Our garden is becoming quite thrilling to explore every morning, as we're gettati out of the tent by the raging heat of the sun cresting the mountains in front of us. We spend our first hour or two with our oltra-amato new garden hose, drenching what we can before it's absolutely impossibile to withstand the heat....
We are in our 13th month on our magical homestead, and since we got permesso to get started on the property next door - soon to be our new home! - we've slowly-slowly started to get one plant,one set of seedlings at a time, into their right positioning in the gardens around where we'll be very-long-term rooted ourselves.
Zoning is a vital aspect that I loved in my permaculture studies/ practises over the years: dividing our large parcel of land into the nearer places and the further away places.
So now the closest parts - zone 0 and/ or zone 1 - are starting to fill with the gorgeousness of edible flowers, herbs, leaves, and we get to meander through them all, daily, seeing new growth or unexpected crops.
Our star plant is this GINORMOUS Amaranth, which in English is called Love Lies Bleeding. The central flowers are over half a metre long!! And the side florets are beginning to stretch down too: colourful fuscia lengths that genuinely astonish me. They just keep getting bigger: we had to prop up the main stem with a sturdy branch.
There are many of our plants still in pots, having been transported from our previous house. They are waiting until we can tune into which microclimate can best accomodate them. It is a subtle art, as the intense heat and the direct sunlight can be too much - especially when the plantlings are changing soils (from pot to garden).
Though we've been here a long time - relatively, for us! - we are not rushing into anything. And though we made a lot of experimental sticks-stuck-in-the-ground try-outs, the seasonal drying out of the land destroyed the majority of the new life that sprung from them in spring. The sole successes which are likely to reach maturity, are a blessed mulberry (WOOHOO!) and a blackcurrant. Both are extremely welcome in our gardens, and once they're beyond this summer peak of calore, they should seriously flourish. Fruit bushes and trees for shade near the house, these are huge riches for us.
The greens and herbs are very gently filling spaces e.g. below the big fig tree, and in some old chicken feeder troughs that were left by the previous owner. They are interspersed with cucurbits; marrows, pumpkins, loofahs. We await some fruits from these, as the plants stretch across the beds, up stakes and fences. I so hope for a loofah or two, to use in the kitchen and bathroom - I've wanted to grow them for y e a r s, and blessedly was gifted seeds by dearest friend @anafae when we all met up, on Vincent and my road trip back from Portugal a little over a year ago. I saw the first tiny wee fruiting body, yesterday evening 🎉🎉🎉🎉
As for the orto: it's under a ton of straw and a watering regime, to prepare the soil for planting in the autumn. I have a rough idea of a handful of trees that can frame it in the corners and centre, and then herb bushes, greens, flowers that can start filling it out: it's quite a big orto.
Which will also house our grey-water filtration systems, once they mature. Small pools in a stepped format, which take lightly-soaped 'waste' water from our sink and bath and clean it via plant roots, before releasing it to water the fruit trees and woodlands below.
All in all, we are starting to feel that sense of abundant anticipation; the feeling of new life proliferating and interracting; the holistic sense of life in the land rising up to meet us and even to serve us, as we reciprocate its reciprocation.
It is a spiritual-level reward for our sacrifices and our hard work.
Yesterday evening, as the sun turned all that we're working on preciously golden, our cat Fridha came wandering into the new courtyard. Mewing questioningly. Seeming to ask; "Are we to live here now?" I welcome her on my lap for a wee cuddle. "Yes" I respond; "Soon."
Oh, and PS! Our The Goed Life podcast just launched - find the first full episode here via Spotify: The Goed Life on Spotify or on Fountain
Looking forward to sharing more with you all, as our gardens evolve. And to seeing what you all are growing!
With Love!
