April update

I know, I've got behind a bit with blogging, we've just been so busy!  One helpXer left to find her luck in Madagascar and the next one, Alex from Canada has arrived.  Alex has been busy helping us with the ongoing repairs to the terraces after the winter landslides, preparing beds for planting and watering the young plants everywhere.  Here just a quick pictorial record on how things are looking:, in no particular order:

Ronny, the rennette apple tree looks like giving us more than 1 apple for the first time

The corn is growing on one of the upper terraces:

On a separate plot a small experimental bed of special Greek corn, which is supposed to be particularly drought resistant.  I was given the seeds by Gaia's Hope from Greece.

The kale is holding its own above the encroaching weeds.

One of the repaired terraces, although narrower than before, now supports multi-coloured Swiss chard.

The new cold frame is stuffed full of lettuce including the delicious Mike's red lettuce and oakleaf lettuce as well as some raddishes and mooli.

The top of one of the new supporting tyre walls is now sprouting courgettes.

The old cold frame that had ended up on the edge of a cliff face after the landslides is now secure again and has some broccoli growing in it amongst other things.

Two tipis that will support Buenos Aires beans supplied to me by a dear gardening friend in France.  The are apparently prolific climbing beans producing flat, tender green beans.

My first try at scorzanera is showing this year inside a deep bottomless bucket.

Al the almond tree is promising his first yield this year, whilst Capone is still a little shy.

Stud the kiwi is brimming with flower buds, but unfortunately his harem is not following suit (he's called Stud because he's the male amongst the females.  Unfortunately he doesn't bear fruit, he's only there to pollinate the females,,,)

...and finally the sugar snap peas will soon be ready!  Hmmmmm!

On the minus side, we have a vastly reduced broad bean harvest this year with many of the plants buried under the landslides.  On the wild food front, it's elderflower time!  Making a new batch of elderflower champagne every few days and eating elderflower fritters.  The joys of spring!

Signs of Life

This is both a sign that we are still alive as well as nature waking up to a new growing season.  Apologies for the long gap in posting, but I had to go to see my parents as they had some health problems and needed urgent help.  So I was out of the country for a bit, but luckily my cousin was still here to hold the fort together with Susan and Eddie, the Beagle.

During my absence they aparently didn't have the best of weather (I experienced snow and sub-zero temperatures while in Germany), but still managed to make some progress with supporting more damaged terraces.  Rains did cause some more minor damage on some terraces we hadn't secured yet, but all in all I came home to a general improvement.

They also planted the potatoes while I was away:

In other news the pak choi in the older coldframe is doing well:

and Al & Capone the almond trees are in flower:

Spring is on it's way!  We are expecting another helper this week who is particularly keen on wild foods, so soon we'll be gathering our wild asparagus and other spring greens.  It's still cold, but an end is in sight.  This year better be an improvement on last...

this 'n' that

I'm a bit busy with other things at the moment, so again just a quick post with a few photos from the last week or so.

First the kitten photo of the week: Kittens at 2 weeks. They now have their eyes open, except Cruyff, who has only opened one eye.

...followed swiftly by.... our puppy photo of the week! Yep one of those 10 day old little worms has got our name on it! They are Beagles, so thinking ahead I was thinking of Snoopy. I'd have to get him flying goggles and a leather helmet. Alternatively Gigi, as in Gigi Buffon the goalkeeper of the Italian national team to complete our football team. Susan wants to call him Ben. Any other suggestions out there?

And here's the Mama.

on the land the figs are coming on,

the cherries are in flower,

closely followed by the apples,

the kiwi leaves are sprouting. Although in previous years they've always made a good start to then slow right down and refuse to flower or give us fruit. Maybe this year?

and finally the potatoes are breaking through the ground. So all looking good.

Next week I promise you the next instalment of the wild food of the month series.

It's asparagus time!

We went off on a walk to our post office today. It was the first day of the year on which we went out of the door, walked a few metres, and then decided, there was no need for a jacket at all!

Anyway I had already decided that dinner was going to be a risotto involving some of our leek and some borage I was going to pick on the way to the post office. On the way back we decided to take the more scenic route, over the mountain, through the woods and past the old castle ruin.

And suddenly I spotted them! Wild asparagus!

In previous years I've always kind of missed the boat. Gathering asparagus is a very popular past time here, and if you don't get up early enough, they will literally all be snapped up before you realise the season has begun. So they must have just produced their long shoots a couple of days ago.

To the untrained eye, asparagus isn't that easy to spot. The trick is, you start looking for the weed weeks before the season starts and memorise where you've seen them.


The weed is much easier to spot. Once you've seen a few you start looking around for the shoots. They can be quite a distance from the rest of the plant. They grow very long and wind themselves around other plants. Of course wild asparagus is much thinner than the commercial variety, but no less tasty!.

The outstretched tongue is for those of our greedy neighbours I've beaten to the first harvest this year and to a certain so-and-so, who tried to make me jealous yesterday with boasting about her asparagus meal (she'll know who I'm talking about... :-)).

I should've maybe not mentioned this in my blog at all lest I trigger a stampede into the woods in the next couple of days, but I think most of our neighbours have already cottoned on to the fact that it's asparagus season. On our way out of the woods we met an elderly couple with baskets heading into the woods. And as we approached the village we bumped into Bruno, who asked me if we had found any asparagus, despite the fact that I had disguised them in a non-see-through plastic bag. Can't keep anything a secret here for long!

Here's a funny gnawed tree we saw on our walk, which no doubt will fall over soon.


... and on our land, after the almond and plum trees, now the peaches in flower.

Of arm wrestling, nuts and bulbs

Just a quick update after a week's silence. Last week, the beginning particularly, winter and spring had their annual arm wrestle. Last year they had cancelled the event as winter never made a proper appearance last year. But this year, just as you thought spring had finally arrived, winter let's you know he is not going without one last showdown against spring.

So they stand there, facing each other. Spring in the south at the mouth of the river and over the Med, Winter on top of the mountains on the Appenines. So all of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, winter threw everything he could at spring: icy northern winds swept down the valley, dropping temperatures back to freezing, even some snowflakes drifted by! Springs arm was nearly on the table, but then... by Thursday she was starting to get at least on level terms. Friday winter threw a bit more wind back and some cold misty rain, but you could tell he was already weakening. Saturday, winter got up and left the table, heading back up north again to not to return until next year.

So the wild flowers are out in lovely balmy sunshine. I thought this might be echinacea, but on closer inspection don't think it is. Pretty though!

I'm pleased to say that my cold frame has been doing the job admirably. Even on Monday, when temperatures with windchill were below zero, inside we measured 15 C. And yesterday morning we measured this:

By early afternoon the mercury had climbed to 45C. Almost too hot for my gherkin seedlings, which I have had to transplant into pots already. The tomatoes and aubergines are also poking their heads out, only the peppers are still taking their time. Today is New Moon, so a break day for gardeners and the starting pistol for the next lot of spring sowing.

Something a bit different on my favourite subject, wild food. The other night I was reading a book in bed, Susan had already gone to sleep next to me. I was reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's an autobiographical book by an American woman who goes through something of an early mid-life crisis. In order to find herself she goes travelling for one year to Italy, India and Indonesia. I won't bore you with the details, it's not relevant for this story.

I was reading over this one bit, where she describes eating out in Rome and being served pickled wild hyacinth bulbs. You know me, I was hooked immediately. I gave Susan a violent shake: "Susan! Susan!!" - "Hmmpff..?" "you know those bulbs on our land we keep unearthing and throwing out?" - "t'll me t'mrrow...." - "but... but... you can eat them! Pickled!!!"

Needless to say I barely slept a wink that night with excitement! A search on the internet the next day confirmed it. They are known as lampascioni in Italy and are a particular speciality in Puglia in the south.


Then coming to think of it, surely I had seen them, just not knowing what they were. Today and yesterday was the St Joseph Day Festa (Happy St. Joe's Day Joe!), which involves a huge sprawling market in the city of Sarzana. And there was a stand selling olives, pickles and... Lampascioni. You can see them in the foreground.
So typically, we've done all of our major digging for the season and, not knowing what they were, I threw all the bulbs I found into the general countryside. Now that I was actually looking for some I could barely find a handful:



I shall try and pickle them or eat them some other way. Apparently they are rather bitter and should therefore be boiled and left in the cooking water overnight. I'll let you know of the results.

Finally a couple more images from the festa in Sarzana. St. Joe appears to be the patron saint of the hazelnut as they are a bit of theme around this particular festa. Necklaces made from hazelnuts were on sale everywhere as well as the ubiquitous porchetta, without which no festa in Italy is complete.

Of spring and other updates

The weather has still held so far. The middle of last week a cold North-easterly had sprung up, bringing a drop in temperatures (especially at night), but none of the horrendous rainfalls and storms we’ve had in previous years at this time. Sunday turned particularly nice again, even warm, so we took our bicycles over the scenic mountain route to Terrarossa, just the other side of Aulla, where there was an olive oil fair. Tasted plenty excellent oil, some interesting wines and some delicious cheeses, plus a selection of traditional breads from different Lunigiana villages. Apparently there is a bread road you can follow through the area.

Thus fortified we cycled on to Villa to see how things were there. It never ceases to amaze me how a few kilometres inland makes such a difference to the climate. Whereas we already start fighting the weeds and cut tall grass in Arcola, growth hasn’t really begun yet in Villa. It’s at about the same altitude, but does not get the warming effect of the sea. And the plot in Villa is also in quite a narrow valley, so does not see as much sun.

During last week we also sowed out the other things which wanted to se sown out during the waning moon phase, leeks and cabbages, dug over some more beds in readiness for the big sowing time commencing next week and have started watering the new seedbeds every other day or so. The forecast yesterday had promised us a continuation of the sunshine, so despite seeing some unexpected clouds out of our window this morning, we set off on our bikes to Arcola. Of course, as soon as we got going on some digging (me) and weeding of the strawberry and lettuce beds (Susan), the sky turned threateningly black, and in no time we found our selves in the path of 2 thunderstorms passing us left and right. Luckily it was only a shower and we could resume work afterwards, but it was the first rain in about a month!

Lots of things are now flowering beautifully and buzzing with bees, apricots, plums and as you can see on the top of the page, rosemary.

Spring at last

Spring does seem to have arrived at last, but only after winter really had hit out again one more time. Yesterday we returned to Villa for the first time since planting the new vines. All of them had suffered frost damage. They had been reared at the relatively mild coastal climate above La Spezia and had already sprouted green shoots, well ahead of their cousins up in Villa. Now all those green shoots have died. I hope the vines still have enough in them to sprout again. We gave them a good watering anyway and can now only hope. It can’t have been lack of water anyway, as there had been plenty of rain, hail and possibly up there snow.

Still lacking a plough, (the local bicycle and small machine repair man in Santo Stefano said he’d keep a lookout for a second hand one for us), we were hard at it to dig over a large area to bury the potatoes. After some 5 hours solid digging my shoulders were about to drop off. We managed to plant most of the spuds we had, but we’ll have to finish off the job tomorrow. Hope they won’t get dug by the local wild boar population. There only seems to be evidence of them lower down though and not 3 terraces up. They obviously don’t like climbing, but you never know once they get the scent of some nice nourishing potatoes…

Today we were back in Arcola to plant out some radicchio lettuces and water the veg we planted the other day. One of the cucumber plants had been dug by the neighbour’s cat, what a nuisance. The peach and plum trees are pretty much finished flowering, now it’s the turn of the cherry (top photo) and pear trees. Many wild and semi-wild flowers are also in bloom. The bees love the borage (middle photo), which has sown itself out between the strawberries (bottom photo). Borage and strawberries are said to make good companion plants and once you’ve sown borage they will happily sow themselves out year after year. I love the delicate flavour of ravioli al boragine, borage and ricotta filled pasta. And as for strawberries… shouldn’t be long now for the first crop.