Our Terraces part III

Sunday, as you may have gathered from my 2 last posts was pretty much a write-off, raining all day. Monday morning the rain held off long enough to plant out the last of the tomatoes (we’ve got 41 plants in total, not counting the ones that seem to have sown themselves out on our compost, which is now spread amongst the courgettes), weed amongst the peas and nipping some bamboo shoots in the bud (or should that be butt?).

Today rain was threatening all day, but never materialised at all. So we got a good days work in, in ideal condition: not too warm, not too cold, nice damp soil for sowing and transplanting; didn’t even need to water things in. Susan started off with sowing cayenne chillies into the poly-tunnel, which previously held the volleyball-size radishes (we thought we’d eat them before they reach basketball-size…). She went on to sow more radishes and a mixture of lettuces next to one of the pea beds. I, in the meantime, sowed out dwarf runner beans (can’t be bothered with building great support systems), together with some savoury. Those two don’t only go together on the plate, they also make excellent companion plants, so much so that the Germans call it Bohnenkraut, bean… well you all know what a ‘kraut’ is.

After that I got on with transplanting some peppers out and some gherkins. I am absolutely addicted to pickled gherkins and I don’t know why I have never tried growing any (they don’t come pickled on the plant obviously, you have to do that bit yourself). Susan meanwhile got on with some vigorous digging on the terrace below (terrace 16, for those who follow the series; bet you can’t wait for that episode). Oh and of course I sowed out some basil on the rows between the tomatoes. Another good companion plant combination as well as working well together in culinary terms. Funny the way that happens, if it tastes good together it will be mutually beneficial if grown close together.

Oh and I almost forgot, I also secured the end of the potato terrace, which had experienced a bit of a landslide after some of the torrential winter rains we’ve been having. I now have an exceptionally deeply dug level bed between the last olive tree and a fledgling fig tree. I intended to sow some artichokes out on there. I only just read though, that the seeds should be soaked in water for a couple of days before planting, so it’ll be done day after tomorrow now.

And now for part III of the series ‘OUR TERRACES’!

Terrace 5 is what you could call our living room. At the very near end is a mature apple tree. On the slope on the right we planted a little herb garden with rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, marjoram and chives. The table is made from a solid marble slab, which we found pretty much where it is now. The barbecue has seen action this year already, when (for complex reasons I don’t want to go into at the moment) our freezer was temporarily out of service, and we had to use up all the meat stored therein quickly.

The structure, well disguised under a giant, man-eating ivy, is what currently goes as our shed. It does not cease to amaze me that it’s still standing and holding off some rain. However, it is doomed for destruction. We are busy scouring all rubbish tips for scrap material for a new and larger one. We’ve designated the area behind the current shed, so we can start building before tearing the old one down and then not knowing where to store all the tools in the meantime. It’s new location will be between a plum and a pear tree.

Terrace 6 is where our water barrel lives (which, if it isn’t raining, gets filled up from the tap on the terrace above, I failed to mention). It is also home to a very large and rather useless olive tree. It is so tall, that you would need a 30 foot ladder to pick its olives. I haven’t dared chop it down yet either and turn it to firewood, because olive wood is bl***y heavy, and a ton of olive tree falling you’re not sure in which direction is no joking matter. In the back there is a sickly peach tree and a sickly pear tree and a bed with currently, hmm can’t quite remember, weeds? No some lettuces I think and some Swiss chard, plus some cabbages, which aren’t showing anything yet.

PART IV OF ‘OUR TERRACES’ SOON TO BE SEEN ON A COMPUTER SCREEN NEAR YOU!

Our Terraces Part I

Well, we’ve been busy, busy, busy. The weather has been doing what you expect of it in April, i.e. the unexpected: showers followed by warm sunshine, then a touch of hail. Nothing overly dramatic though and all in all the sunshine has dominated. So we’ve got all our terraces strimmed nicely and a few more beds dug over in readiness for the runner bean planting next week and to make room for the peppers and aubergines to be planted out. The tomatoes are already out. We are also eating our daily ration of lovely fresh broad beans, as well as lettuces and radishes, which now have reached the size of tennis balls!.

The broad beans are just so nice and they represent the quintessential taste of spring for me. I wonder if some village or other in Italy has thought of doing a ‘sagra della fava’, a broad bean feast, they have a sagra around any other foodstuff. Must find out, and if not, I shall plant 2 terraces with broad beans next year and invite the whole village to my own sagra della fava, probably around the first of May. Anyone else up for that? Or anyone knows a good recipe for broad beans, please leave it on my comments.

Today, it’s raining a bit more persistently today, I’m starting a new 9-part series. Yesterday, on ‘Liberation Day’ (Italians are currently discussing whether to call it Liberty Day or Liberation Day), I took a series of photos, of each of our 18 terraces. I thought I’ll publish them here, so you all have a bit more of an idea of what we’re working on. As my internet connection is excruciatingly slow, downloading all 18 photos onto one blog-entry would take days, and similarly other people with the same problem would need ages, before they would actually see anything. So I’ll bring them out in bite-size chunks, starting from the top, working our way down. All photos were taken on the 25th April at about 10am. Obviously this a snap shot, things were different a week before or a month hence, but it gives you a flavour.

Here is the top terrace:

As you can see, it’s next to the access road and is very narrow. It’s not really much use apart as for somewhere to leave our bikes. I planted am agave, which had outgrown it’s pot and at the far end is a mature olive tree. Along the top is a row of trees, mostly oak, but also one sweet chestnut and one pear. I’m not sure whether they are still ours or not, but I pick the pears and chestnuts anyway. And if one of the oak trees is starting to look a bit pale around the nose, I chop’em down for some firewood. That is because they are a royal pain in the butt. They drop their acorns onto our land, where the seedlings become a right nuiscance. Now if I had pigs, they’d love the stuff. So any ivy growing up those oak trees is positively encouraged. I suppose those trees also serve a function to keep the road on top of our land, rather than at the bottom…, so maybe I should replace any felled ones with something more useful, like more sweet chestnuts for example.

Terrace 2 is what this year is known as ‘the potato terrace’. It’s also quite narrow, so I could only sow one row of potatoes. It’s the first year we’ve put anything on it. In the foreground you see an apple tree and at the far end another olive tree. In between I planted the pomegranate shrub this winter. After lifting the spuds I’m hoping to replant vines onto that terrace next winter.

So much for today, don’t miss part two of the series, coming up on your computerscreens any day now

Of Cycling, walking and driving

We have found a sort of 3-day rhythm which enables us to save fuel without completely exhausting ourselves. Day one we cycle to either Arcola (1 hour) or Villa (2 hours) to do some light work, mostly watering, light weeding and harvesting whatever is ready. Day two we walk to Arcola (2 hours one way), doing some light work again. Day three we take the car to either Arcola or Villa, carrying the heavier equipment with us and doing some of the bigger jobs such as strimming or ploughing. That way the car stands idle for 2 days out of 3 and we don’t use quite so much fuel.

Today was a cycling day and we cycled to Villa. It’s about 20 km each way. First rapidly down our hill than an 8km stretch a long a busy and dangerous road. There is a traffic free alternative, which we worked out for Babette and Paul for their guide to the Via Francigena, however it’s much tougher over the mountains and the road is very rough. Susan doesn’t have a mountain bike and she does not feel very secure on rough roads. Talking about the Guide to the Via Francigena, it is now published and very good too. It gives a detailed description on how to travel along this pilgrim’s route by foot, bike or horse all the way from Canterbury to Rome (via Ponzano Superiore) on the footsteps of Sigeric the Serious, Archbishop of Canterbury, who first documented this path back in the late 10th Century. Anyone interested can purchase the book on http://www.pilgimagepublications.com/. It comes in 2 parts, Canterbury to Great St. Bernard Pass and Great St. Bernard to Rome. Anyway, I digress, finally there is an approximately 9 km bit which goes steadily, but relatively gently uphill on quiet, shady roads. On the way we pass the village of Tresana, pictured above, with it’s picture book castle.

We watered the young vines there today as well as finishing off the door to my new winery. The bat had moved in again, so I had to wake it up and evict it again. We also harvested some new potatoes, which we just had with some butter and fresh mint. Is there anything more delicious? In Arcola lots of things are now ripening, tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, cucumbers, melons, plums and pears. We’ve produced some pears in cognac from my new ‘Liguria in Arbanella’ recipe book. Looking forward to trying this in a few weeks. Yesterdays driving day involved clearing up under the pear trees with the strimmer, as the pears were starting to fall off the tree and disappearing in the undergrowth

Of Ants and Ivy

The weather really seems to be getting better again. Susan wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so we had a break, although the mercury climbed to a balmy 19 degrees. Today was a little cloudy, but still mild. So we went off to work on the land in Arcola. I cleared another terrace, 10 gone 6 to go, and Susan burned the cuttings. I uprooted most of the vines on the terrace, leaving just a few that aren’t getting in the way much anywhere, pruned the remaining ones as well as a pear tree, cut down the weeds on the fringes, weeded around the peas and dug over a bed for spring planting.

As you can see on the top picture, the pear tree is not looking too well. It’s been attacked by our twin problem threatening all our trees, termites and ivy. The ivy, if left unchecked, gives the termites and other ants shelter and however many you kill of the little blighters, there are always are more of them than there are of you. It’s like the old joke of the elephant treading on an ant heap. All the ants swarm up all over his body to attack him. The elephant shakes himself vigorously and all the ants fall off, except for one on the neck of the elephant. So all the other ants shout up: ‘Strangle him, Bob, strangle him!’ And the ivy grows faster than you can cut it down. The bottom picture is of the view from the top of the pear tree down to Susan stoking her fire.

And what about Susan’s battle with officialdom I hear you ask. Well of course she needed another document and I should have known: an Italian Identity Card. This is one of the easier documents to obtain in Italy though. You just turn up at the local council, hand over 3 photos and €5.42, and hey presto! So we’ve done this and have another go at the tax office tomorrow. Right, must do my homework for tomorrows lesson or I’ll be told off.