Pica Pica

If you search for “Tuscan Garden” on the net you will find more about how to make mock Tuscan gardens in Melbourne or in Oregon than about gardens in Tuscany. And if you add “how to” into your search criteria, you are more likely to find out about the bits you need to make your mock Tuscan garden in Surrey than about how to look after a garden that happens to be in Tuscany. What is more, there are plenty of blogs about renovating houses in Tuscany, but not much about trying to get a garden going. Perhaps we have found a niche? I doubt it, but this seems as good a place as any to record attempts, successes and failures. Look for the “gardening” tag!   

There is more than half an acre of land attached to the house, and it is very varied. At the top, next to the village pond, there is what with laughing optimism we call the “lawn”, which is on one level with a tiled “patio”. The tiles were an extremely bad choice on the part of the lads who renovated the house. You’ve heard the saying “slippery when wet”? I’ll say no more. This patio was graced with an instant “gazebo”. Not being fond of it, somehow we forgot to take the fabric down in the autumn, as a result of which the snow brought it down, rather more permanently, in the winter.   

Moving down a level there is a stone-paved area for which we have great hopes, although it can be extremely hot in the summer, and at the moment it’s necessary to walk all the way round the house to get to it, so we didn’t use it a lot last year. We have plans, but that’s for another day.   

Moving away from the house, but staying on this level, we have what with laughing optimism we called the “meadow”. On arrival last May it was overgrown with a spiky, not very pleasant weed that is common in this area and whose name I haven’t yet found out. Did you notice the past tense in the first sentence of this paragraph? That’s because it is now part meadow and part “orto”, as vegetable plots are known around here.   

Meadow 2009 - picture from estate agent

March 2010 - some clearing started

Beyond the meadow the ground drops away towards the local creek. Part of the drop is extremely steep – a small cliff, to put it bluntly, and part of the drop is more gentle. On our arrival it was overgrown with brambles, creepers and other fast-growers; it could be seen to undulate, and there was a suspicion of old terraces under the vegetation. At the bottom of the slope we reach the boundary of our land, and the ground continues for another 30 flat metres before reaching the creek.  The next picture really only shows how overgrown it was – the configuration of the land makes it hard to take a photograph that shows what’s what. At the right, which is the bottom of the slope, you can see the tomatoes in the neighbour’s orto, on the flat ground next to the river.   

July 2010 - undulating and overgrown

The greenery also makes the next picture hard to interpret: we are looking from near the river straight at the green bank which we now know to have terraces underneath. 

July 2010 - the undulating slope

Last summer I did a bit of work and started to bring order to some areas. It was soon obvious, though, that if there was to be any worthwhile success we would have to change over to my favourite kind of gardening. In a nutshell, this is the “get-a-bloke-to-come-and-tell-him-what-to-do” method. The first thing was to find a “bloke”, but we did, and what it good find he has been. 

The next picture is very much the same view as the one above, taken from just a little bit closer. The cast iron bath had been dumped over the edge off by previous owners. Some weeks after this photograph was taken it succumbed to the mightiest of blows that I could manage with a heavy hammer, and has been taken away piece by piece.  

November 2010 - the terraces appear

The brown patch in the middle of the picture below is where the bath was. You may see steps being created leading from the meadow down to the terraces.  

December 2010 - two terraces

With the help we needed, the clearing the meadow has gone on apace; a section of the meadow has been very thoroughly dug over to prepare it for vegetables; the undulating slope has been cleared to reveal terraces (though, hey, I got started on that myself!); rustic steps have been put in to help get from the meadow to the three terraces below; the “lawn”, “patio”, and “meadow” have been fenced, so that we can share them with the dogs without having to watch them all the time or have them tied up; the orto has been fenced, so that the dogs won’t dig holes in it. And more. It must be admitted that at this stage things are not exactly looking pretty. But they are looking hopeful!  

January 2011 - frost and more clearing

And then the big day: the first vegetable seeds were planted: early peas. Two rows of them. The 23rd of February 2011 was, admittedly, a little bit on the late side, but you can’t do everything all at once. They were also planted in what is held to be the wrong phase of the moon – according to local lore, peas should be planted when the moon is waxing. You can get leaflets from the seed and plant suppliers to help you coordinate your sowing with the moon’s phases. Saints’ days play a part too, so it’s a jolly good job there are experts to work out the calendar for us. There is obviously scope for somebody to publish a timetable that also takes into account the movements of planets through the astrological houses, but I haven’t seen this done yet. Anyway, by the middle of March little green curly things should start to come out of the soil, and by the end of April we might even be eating them.   

Feb 25 2011 - orto prepared

Feb 25 2011 - the work is under guard

Early peas

The very first seed goes in

 Frankly, it looks a bit of a mess at the moment – but wait until spring really gets going!  

Meadow and orto

Feb 25 2011 - the terraces now