Stones, steps, lawn and hortus

New at Le Ripe

Le Ripe has been undergoing some changes over the past months. A no-man's land has been graced with steps, a broken drystone wall is being replaced, a vegetable patch is gradually transforming into a hortus conclusus, a lawn has been sown, a new vegetable patch is to be established.

The lawn or prato inglese as our helper Paolo likes to call it, entailed a massive job of stone-harvesting, the bulk of which we completed in one back-breaking session. Sowing the seeds was a doddle by comparison. The daily watering has been handled by a chief hose-master who has been extremely assiduous.

We have finally found builders willing to lay a drystone wall; it will run along the back of the orchard where once the farmers had made their own wall. The stone comes partly from the old wall but mostly from near Greve; our stone is called alberese, this one colombino or, simply, pietra dura, hard stone. More on this when it is completed.

The new steps made with railway sleepers, and an attractive river-pebble gravel over a cement and rock aggregate called stabilizzato and non-woven fabric to protect from weeds. Here the (mostly aromatic) plants are in place.

view of steps from below; note large iron nails hammered in horizontally to fix the sleepers in place

The House of the Red Roses

La Casa delle Rose Rosse

At the edge of the village of Lucarelli, which lies along the valley below Le Ripe, stands a large stone house where some friendly, helpful locals live. The family kindly brought their tractor up to Le Ripe one day when the man who sometimes delivers wood got stuck in the mud.

Home produce

The Egg of the Goose and other Good Things

goose eggs next to hen's

A friend has given us three goose eggs. The shell is thick and has to be cracked open with decision. The yolks are huge and deep yellow. Three eggs make an excellent omelette for four. And there is little difference in flavour between this and a good, fresh hen's egg.

This year we are not growing any vegetables in our vegie patch as it is being turned into a medieval garden or hortus conclusus, and the new vegie patch is being constructed, raised beds and all. There will be no magnificent tomatoes or freshest lettuce this summer as we shall have to wait for the notorious fence (see side column) before planting anything deer might desire. However the strawberries and rhubarb in the old vegie patch continue to thrive and the walls of climbing roses are tall and full of buds.

Wildflowers

a sampling of May's wild blooms

Je dois peut-être aux fleurs d’avoir été peintre.

 'I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.' 

Claude Monet

wildflower posy with camomile, pinks, osyris, thyme, amongst others - thank-you Angèle

Tuscan Bread

Dante and the Mystery of the Salt-less Bread

Cacciaguida speaks with Dante (in blue) in Paradise. Padua, Biblioteca del Seminario, ms. 67.

In Paradise XVII of the Divina Commedia Dante hears a prophecy about his (ostensibly future) exile. Cacciaguida tells the Poet:  

Tu proverai sì come sa di sale
lo pane altrui...

You are to know the bitter taste
of others' bread, how salt it is...

trans. Mandelbaum 

Naturally this may simply be a metaphor, but as anyone who has spent time in this part of the world will know, Tuscan bread is without salt. It is made from flour, water and yeast and there is NO salt whatsoever, not even a pinch. 

a Tuscan loaf

A New World Heritage 'Site' in Tuscany

Now we are seven

Since 2013 Tuscany can boast seven UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Sites. In addition to the historical centres of Florence; Siena; San Gimignano and Pienza; the Cathedral Square of Pisa, known as Piazza dei Miracoli (and who could deny the miracle?); as well as the 'cultural landscape' of the Val d'Orcia; now twelve Medici Villas and two Gardens are collectively on the list.

Giardino del Cavaliere, Knight's Garden, Boboli Gardens Florence

UNESCO's reasons for embracing the villas as a world cultural heritage site are as follows: 

Twelve villas and two gardens spread across the Tuscan landscape make up this site which bears testimony to the influence the Medici family exerted over modern European culture through its patronage of the arts. Built between the 15th and 17th centuries, they represent an innovative system of construction in harmony with nature and dedicated to leisure, the arts and knowledge. The villas embody an innovative form and function, a new type of princely residence that differed from both the farms owned by rich Florentines of the period and from the military might of baronial castles. The Medici villas form the first example of the connection between architecture, gardens, and the environment and became an enduring reference for princely residences throughout Italy and Europe. Their gardens and integration into the natural environment helped develop the appreciation of landscape characteristic of Humanism and the Renaissance.  ...from UNESCO site.

Sound the trumpets, roll the drums! The twelve villas are: 

The Beasts of Le Ripe

Local Fauna, a Taxonomy

Indigenous and introduced, the wildlife at Le Ripe, and in Chianti generally, is varied and abundant. This list only covers interesting four-legged mammals, for birds have been discussed in detail elsewhere: see posts on starlings, bird visitors, the nightingale and feeding birds while bees and a magnificent spider also make appearances in other posts. Traces of all the mammals below have been found in one form or another, and most have been sighted, at one time or another, at Le Ripe.

Wild Boar - Sus Scrofa

Of course this is really a wild sow; the mothers tend to move about in the company of one or two other mothers, with all their young, a kind of mothers and toddlers playgroup. The only time to fear the boar is when the mothers are protecting their young.

Crested Porcupine - Hystrix Cristata

The two most frequent traces of the porcupine: its striped quills which fall out easily when the animal is threatened; and the filching of bulbs from the garden. Bulbs are a special treat for porcupines.

Fruit of the Month: Loquats

the underrated loquat, eriobotrya japonica

It is hard to find loquats at the greengrocer in the English-speaking world, but in Italy in early spring you will see these small, oval, thin-skinned, apricot-coloured fruits even in supermarkets. They are native to China, were naturalized in Japan and have been cultivated in the West for quite some time.
Here they are called nespole, the tree a nespolo.

Weeding Shakespeare

The Bard in the Yard 

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds

2 Henry IV 4.4.

Mulch marvellous mulch

 Celebrate the Chip!

home-made wood chip mulch

After much discussion, research and attempts to find a solution, including the inevitable delays, 
Le Ripe now finds itself 
Rich in Mulch.

Subterranean Siena

A walk beneath Siena to explore its medieval waterworks

In a hilltop town which lacks a natural spring, where does the water in that fountain come from?

Walking around Siena one happens on a variety of medieval wells. Yet Siena is not naturally rich in water: it is a hilltop settlement and situated far from the great rivers of Tuscany. Until World War I the city relied on a water supply system constructed in the Middle Ages: 25 kilometres of channels and side-channels, an underground aqueduct winding under the entire city. They are called the bottini, a name perhaps related to the barrel shape of the passages, botte being barrel.

 

Garmugia: soup from Lucca

A reviving early spring soup

fava beans, artichokes, peas and asparagus, amongst others

The origins are unclear but this soup is certainly found only in the environs of Lucca and it is clearly a dish to be cooked and eaten in early spring when the fava beans and peas are at their most tender. The origin of the name garmugia (rhymes with Perugia) may be germiglio or sprout since the vegetables are all the first of the season.