On Pests & part IV of “Our Terraces”

This heat wave is showing absolutely no signs of abating, in fact is getting worse, so we’ve been having a bit of a rest day today. The long term weather forecast is predicting a scorcher of a summer too with temperatures well into the 40s, so this won’t be my last mention of the heat this year I don’t think.

As threatened, here comes a word on pests. We don’t seem to be too bad on our plot. We don’t have any trouble with snails and slugs for example. One pest troubling us is ants. We have 2 species: large black ones a small red ones. The latter have a nasty bite and are very aggressive. The main damage they do though is to our trees. As our land had been abandoned for a few years, the trees were not well looked after, suffering disease and being overgrown by ivy and brambles. This weakened them sufficiently for ants to get into them and really wreak havoc. A few trees I have already had to fell as a result. Ones established in a tree, they are almost impossible to get rid of. Fire and/or boiling water kill large numbers, but there’s always an astonishing number of survivors saving the at least some of the eggs of the colony.

Another pest is the black fly. Broad beans inevitably get attacked, however, the earlier you plant the fewer problems you have. I sowed them out in October and have now finished harvesting them. When (not if!) you get the first sign of an attack, it’s on the tender tips of the plants. As soon as you spot this, you pick of those ends, wash off the black fly, boil and eat them (the plant tips that is, not the black fly). If you do this the black fly never take over enough to completely spoil your beans. I have also had a slight attacks on my newly planted cherry tree as well as on the sunflowers, which I’m treating with my own invention of anti-insect spray.

Cultivating everything organically, as I want to eat the produce myself, I don’t use any chemicals to combat pests and diseases, so I have come up with my own recipe for, what is more an insect repellent rather than an insecticide. I had some very old dried garlic powder bought years ago at an Indian corner shop. It was so old it had solidified into one solid lump. I put that lump into a saucepan together with a grated bar of natural lavender soap, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and about a litre of water and brought the whole thing to the boil. Once cool again dilute at a rate of about 10 to 1 with water and spray about once a week onto your plants.

The mixture stinks to high heaven, but has proved effective. Black fly don’t like, nor do the ants, who look after the black fly and aphids. Most effective it has proved to be against a red and black beetle (not a ladybird, a bit bigger and a longer body), which has destroyed my brassica in the last couple of years. I’ve sprayed the stuff onto my Tuscan black cabbage as well as on my Brussel sprouts, and they have stayed away from them since. I still spot them amongst the general herbage, but they stay away from my cabbages.

I dare say it would make a good mosquito repellent as well, if you don’t mind smelling like a garlic salesman on cheap aftershave and don’t mind having no friends… Mosquitoes are of course a problem too. Where we live in Ponzano, we have no problems with them, living on top of a hill, exposed to the prevailing winds and with no standing water near, but on our land we are protected from wind and the insects evidently find places to breed. The most worrying are the tiger mosquitoes who have become more widespread in recent years. It’s not only that there bite is worse than the one of their smaller cousins, but they are also potential transmitters of disease. A couple of years ago there was an outbreak of a tropical disease near Ancona on the East coast carried by tiger mosquitoes and of course with global warming it is not impossible that Malaria will make a re-entry into Italy.

Until not very long ago Malaria was prevalent in Italy, which is one of the reasons why many villages were built up on hills, where there is “bell’ aria” (good air) as opposed to the plains, valleys and marshes where there is “mal aria” (bad air). To this day, when we tell people around here we live in Ponzano Superiore, they’ll tell us: “Aah, Ponzano. C’e bell’aria!”

To finish off on pests, there is the olive fly, which puts it’s little maggots into the olives, but it not enough to worry about. In a bad year 10% of olives are effected, in good year like last year none. Maybe I should try some of my garlic spray on those as well though. Oh, and the white butterflies which lay their eggs on brassica are also deterred by my spray. Other than that we don’t seem to be pestered too badly by pests.

Now to part VI of the continuing story “Our Terraces”: this is terrace number 11.

It’s dominated by cherry trees in the foreground. At the back we found space for one bed, which has a mixture of the above mentioned Brussel sprouts, red onions, Swiss chard as well a few spare courgettes. Bear in mind that all photos of this series were taken on the 25th April, so in the meantime the cherry trees are heavy with fruit.

Terrace 12 has an olive tree in the foreground and more of those wild cherry trees, which have sowed themselves out there. Behind there is a wild plum tree. Don’t miss the next episode of “Our Terraces” as we are nearing the conclusion.

Our Terraces part II

Well here comes the second part already. While I was writing part I this morning, Susan went out for a walk. Rain was forecast and it was overcast, but Susan went out bravely nevertheless. So, as the other spring delight has also come into season, elderflowers, to make refreshing, spritzy elderflower wine (for recipe see entry from 5 or 6 May 2008), I sent her off to pick some more. We already had 2 batches on the go.

Soon after setting off it started drizzling a bit. Undeterred she tracked down some elder bushes and picked sufficient fragrant flower heads for a gallon batch. Shortly after she found herself in the middle of a mountain bike race, so she decided to try a different path to avoid those maniacs. The drizzle became a heavier drizzle and as Susan is wont to do, she got lost. The heavier drizzle developed into a proper downpour, which incidentally is still ongoing. She came home 4 hours later looking like a wet poodle.

Well further to the terraces series, here comes terrace 3:

It sports an olive tree at the near end and a newly planted cherry tree in the middle. At the far end there are 3 ancient rose bushes. This year we’ve sown out sweet corn an a few sunflowers on it.

Terrace 4 features a kaki tree on the near end and a couple of olives the far end. In between we’ve sown peas, onions, carrots and leeks (the latter show no sign of growing yet, maybe the seeds are to old). Don’t miss episode 3 of this series, where I will reveal terraces 5 and 6 to you!

Here's to you Paddy

Well happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone, for a start. We were going to go to our favourite bar, Pegaso at Arcola, which has a do on tonight, but unfortunately we are to broke for that. We’ll just nip over to our neighbours with a couple of beers to have at least a wee celebration. Spring has definitely arrived in force now. The weather has been fine since the last post, glorious sunshine and daytime temperatures in the upper teens and even lower twenties. These primroses above I spotted on a walk I went on near Brugnato yesterday, while Susan was giving her class. They were in a little wood, which was literally covered with them. Incidentally, to anyone reading my post on the wild salad, I don’t recommend the use of primrose leaves at any rate, unless you have a fetish for drinking your bathwater. It tastes of soap!

The moon is now waning and as a general rule of thumb as far as I understand, things that grow downwards should be sown during this period. So today we were out in Arcola and sowed out potatoes at one of the top terraces and carrots on one of the beds, which has already onions growing in it. Carrots and onions are said to make excellent companion plants as the smell of one repels the pests of the other. I have so far not had much success with carrots. This is partially due to our heavy soils and on the other hand due to the fact that evolution seems to be extra quick around here. As soon as you grow something like carrots, all surrounding weeds take on the same shape, so you don’t know which is weed and which is not. So you either pull out things you meant to keep or leave things in you didn’t. Either way you can’t win! We had, just before the full moon sowed out one more bed of peas as well; hope not too late.

From previous years experience we tend to get one more cold spell at the end of March. Hope we’ll escape it this time. As my dad would say: “Wouldn’t mind if the weather stayed like that until… Christmas… and then slowly got better.” Well a bit of rain would be useful, as long as it falls at night and not too heavy.

Volunteers Wanted!

The weather slowly has improved again. Thursday and Friday were quite mixed days with showers always threatening. So we used those two days to do some research. I have decided to write a book. Babette and Paul said they would help me with the printing and I have got it pretty much planned. It is to be a guide to walks around the Lunigiana, whereby I use the geographic term in it’s loosest definition as the provinces of La Spezia (Liguria) and Massa / Carrara (northern tip of Tuscany). The desire to write this guide was born from a frustration of the inaccuracies of even the most detailed maps of the area as well as of the general sign posting. I intend to include at least one walk for each ‘comune’ of those two provinces, give info on any sights along each walk, notes on history and nature, recommendations for places to eat and drink, public transport links, annual events, alongside detailed descriptions of the actual walks themselves with correct maps. I envisage including some 50 walks in the book and to put one day a week aside to research another for the next 12 months.

Now this is where I would like some help by anyone reading this who either lives nearby or is planning a holiday in the region. I need some people to try out the walks to see if my garbled directions make sense to them, before I launch the guide onto the unsuspecting public. Please send me an e-mail or leave a comment below. The above photo was taken on the walk we tried out this week. It’s a 5 ½ hour walk starting from the medieval centre of Santo Stefano di Magra, through quiet woodlands up to Ponzano Superiore with it’s narrow alleyways and sweeping views, down to the valley again past a Victorian style ceramics factory and back to Santo Stefano via the Regional Nature Park along the river Magra with it’s varied birdlife. Herons, storks and even flamingos are amongst the visitors during migration times.

Today the weather turned bright again, but with a strong wind blowing. I had planned on picking my olives today, but with the high winds I decided not climb the top of a 10 foot ladder. Instead we took down the tomato and bean plants, which have finally finished for the year. Mind you I still picked a good kilo of beans today! We also planted onions today, about 100 each of brown and red ones. In previous years I unsuccessfully tried to grow them from seed, now I just planted small bulbs to grow them to bigger ones. Whilst this is marginally more expensive then buying seeds, I’m hoping the results will be better. I also bought a dozen Brussel sprout plants. Last year’s grown from seed didn’t do to well either and were mostly eaten by some nasty bright red bug with a ferocious appetite. We also picked the first kaki of the year, so I shall make some of my famous ‘I can’t believe it’s not mago chutney’ chutney tomorrow. For the recipe look up this blog 6 December last year.