Yup! Spring Has Sprung

Not a sign of a snow flake. He typed, crossing his fingers. Metaphorically, as it were.
Some things in the garden are raring to go, others are already on their way.

In the mini-greenhouse, the tomatoes, hot chillies, sweet chillies, lettuces, capsicums, egg plant and some spring onions are raring:
Not to mention more spring onions, brown onions, zucchini, cucumber, Kent pumpkin, watermelon and Italian parsley:
We're getting mid-teen temperatures most days but it's still single figures overnight, so most of these have another couple of weeks before they hit the ground.

Elsewhere, the precocious cherry tree, in its third season in the ground, in its second fruiting season, looks to have at least twice the crop it had last season:
And the Italian version of silver beet, over-wintered under a couple of layers of fleece, is repaying the patience:
Even the rocket is getting a shuffle on:
Rocket is very much an early spring crop around here, particularly in this garden. There are next to no shady spots in the garden, and a crop will bolt like a flash as soon as things heat up.

The first stringless French climbing beans went in early:
And possibly a couple of weeks early. They were started in the mini-greenhouse, flourished, and two or three consecutive days of high teens temperatures seduced me into planting them out. Of course, things immediately turned chilly and damp. But they're battling along.

Now, L'Artista is altogether fond of steamed baby new potatoes. Trouble is, Italy doesn't really do potatoes in terms of a wide variety of same. Look for seed potatoes here and you have a choice of white, yellow or red, all maincrop. Our very kind English neighbours - they have a holiday apartment at the top of our building - offered to help out. Last time they came, they brought a handful of one of the nicest new earlies, Arran Pilot, and, on the basis that I have limited growing space, half of them went into a tub of compost:
They've already developed since this photo. In fact, they had their first hilling the other day. The other half went into the ground. L'Artista will have no complaints this potato season.

Elsewhere, the carrots - Amsterdam Forcing, a wonderful early, sweet variety - are poking their feathery tops out of the ground:
And the radishes are doing their version of the same:
And last but not least, for this post anyway, the rhubarb is getting a rattle on:
Last year, I planted three seedlings started by a friend. Rhubarb grown from seed can be a dicey proposition at the best of times. Two didn't make it through the icy winter. This one did. The two fatalities hit the compost heap. L'Artista saved this one from a similar fate - as fond as I am of rhubarb, it takes up so much space in a small garden - and I transplanted it into a pot full of compost on the terrace. And it's booming. It can thank L'Artista.

Spring One Day, Winter The Next

Why are blogs like mouths? Because you open them and end up sounding like a proper dill.

Last time I mused that spring was springing. Finally. I had started my onion seeds, followed rapidly by the tomatoes, capsicum, chillies, various lettuces - in fact, the whole gamut.

About ten days later - which is to say, only a couple of weeks ago - this is what we woke to:
That's not a photo taken through a dirty window. Nor has a cotton-stuffed cushion been disembowelled and tossed in the air.

It's snow. That's right. S.N.O.W.

The seeds that had germinated were already basking in their little greenhouse warmed by the spring sunshine.

Well, they were, until they discovered they were looking out on snow:
I'd also uncovered the strawberries from their winter cocoon of a triple layer of garden fleece:
That's them just visible on the right. They coped. Remarkable plants, strawbs. Now they're flowering.

Tomorrow, 19C is forecast. The day after? The garden shudders to think.

Spring Is Springing If Not Yet Entirely Sprung

Barely three weeks ago, this was the sight that greeted us in the gardens just outside the town's front gate:

Yes, that's ice. The flowers around the fountain were doing it tough, too:

Today, the sky is as clear and blue as three weeks ago, but it's 14C. A good enough excuse to start the first vegie seeds of the season:

That's Cipolla Tropea Rossa Lunga, the long red onion from Tropea, Calabria, in southern Italy. Almost cigar-shaped, they're the sweetest onions you'll come across in a day's march. Absolutely delicious very finely sliced in salads.

And here are the seeds keeping warm in their improvised greenhouse until they germinate:

It's impossible to underestimate how thrilled L'Artista is every spring to have the espresso machine and every heater in the place loaded with seed trays inside plastic bags.

In the next week or so, it'll be time to start the tomatoes, capsicums, chillies and all sorts of other good things.

The distant thuds you hear is L'Artista beating her head against a wall.

In the meantime, there are winter weeds to clear.

Send down the sun, Huey.

Remember that Pumpkin?

That single solitary Kent pumpkin? The paltry end result of three vines producing a zillion male flowers and only one female flower over an entire summer?

It sacrificed itself in a very good cause - lunch on Christmas Day:


And it was scrummy. Nothing roasts as wonderfully as a Kent pumpkin.

More next summer, please, Garden God.

You know it really is winter ...

... when the first snow falls on your Tuscan garden.

The strawbs snuggle up under their fleece blanket:

The broad beans tough it out:


As does the garlic:


And the lemon tree shivers inside its overcoat:


In five months time, it will be 35C.

Variety is the spice.

One good thing about winter

Harvesting parsnips!

In Italian, parsnip is known as pastinaca. But try to find one anywhere in central or southern Italy. They're virtually unknown. Lorenzo, our neighbour, didn't even recognise the photo on the seed packet. His wife, Marina, did. She had seen them in Prague. But never tried them.

They're known in the north, especially around Parma, because they're fed to the pig population, source of the glorious Parma ham. A noble cause, but the locals don't know what they're missing out on.

I feel a bit like Emperor Tiberius. It's said that he brought parsnips to Rome from France and Germany.

Well, a couple of thousand years later, I'm bringing them to central Italy.

Grey, Damp and Chilly

It's autumn. It's seriously autumn. The occasionally sunny day, but mostly grey, the air heavy with moisture, and nothing above 10° Celsius.

The strawberries are already under cover:

That's a double layer of fleece. Should see them through till spring.

Next door to the strawbs, the Florence fennel is going gangbusters:

Late-summer into autumn is the only time to grow Florence fennel around here. Spring-planted, it bolts as soon as the summer heat arrives.

Up on the second terrace, next year's garlic supply has not only been planted, it's already up:

The shortest day of the year - December 21st in these parts - is traditionally the garlic-planting date. I start earlier in order to give them a head start before the serious cold hits. I bought White Italian seed garlic from the local Agricolo or agricultural supplies store.

And, from experience, I selected and planted only the fattest, healthiest cloves. Growing garlic really is a case of harvesting what you sow. Plant skinny, shrivelled cloves and that's what you'll harvest.

Next door to the garlic, for the heck of it, I've established a test-planting of Savoy cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli:

It's a test because I didn't bother trying to grow anything - apart from garlic - over last autumn and winter. The fact is, the garden is south-facing and sees no sun at all after early October because the sun, low in the sky, never gets above the medieval wall that forms our back fence. Such is the price of a medieval back fence.

In the same experimental vein, I've planted an early variety of broad beans:

They will cope with the low temperatures, whether they'll cope with the lack of sun is a different matter. Thus far, fair enough. And, yes, I need to weed.

The English Spinach, next door to the broad beans, are equally in need of a weed:

Meanwhile, on the top terrace, L'Artista's penchant for black figs has been addressed:

I established this baby from cuttings taken from a friend's black fig tree earlier this year. I've also planted it in what amounts to a bottomless box - the roots contained on four sides by large tiles buried on their edge. The theory goes that containing a fig's roots produces a more compact tree and superior fruit production. We shall see.

It, along with its mates, spent its first couple of months on the terrace in pots of barely moist potting mix, out of the hot sun, partly enclosed in a plastic shopping bag to create a sympathetic, slighty humid growing environment.

Eventually, with root structures developed, the plastic bags came off and the babies were left to develop:

The one on the left is the one I've planted. Of the other two, one is for a friend's garden and the third is a spare.

Roll on the black figs.

And roll on spring!