February in Liguria

Garden plans and fruit and veg markets. Cycling trips down to the sea and hanging out in cafes.

Once a week, on a Wednesday, there’s a fruit and vegetable stall in Dolcedo. I have bought excellent produce there a few times and last week I’d planned to buy my weekly veggies from there, as they are super fresh and delicioso!

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I waited my turn and noted what the lady next to me was buying. I noticed a beetroot type root that looked like it was covered in thick mud, so I asked her what it was. She confirmed it was beetroot. When it was my turn to choose, I put one of the beetroots in, almost like an afterthought. Took my bag home and put everything away in the fridge.

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A few days later, I looked up a recipe for Borscht (which I was first introduced to by my very lovely Ukrainian friends about 3 years ago) and started gathering the veggies and seasonings. The beetroot, in its brown paper bag looked like it was encased in burnt paper and mud. I smelled it. There was definitely a smokey flavour. Then I began to peel the outer layers off. Indeed, the beetroot was cooked and what’s more looked like it had been roasted in a fire, an outdoors firepit. It transformed into the sweetest Borscht and I will be back to buy more beetroot.

Talking of beetroot, our lovely neighbours gave us some plants late last year. I planted them (too close they told me) and they grew, but my heart wasn’t really in it. There was a lot going on and I wasn’t ready to start our little vegetable garden. In fact I still do not believe I am ready. Being cautious because I truly feel it’s better to wait so that my heart and soul can be poured into planting and tending the plants, especially during their tender early stages.

Our garden is a typical Ligurian 5 tiered one, full of ancient olive trees, that Marty has been busy chopping, lopping and pruning. Whilst all this shinning up trees and lobbing branches down carries on, I have been serving my apprenticeship as general garden labourer and I have a pair of mud-caked trainers to prove it. I have learned how to lay a simple garden path (with tiles that were left here in the garden) and the end result is pleasing. They are not 100% level, but 80%. In due course they might be levelled off. I also dug out a permanent fire pit. There may be a slight issue with drainage, but there are solutions for that (to be revealed in a future post). Some lavender cuttings have been organised into the main sitting/social area of the garden and many huge pieces of rock that were used as stepping stones have been dug up They’ve been re-purposed as a beautiful fire pit surround, a little dry wall homage to the beautiful Ligurian slate and stone walls seen everywhere here, and as standing stones guarding the entry to the fire pit.

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All this came about because of a thought a couple of weeks ago that using and reinventing what we already have in the garden was a far better approach than starting from scratch. Also from some garden therapy/mistakes caused by not having a plan before action. Did I tell you that I spent an extraordinary amount of time clearing the main level where you enter the garden of river pebbles? They had been nicely laid on geotextile fabric. I took it all up to see what the soil was like underneath and maybe give a chance for natural ground cover to happen. It hasn’t happened yet. I shifted many wheelbarrows of stone down to the second level, only to realise that probably the stones were a good idea to contain the first level. So…maybe I will lug the stones back up again. A lesson learned.

In any case, speaking of plans, we did draw some up with Marty’s friends who came to visit us late last year, and they were beautiful, ambitious and professional plans. Don’t get me wrong, I was very grateful for the opportunity of having a proper landscape gardener share his ideas and help me envisage mine, but I didn’t know what I wanted back then and the garden hadn’t told me. Yes, just like with the ancient building attached to the back of our house, the Rustica, I am waiting for a nudge from the space itself to tell me what it needs. It has begun to tell me!

It’s saying yes to an outside shower, only cold required, rigged up against one of the stone walls. It’s saying yes to laying the bank of beautiful slate tiles as pathways around the second and third (maybe even the first) level, it’s saying yes to return the stones back to the first level, To put a hot (cold) tub on the concrete base that’s already there is a whisper, but maybe in combination with a sauna, another whisper, and it’s saying to leave the yoga deck for now. That will emerge itself somehow…

And this is why I am not sure I will have the necessary dedication for the four long vegetable planters, full of good soil, waiting for seeds and seedlings. I know that tomatoes must be grown this year, but I also want to tend the lemon, mandarin and apricot trees. And what about the spindly grapevine we found draped above the (now removed to the bottom level) compost heap? So much love is needed by all of these beautiful shrubs. My commitment as custodian of this beautiful piece of land is sincere and to do it justice, I need to listen, to tend and to take my time.