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!
Phew, finally have a second to comment on your post. Honestly the Hive Garden is busy at this time of year!
Yes! I love being in that very meditative, quiet and attentive place in the garden. I often think true gardeners could be the ones to save the world via better ag practices if they listened to Earth in this way.
Currently it's raining and it's possible to move into the soil in my mind and think of all the bacteria and bugs and worms and mycellium dancing. They too are part of our gardens - if only everyone thought beneath the surface!
I think with this new weather cycle it's going to get pretty hot and dry again. Mulching and letting plants rot down is essential, and the little microclimates we build. Love the progress on your little world-garden.
Would you mind dropping links to the missed reward posts here? Its too easy for me to miss the Hive Garden notifications. The poll has been a bit of a muddle for a few communities as we have been given mixed/incorrect instructions re beneficiary and reward app which was why I was concerned you hadn't received the reward. Then it just got lost in the fray of life admin both personal and Hive - again, did not mean to create disharmony, just dropped the ball. Thanks for the reminder. Discord, if you do it, too - riverflows#4691. Would help me out hugely. Can't do today but absolutely tomorrow.
Buongiorno, cara @riverflows - thank you for asking for the link, and for your good comments about my post herehttps://peakd.com/hive-140635/@clareartista/my-italian-garden-how-my-plants-get-so-big This is the most recent one that I was promised rewards on, I THINK - but yes, I don't find it easy to navigate - it sticks out for me if I win a reward like this one, but it is not easy to navigate the Leo Threads aspect on my laptop. The older reward I wouldn't remember where to start looking...
And yes, it's beautiful to have the community here to discuss the deeper aspects of communing with Nature, with: especially now I'm connected with folks like @bigorna1 and @samstonehill and others in the Elecroculture Community, and folks who are deeply permaculture and connected with communities who have more wholistic views...
I too wish to be physically more interwoven with others who think like this, and I hope long-term to move from this intensively-farmed valley, into wilder and free-er lands, where I can fully immerse myself in natural systems with folks who are ready and able to co-create. At the same time, it might transpire that the gardens I have been working so long, remain 'mine' for the long-term - so I'm doing what I can with them, and hope to make more progress with volunteers, if I can, over this summer, so that it will be easier to work next year: I may even get some plants and seeds planted in it one day!
Volunteers would really help the progress. Gardening can be a big job on one's own, which is why it's even more essential to use permaculture methods to make your efforts a bit less human labour intensive. We need posts like yours in the HG community. However I'm heartened by how many mindful, attentive, consciousness gardeners are here on Hive using organic practices. And if they're spraying with harmful pesticides, I usually have something to say. 😂😂
Monday morning here, and I have a thumping headache. If I don't get onto your rewards today it'll be tomorrow. It is on a big list of things to do this week but it won't be forgotten. I'll try to find the other one by going through my posts but can't make promises to find it if it's been quite a while after the fact. I feel really terrible about it and a bit frustrated.
Oh my goodness I love how you respect all the beings in your garden! So natural, not all in boring straight rows with no surprises. I love surprises in my garden. Very nice!!
😍
I love getting your encouragement, dear @owasco - it means a lot! And yes, YES, the surprises are my favourite kind of gardening experience!! If it was all predicatable and in rows, bleuuuuurrgghhh! Hahaha! Thanks so much for commenting!
The snail at the end, can i ask how big are they ? I mean in the picture it looks quite large but what i have read and seen in my grandmother's village long back was very small snails. You know small enough that one can have 4-5 snails in one hand easily.
Ciao @kahkashan ! Yes, this one was around 4 cm diameter, but others are even bigger. 😍
but you know, I like the climate in your place. And the soil from what I see in the picture is fertile. ^_^
It is a good climate, indeed, dear @kennyroy - thank you so much for your encouragement! Yes, the soil is becoming fertile through my continuing work: it looks better under the rain, than now that the baking heat has arrived! Already it looks more clay-like in places where the mulch isn't as thick... Some lovely corners are dark thick humus though, and I look forward to seeing what grows out of there! Good wishes for a happy Sunday!