I suppose you need to be friendly while he has the whipper snipper in his hand LOL

Just after the pic was taken, Carlo toddled off to cut lots of grass around the place. That was on Monday. Yesterday, Tuesday, I heard that he was in deep horse poo with Jean the property owner. Apparently he'd whipper-snippered a whole lot of her best plants into oblivion.

Snowy has put on weight. In fact, for some strange reason, she's born again. She's belting around like a five year old, with few of her old neuroses. If only I could make such claims.

We're planning another, adjacent vegie plot for things like pumpkins, zucchini, et al, things that take up far more space than their return warrants. The main patch, while spacious, soon fills up with vining things. Aziz, Jean's hubby, not a gardener, claims we already have more than enough vegie-growing space. So the plotting and planning and designing goes on in secret.

I feel we all need a Secret Garden. How deep am I?.

Do you hear Enid Blyton calling?

Just popped in to post a pic of the new vegie patch as a work-in-progress. The first one, with the stone wall and the cinghiale scarecrow, is about 25m directly behind where Mrs finbar was standing when she took the pic. The stones? The digger we used to take the top off the ground removed a lot of them from the ground. I removed the rest! Those boxes are at the far end are bee hives. Empty! They're going to be moved. Hopefully. Now, it just needs levelling, the smaller stones removed, and tons of cow and horse poo dug into the clay. Next year, the bed will host mainly pumpkin, zucchini, cukes, some tomatoes, and probably some spuds.

In the distant background is the amazing mist. Autumn has hit. We wake up to pea-soupers that gradually clear into drifting mist. Usually, at around 3pm, the sun burns away the mist and we end up with stunning blue skies and glorious sunsets. {{gwi:2116114}}

Well arn't you just the toffy bugger :-)
I had a mist come down around me this morning on the loo.
As this is a civilised thread, I will not tell you my household folks response.
I am jealous as hell you know!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mantis

Hard to tell but it looks big. Seems like you've already done a hell of a lot of work on it. Looking forward to seeing it planted out when I get there in May!

OMG Finbar, can you ever get sick of the scenery in a place like that?! Noice! Secondly, how do you keep the bugs away from your kale and cabbages - they look fantastic! Do you grow organic?

You must be fit with all that outdoor work. BTW, who built the fences around the new plot?

PP

Great job, Finbar! It must be very rewarding and satisfying to see this patch now. Good luck with the planting! And don't let Carlo get his hands on it.

We are having a fantastic spring here and it's a jungle out there. Grass, weeds, seedlings. The slugs and snails are taking over.

Hope you get interesting seeds for your vegie patch! :)

Nice sheltered spot you've got there. Looks like it could be in the Dandenongs. The soil looks good too. I like the corrale style fencing. I'm sure you'll spend many long days potting around the new garden. Well done.

pep - at this time of year, it could be the Dandenongs with the mist hanging around. In summer, though, it's baking hot, and the patch will get full sun most of the day. Having cut into some of the bank on the RHS of the pic, we revealed the lie of the land - about a foot of top soil on top of clay. The digger that took the top off the ground - the grass and weeds - also took some top soil, but there's some left to work with. I carted half a dozen loads of fresh cow manure yesterday with about thirty more to come. The beds won't come into play till next March, so I should have a nicely fecund patch. This garden is basically an overflow from the other, bigger one.

Ray - I did some measuring yesterday to mark out the beds. I'm not using the far end. It will either be kept for chooks or maybe even a glasshouse. So, leaving the far end out of the equation, and allowing for access paths around the perimeter, it's about 16m long by 6.5m (at this end) and 5m (at the other end). Big enough to keep me amused. I'll save a bed for you to potter in next May!

Zia P - we haven't used anything on the cabbage and cavolo nero. If we see bugs, we pick them off, and we haven't seen any for the last month or so. It must be getting too cold for them. I suppose it's an organic garden. Carlo sprayed the toms this year with that horrible blue copper/sulphur stuff which is, technically, organic. I'll be using the Italian version of Daconil next year. Not strictly organic, but preferable to that horrible blue stuff. He also sprinkles granular, water-soluble fertiliser around without understanding that it does nothing for the soil and disappears after a couple of heavy showers. I'm going insane trying to find blood and bone - farina d'ossa - here. The nurseries have heard of it but never seen it in retail packs. The fencing around the plot? Carlo and a local chap called Augusto did it. Augusto owns some land - chockers with olive trees - surrounding the farm. His family and another local family harvest Jean and Aziz's 950 olive trees for them. In fact, they're starting later this week. Mrs finbar has had her designated olive tree earmarked. I'll have the camera ready when she harvests it. Jean and Aziz aim for premium quality oil so there's no erecting nets and shaking the branches to drop the olives into the nets. Every single olive is taken by hand. Good luck Mrs finbar!

Spatz - the odd thing is, I've hardly seen a snail here. We've had tons of lettuce and radicchio and other snail-attracting things in the garden, but barely a snail. I have no idea why. Lots of other mysterious looking insects, though. I'm yet to discover whether they're friend or foe. Although I did recognise the aphids on my broad beans.

Good to hear you're not busy then , and taking it easy. Sheesh, I want that pickie of Mrs F doing the Italian Peasant thingo. I want peasant frock and mean look. Okay?.
You should be proud to hear that I put in an Anna Russian yesterday, so am keeping the Finbar Flag flying.
We're having incredible thunderstorme here at the moment. Hot sultry days and cool nights....Wait , that's just me!!!. And the weather.
Ciao kids, and keep up the good work.

Oh to be in a place where you can grow brassicas without pests *sigh*

There are many things that we take for granted I'm sure, but I never thought Blood and Bone would be one of them. I'd have thought it would be available anywhere. Good luck!

PP

While Mrs finbar was picking olives, I was busy elsewhere. On my way through the original vegie patch, I contemplated the remains of my beetroot crop:
{{gwi:2116115}}

I'll be lifting the lot of them this week and storing them for winter.

Next came two generations of carrots adjacent to each other (with Cavolo Nero keeping them company: {{gwi:2116116}}

And then onto the new patch. Which is ever-so-gradually starting to take shape. This is the low side of a fairly sloping patch and I'm using rocks reclaimed from the site to edge the beds to stop the beds disappearing over the edge. And that's three tractor loads of sand ready to be amalgamated with about twenty tractor loads of cow manure to combat the clay: {{gwi:2116117}}

And there's the original patch, in the distance, through the fog, from the entrance to the new patch: {{gwi:2116118}}

Great pics through the mist. Doesn't look like they have water restrictions gived the fairly heavily wooded surroundings.

Been very very wet since August. Our little town had over an inch in a quarter of an hour last week. The broad beans and peas have suffered, and it has made working the clay in the new garden a real trial. It's been a strange year - very mild summer, very wet autumn.

Looking good. I guess the purpose of the fence is to, barring yourself, keep large beasts outta the patch? Beet leaves seem ripe for wilting. Any alliums? I thought I spotted a few. EVOO looks scoffable. You must be in heaven. Sydney is pretty crappy as usual. Best wishes from the Grubs. Will take any spare olives.

The only large beasts in the area are cinghiale but they tend to keep their distance. Especially now, with hunting season in full swing. The hills are currently alive with the sound of shotties. The important part of the fence, which you mightn't be able to see in the pics, is the green wire mesh between the bottom rail and the ground. That's there to keep out the real garden pests - istrice, or porcupines. If they find their way into your vegie patch, you're stuffed.

I watered the beetroot today. They'll come out later in the week. A few alliums dotted around the place but the beds are mainly winding down for winter. I'm off to the nursery for planting garlic which will go in around December 21st.

Yes, the oil is scoffable. If I can work out how, I'll try to send you a bottle.

Yes, we are in heaven. Yes, we know the state of Sydney. Currently, wild horses wouldn't drag us back.

Googled cinghiale. Got: Tuscan pig on steroids. Yum. Amazing that they have survived for so long. Nothing nice about a porcupine, I suppose. I couldn't see the green mesh and was wondering what you were trying to keep out. I figured a horse could just lean over and eat your veggies.

The oil looks great. Got the basil growing and the buffalo-milk mozzarella is available over the road. Just need the tommys. 52 growing. Will be months before I see a fruit other than some cheater Sweet 100s already ripe for the plucking. :(

How did your tommys work out in the end? No EB I suppose. What will you do to occupy your time in winter? Excavate a cellar and make a lot of wine? That might get me over.

Ciao for now :)

Cinghiale are all over the Tuscan hills. And they feature somewhere on just about every Tuscan restaurant menu. There's a little place in the hills above our little town. They do a wonderful pasta with cinghiale ragu. I have it every time.

The tommys didn't make it. Late Blight wiped everything out. I've never seen it before. I have now. It's unpleasant. Next year I'll be spraying.

Make wine? Why? We're in the middle of one of the world's great winemaking areas. We've taken to scoffing the odd Brunello, one of the great reds. The little trattoria in the hills above our town has a stunning wine list. All the great local wines and at - relative to what you'd pay for the same wine in Oz - nifty prices. I usually go for a 1997 Brunello at about $60 a pop. The same wine would be $300 at Buon Ricordo or similar. It's made just down the road in Montalcino. Must pop over and get some at the cellar door. We'll take you there when you visit. And to Pienza, home of some of the great pecorinos. Just down the road.

Great food and wine and company. And a couple of big patches to burn it all off. Wow! The world would suddenly become a very small place, I think. At least until the money ran out. Or, perish the thought, one had a wild affair with a dusky maiden. Little wonder so many feel compelled to put pen to paper and share their love affair with Tuscany.

You will be pleased to hear my Lleytons Greens have doubled in height and the view of the two-storey units is fading, that the Indian Mynas are chirping, and the only pig in site is the beer-swilling swine on Friday nights. And, worse, I'm fast running out of grow space.

Late Blight sounds nasty. I've only read about it. Thought about pinching your old green plastic or metal 8ft tomato stakes the other day. Boy, are they hard to find. Anyway, keep us posted. Fun - no headonism - under the Tuscan sun.

You'll find those big, green, metal tomato stakes in the garden section of the hardware place on the corner at the top of the Cammeray shops. Miller Street and, from memory, Amherst Street.

Oh, and did I tell you fresh porcini are available all over the place? I've made two or three fresh porcini risottos (or risotti) to work out the best method. The flavours are glorious, much more subtle than anything offered by the dried porcini. Our Guardian Angel here extracted a porcini risotto recipe from one of her local restaurateur mates. I haven't yet tried it. But the esential herb, apparently, is a local wild mint. There's tons of it out around the olive farm. I'm going to grab some and pot it up.

Mrs finbar scoffs the fresh porcini at the trattoria in the hills. She's had them simply chargrilled with the wild mint, and also deep fried, would you believe. They slice 'em into thick matchsticks, dust 'em, then deep fry. Crunchy on the outside, melting on the inside. Delish.

Yum. Everything seems distilled. Raw produce and wild herbs. Let me at it.

I knew about your corner hardware but figured the green stakes must be everywhere if there. Wrong.

There are mushies and there are mushies. I do hope you share some of the recipes at some point in time, even if we have to subs. the ingredients.

Worse luck for me, you're not a fish eater. Scored a bounty of yellowfin tuna last weekend. Kept them on an ice slurry, filleted, skinned and removed the bloodline, a bucket of firm pink flesh.

Fresh tuna is heaven. That's my brag. And n/a in Tuscany I think :)

Mrs finbar would drool over the fish if I let her read the above. Yes, you can get fresh tuna here. Remember we're two hours from the Med and an hour from the Adriatic. And we can get things that you can't get there - like fresh sea bass! I had so many Italian recipes that called for sea bass. Now I have access to the buggers.

Damn! I'll have to think of something to make you homesick. Bet the Italian cigarettes are pretty awful? But how they love to smoke. Currently, lots of brown girls in bikinis outside my office and the air is redolent of coconut oil and salt spray.

On a different score, I'll have you know I've developed a taste for Pinot Gris, tarter and more summery than Grigio, but local renditions are a bit like your green stakes. None too easy to find.

Bought some anchovies in a little tin that came from the Bay of Biscay for $14.95 the other day. I could spend a motza on cheeses in the fromagerie across the road. But really I think I'll just have to eat and breath Europe vicariously.

You two are killing me with the wine and dine talk! Even harder for me to bear since my trip overseas to visit Tuscany and beyond has been postponed for 12 months. Did you get my email Mr Finbar?

What I want to know is whether your music tastes have changed yet?

Pouting Pepperina

Oh, does he have poor taste in music? Well then. That explains it. He's got two left feet. I knew there was something suss about that aged-hippie look.

Quick-and-easy green fish curry for me tonight. Loads of homegrown basil and my own line-caught fish is the most I can contribute. Lemon grass is still to young and I haven't a kaffir lime tree. Yet.

Oh, and btw, nice new beds PP. But flowers! Lol. I'm not yet game to grow my produce in full view yet, either :)

I think it would be better for me if you refrained from posting here. I keep getting these urges to move back to France, especially now. Autumn and mushroom-festooned market stalls. *long, long sigh*

Fret not, Ray, if you're here in May, you will have the best of the weather. Before summer hits.

Grub. Cigarettes are half the price here. Bona fide parmesan is less than half the price, buffalo mozzarella is about a quarter of the price, EVOO the same, excellent Pino Grigios are about $8 in the supermarket, same with excellent Chiantis.

Zia P. Got your email, been slack replying to a lot of emails. Sorry. We'll be here in 2007, definitely, and probably for quite a bit longer. No, my music tastes haven't changed. Bolstered by the fact that Jean and Aziz, who own the olive farm, are well connected. Pete Townsend is a friend, and Aziz was a year behind David Bowie (before he called himself David Bowie) at school. He was in the same year as Peter Frampton, but none of us acknowledge that.

Ta Grub, front yard produce is an experiment and hopefully living in a cul-de-sac will reduce the people traffic passing by.

Finbar, I didn't really know what your tastes in music were, but somehow just imagined you dancing in the village square perhaps, clapping hands etc while the local musicians played and sang with great gusto? Haha!

PP

... while wearing a peasant jacket and a cap, a ciggy in the corner of his mouth with a long ash, a coffee in one hand. I can see it.

Finbar,
Well if price is any indication of quality our produce is better. Sadly, of course, it is not. Sounds like Tuscany in incomparable. Australia is getting smaller by the minute. Little Johnny will send us all packing soon.

I have some great tommys growing, though. Some of the best in the world. Rare and delicious. So do drop by often in a month for the impending tomato porn :)

Dunno about dancing in the piazza, but I get off on the drums and weird-looking medieval trumpets that accompany the flag-throwing ceremonies.

Hi Finbar...your 'posts' look like costing my heaps of money. I was reading to my wife through this group of postings and then showed her the photos. She reckons now it is off back to Italy for us for another "fix". We visited there in August last year for the second time and she just loves it. Keep enjoying! Daniel

You mean Tuscany is nicer than Armidale.???????
I bet we have more flies than you.....SO THERE.
And I wouldn't mind an autograph from THE DAVID.

Hi Daniel. We're certainly in a glorious part of the world, and, I think, the nicest part of Italy. Tuscany's a fascinating mix of the beautiful and the austere. And the local have been very welcoming. After six months here, we're part of the town. Our residency papers and ID cards have just come through, so now we belong officially. We're contemplating buying here next year. If you head this way again, give us a hoi.

Adam. There are flies in Italy. Tons of them. And, strangely, they hang around long after summer. I'll have a word to David. It could take a while. There's usually a queue.

He'll know me from the photos I sent. I think it's still three years before I'm allowed to be in the same country as him. Some people are so Sensitive.
CIAO

Residency papers? ID? Wow, this sounds permanent already!

But will you ever be able to enjoy Tomato Taste Fests like we had at Rutherglen last year over there... huh? ..huh? Huh??? *mentally intoned with a rising-bragging voice, but knowing that we're gonna miss the Finbars in March*

PP

Residency is part of the process, Zia P. We're stranieri - foreigners - and residency is one of the numerous things we need in order to live and function here. Tourists don't need a visa and can stay for up to three months. To stay longer than three months, you need (a) one of several special visas, all of which are hard to get; (b) a document called a permesso di soggiorno, which is the piece of paper that actually entitles you to stay longer than three months; and (c) residency, which allows you to do things like join the Italian version of Medicare, buy a car, and so on. Bureaucracy moves slowly here. It took five months for our Permessi to be processed.

The ID cards are optional. We need to carry identification with us that confirms we're legally entitled to live here (because we've been here way beyond the tourist's three months). We could carry our Permessi, but they're A4 sheets of paper. The ID cards, which carry the same basic info, fit into our wallets.

Brrrrrr! Winter arrived early. Like overnight. The first snow of the season, six weeks early.

The view out the bedroom window this morning: {{gwi:2116119}}

Dermott, at the front gate, wondering what the white stuff is: {{gwi:2116120}}

Mrs finbar and Snowy proving the maxim that Italy sees the best and worst of fashion: {{gwi:2116121}}

And, out at the olive farm, work on the new vegie patch is suspended: {{gwi:2116122}}

Beautiful! All the more so because I don't have to live through it.

Yeh, I'll pass on that, too. Much prefer the bikini season.

Wimps. My favourite time of year. Better than Sydney's twelve months humidity soup. If only I could grow vegies in it.

You're from Melbourne, right?

I can feel a hot house coming on. More escavation, a large timber frame and plastic wrap. I'm sure you'll get plenty of moral support here as well.

Plenty of humidity, that's for sure. A touch of EB, some bacterial speck, thrush and tinea.

Are you thinking of getting into bottling? I'm sure you could organise to have a Vacola delivered. Without the patch what are you going to do?

Cold frames would allow you to grow lots of things right through winter - certainly carrots, lettuce, mache, erba stella and spinach. Unfortunately, I think they need to have been started in late summer/autumn because they stop growing pretty much during the colder months, although spinach will happily germinate and grow at temps around zero. Where are your late summer planted peas, leeks and kale, I'd like to know? (Says he with years of experience growing in true four season climates!!!)

Finbar, your thread has been hugely successful, so you'll surely want to start another

PP,
There appears to be no limit to the number of posts per thread these days :)

I love winter. Bring on the piccies, finbar. Great food too, for winter. :)

Wow , looks like they're allowing more than 100, as Grublet says.

It looks lovely. God I love the cold.
Wait 'til Spring. You get this rush of energy. It's amazing. Lucky Dawgs you. Mrs Fin is Chic , as always. GRRRRR.

Ray, the late summer/autumn pea crop has suffered from a massively wet autumn. The broad beans have suffered too. They hate wet feet. It was so wet that even the flavour of this season's oil was affected. Less peppery than usual.

We were meant to have a bona fide glass glasshouse well before now. Hold ups with the work on the house delayed it. The house took priority. For some reason. It will be in place next year. In the meantime, before spring, I'll create a temporary structure at the top of the new garden to give the spring plantings a flying start.

Last night we took some visitors up to our local trattoria in the hills above the town. Great food, as always, including my usual pici with cinghiale ragu and a glorious marscapone dessert that I've had before. It verges on tiramisu but stops short. All in front of a roaring log fire. Had to scrape the ice off the windscreen before we could drive home.