Vinimar in Piemonte: week one to three

We had with us 24 baby tomatoes and 4 chili plants, one gooseberry plant, a chive and a hibiscus. First days we filled the trays with pumpkin, corn, parsley, more parsley, beans and much more good stuff. The first week we also cleaned the upper garden where we have planting boxes. Everything was totally overgrown and the only thing that survived was the raspberries, rosemary, the sage, and the thyme barely. All the rest - history. Strawberries, mint, parsley, and my prize artichoke - all gone and buried under one and a half meters of grass that was dry now AND was already spreading gazillions of seeds. So it was clear that this year we won't win the fight against it, as soon as we start to water those billions of grass seeds will erupt.

We bought sallad for the upper level and set basil and parsley and more parsley and a bit of ruccola. We have dug about 20 sqm of land up in the lower part - to prepare for the tomatoes. We got a huge heap of manure from the neighbour delivered - that is going to last for three years (unless I get my will through to make deep beds, but that needs a bit more negotiation from my end).

Have to remind ourselves that we are on holiday, and that while we want to do some work on the house and in the garden, it should not feel overwhelming. Heat helps, it is so warm in the daytime that working outside from 11 to 7 pm is really hard. So we plan to do a bit of work in the garden in the morning and then do some project in the house in the afternoon after siesta.

Our apricot tree has full fruit for the first time this year. Last year it was still a very young tree and it had 12! apricots on it, half of them fell off before they were ripe, half of the rest rotted on the tree and the remaining ones were not really so wonderful to taste. But we gave the tree a good trimming and this year it is brimming with fruit and we had our very first jam from that tree. Not so much other fruit as a late frost seems to have killed quite a bit of the fruit this season.