pictures of seedlings and buds

cranberry buds

ornamental garlic

fenugreek

buckwheat

beets

before and after: The raised bed area

It is raining out today. A light but perseverent mist that is bathing all the vegetables and flowers that are enjoying it as much as I enjoyed the sprinkler as a child on a hot summer day in the city.
It is the perfect day to fish a "before and after" story out of the photo tank on my desktop.
It was hard to choose one out of so many but the most rewarding project was the one that now produces Food! And it is also the project everyone chipped in on! So here it goes.

Crops in a Castle..... because our tiny orchard stands where the Castle of Foce once stood.
It was a slopey and sloppy piece of land full, and I mean full of rocks. BIG ONES.
Among many challenges, levelling off the land, was probably the most blistering experience of my life.
Here is one example. The raised bed area as it once was and now is:

This is what happened in between:
Step one. DIG - DIG - DIG
Step two. Get all the weeds out of the land.
Step three. Drag away all the extra earth
Step four. Level it out with a rake and heaps of patience.

At that point it began to look like this:
Wow, there was a wall back there!

Yes I agree, it looks even more discomforting.
But it looks prettier with Patsy Baby (Mom) and Papà smiling at you.

I realized at this point that the level was really high compared to the main part of the garden so I decided to split it two separate levels.

Levels need steps and walls to contain the earth. Get creative and recycle.

First two steps are made with wood beams from an old building: Recycled.

They weren't enough so I built the missing step with some left over bricks and cement: Recycled
Then I needed one step for access to the second level. Mom suggested some concrete rectangular garden containers she no longer used and small step in the centre. It worked perfectly.

Massimo then made the raised beds. God bless his hands.

TIP: make the beds on the premises, they are way too heavy to carry after! We made that mistake and it still hurts to even think about it.
TIP: if you are levelling out land don't throw out the extra earth. Sieve it and you'll see it will come in handy sooner or later. All the earth I removed from this area was used to fill the raised beds.
TIP: The perfect width for a raised bed is double the length from your wrist to your armpit. Our arms are all very different. Make then to fit your size perfectly and you won't regret it.

Here is the finished view from above

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Mind you, it took two weeks to level the land and another two for the steps.
A week end for the raised bed, another week end to fill them.
But there is now endless time in the future to plant crops and enjoy this part of the garden.

before and after

Last year I spent almost all my time landscaping.
Landscaping sounds very chic but the truth is there was sweat, dirt and heat; backbreaking digging, lifting stones and mixing cement.
But I suddenly realized I am hooked. I can't stop. It is my favourite gym for body and soul. So yesterday I took a quick look at an unexplored area of the orchard and decided to make it level, rational, clean and pretty.
If you don't know what to do to improve your garden just sit there and stare and listen and stare and listen. Believe me, it will talk to you. It will tell you what to do. You will suddenly visualize. There is no other explanation on how I managed to landscape.

Let it talk to you, you will love it. Look at what this part of the garden told me:

We now have...
- a big white sitting stone
- a new raised bed made with left over "tegole", italian roofing tiles
- a small circular garden bed at ground level
- tidy paths to reach the compost bins and my potato pen

And while I was working the big white rock spoke to me and asked me for some company. I turned and caught a glimpse of some sad rocks my mother had collected years ago at Lago di Garda. They are now smiling at the big white rock from under the plum tree behind the white tulips and fava bean plants.

Here is another view of my new landscaping project before and after.

back to life

This is my first gardening season after a year of landscaping that ended in November when everything was becoming dormant and the land seemed like it was turning to stone as I was forcing bulbs and fava beans and peas into the soil.
Then the wait began. Two months of cold and rain and then finally the first signs of spring. It is amazing to focus on the tiny signs of everything coming back to life. The temperature of the soil, the tiny green leaves hidden under brown and brittle branches and most of all this ladybug on the Jasmine.

Tulips, Muscari, Daffodils, fava beans and peas have all burst into life..... I'm so happy I withstanded the rain in november to get them in the ground.
The pictures are to share the overwhelming joy of this new experience.
If the peas and fava beans keep up the flowering we will be sharing lots of crops also!