my VERY large bietole or giant spinach in flower! this is all one plant, as is the calendula to the lower right: I am 5'4'' just to be clear!
Ciao Hive Gardeners!
It has been raining for a couple of weeks: this is very unusual, and it's unusually cool for May. It is glorious! It has been very conducive to clearing the jungle-like overgrown parts of Sergio's garden, as it rouses insects, but the rain keeps them from being active!
sage and marjoram, under the grape vines
I 'weed' in a particular way: just delving in deeply and becoming part of the undergrowth, hehe... I don't think logically or have any plan; I simply immerse myself in the greenery and feel - often with bare hands, if it's not a deeply nettley or brambley patch, to sense which plants are ready to transform.
carcofi or artichokes, under the grape vines
Comprehending the transformation process as a Natural Law, feels very important in my gardening: my fully-enbodied wisdom of how to tune-in and act Rightly, this allows me to make dramatic changes in a way that is symbiotic with the betterment of the wholistic garden - for healthy soil and lower layers of plant growth - which will subsequently allow larger systems to develop.
an oak tree that I'll plant soon, when I have the right microclimate located
As I've shared before, most 'weeding' I do involves leaving the plants precisely where I've gently pulled them out. And I use a particular technique of 'teasing' the full root out. If it really doesn't want to loosen - much easier, too, to take a full root out, if it has been raining a lot - I either leave it in place until it will seed, which will make it easier to remove, or else I cut it to the ground, which allows it to grow again.
borage sort of melting, as it ends its cycle, providing a fabulous mulch without any effort!
I respect each plant's purpose and life, and give thanks accordingly: spoken out loud, in quiet mind-prayer, and in the language beyond our conceptualised front-lobe chatter (which is inherently limiting in how much it can convey of Truth). I allow my full-body language - The Whole Voice - to commune with the plants-soil-GaiaSophia-Cosmos: and allow my place to be as vessel which channels between the realms.
apple blossoms, on a young tree which was failing under the overgrowth
It is a joy-full and an easy practise, to commune like this: I have no agenda or goal, bar the improvement of all things for all of us. Especially, protecting the layers of soil that I have direct guardianship over. This is the priority of my activity. All things focus on covering the soil and building up its volume: keeping in moisture and not compacting the surface in any way. The weight of the rain helps to flatten the new layer of cut greenery, and I help too by standing lightly on it to give it more solid form. This kind of mulching will not supress all plants underneath, but it will make them much easier to remove, as there will be MUCH MORE active microbial etc life in the topsoil, making it more friable, and this plus the less light will make all the plants much softer, like brambles. Much easier to control, later on.
the apple tree
I also work around the trees care-fully, making sure no green plants are wrapping themselves around the trunk, e.g. as this might provide a means for invasive insects to enter the woody parts at a later date.
It is a very beautifully satisfying thing, to see the form of the sentiero (path) become visible again. I cut this path myself, over 13 years ago, when I first visited Guardia Sanframondi with Sergio. it is a very steep hill, and the path made it quite a lot easier to climb up and down the wilder part! It was all very dried out and inhospitable at that point - plus there was a scorching drought in 2010, which left the soil like cement... But now there are areas which have rich dark humous instead of baked clay, and I am building on that foundation.
I haven't shared much around the before-and-after process, because really, it's just a big green mass from the outside - my phone camera doesn't offer a way to adequately illustrate the complex form of the green layers:
But here it is - above - from one of the more open areas at the top of the wild part: you are looking here over layers of bramble about 1 meter deep, intertwined with old man's beard kind of very strong vines, masses of soft bindweed, and various clumps of very hardy grasses.
Here is a small area which will be a very useful micro-climate for plants which love the heat: especially for a lemon tree or two. I might have to move some small trees, as they are too exposed to winter extremes, and this south-facing high wall is ideal for their comfort and convenience. I also found a low-growing but nevertheless healthy caper plant at the end of this wall: I was clearing around it too.
This is a very tall potato plant, which has grown from scraps in the compost heap, up through the borage patch. I am clearing the borage, which is now in seed, and being careful to leave a cluster of support for the tall spindley potato plants thriving there.
And this is a walnut tree - there are two which have seeded wildly themselves - which had been snapped right in half by a storm last year, but now it's growing up nicely! I have cleared around the bottom of it as best I can, to not have it overwhelmed by the voracious undergrowth.
Just above this walnut tree, looking down to it, you might be able to see also a small, spindley lemon tree, which is stunted in its growth, despite being around 13 years old. Most of the lemon trees that Sergio/ he and I planted around that time, were not positioned right: I didn't know anything about the climate that first year, and Sergio was very haphazard in his planting! Anyways, now I know that in Guardia, lemons mostly need a south-facing wall - and need to be covered in winter. I may allow the borage or similar to grow up around it over the winter, this year. Companion planting is a great way to provide a microclimate or a protection system, rather than having to introduce bulky plastic covers or the like. Above you can also see where I had to cut a path through very overgrown borage.
This is a fig tree that I cleared around. It has a quite aggressive wave of brambles and other invasive plants, which regularly descend on it - and it is appreciating being able to breathe a little.
And finally: the snails this year are enormous! I am working up my courage to make a plate of the alternative to spaghetti alla cozze e vongole spaghetti with cockles and mussels - which is a popular local dish. Lumache are highly valued by traditional folks here, and the recent rains have produced a great bounty of much-bigger-than-usual specimens. Let's see if I will be adventurous enough to take advantage of this seasonal protein, when it is ready to be harvested...
Many blessings on your growing spaces, dear community. Thank you for your support and encouragement always!
