used a lot around here (in human food).

More Rain...

Well, I’m sure if you live on top of a mountain like us, you shouldn’t have any rivers flowing past your front door, but there are now a number of rivulets flowing through the village. And I’m sure I’ve heard some hammering from nearby and a suspicious number of animals in pairs going towards that noise… So much for the sunshine being back, it lasted all of one day. And the really bad news is that our friends Alison and James are coming over from Northampton in a couple of weeks and they always seem to bring some English weather with them!

Yesterday I spotted a well-priced almond tree in the supermarket, something I was looking for all last winter. So of course I bought it and today, despite the rain we went out to Arcola to plant it. At least we didn’t have to worry about watering it after planting. We also went out to Villa to pick up some wood. By that time the rain came down in sheets! Allegedly it’s going to get better tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it! Tomorrow we will also return to school. The free Italian lessons in Sarzana are starting. See how that goes…

Anyway, other than that I baked a cake yesterday, Susan’s Cantucci were too delicious to last long, and today I decanted the kaki wine off it’s skins. Above you can see our micro-winery. Everything bubbling away merrily.

One other thing: many years ago I bumped into a traveling busker in Germany. He didn’t carry much with him on his travels, a guitar, a sleeping bag, a change of clothing and one book. He said, once he finished reading this book, he’d swap it for a new one with someone he’d meet on his travels. Something that person had read recently and really liked. That way he’d only ever own one book, but a book that meant something to someone he had met. Now I liked that idea, not being encumbered with a small library, but always having something new to read.

As you may have noticed with my recent Terry Pratchett quotes, I am reading through his back catalogue again as I have no new reading material. My Italian isn’t good enough yet to read a serious book, so I have a shortage of new books. On the other hand I don’t really have any shelf space for new books either, so here comes the proposal: would anyone of you like to swap books with me? They may be in English, German or even Dutch (although in Dutch I haven’t got much to swap back). Please, please let me know. It should be something you’ve enjoyed recently and I’ll give you something that I’ve read (not Terry Pratchett (unless you want to)). I’m expecting a flood of responses!