the growing season started

 We have been working hard in the last few weeks, especially looking after the vines. Pruning, weeding, trying to avoid the mild dew to occur again and save the production of grapes. We think we have managed this so far, but we still wait until the end of June to make sure grapes have started to develop.

As we stand, all seems going well, so, fingers crossed, this time we should make some wine. As for the vegetables, they are starting to grow well and to produce. We already had basil, courgettes, cabbages and lots of lettuces. Potatoes will be soon ready and tomatoes are already developing  on the plants.

First fruit we had is the nespola or meddler. peaches and prunes are on their way. pears are in abundance  but still long way to go. Goji berries are already starting to mature. The vineyard has taken a big chunk of time to work with, every morning for the last two weeks. Watering vegetables is an affair of the evening. Every day between 40 minute to one hour. Not all the vegetables are watered every day as there are too many and so we decided to split the lot into two sections.

Recently we had strong thunder storms with lots of rain and this has saved us time to water the plants. Heavy rain has occurred already 4 times this month. Basically we fluctuated between autumnal days to summer days in 48 hours. We had  temperatures as high as 29 already, so we do not know what the summer will bring.

The olive crop this year is not as abundant as the previous one, which was exceptional, but, we are hoping to collect some . The chickens are producing lots of eggs and although we failed to incubate successfully some ( only 3 chicks in 23  eggs ), finally one hen just went broody and she has got 10 eggs to look after. Hopefully she will be better that a incubator. Incubator was bought because chicken did not seem to have any intention to became mothers,  but now is happening.

One rebel chick has decided not to be so sociable with the others. Chickens and cockerel are not bothering her but she refuse to stay with the others and every night is a battle to catch her and put her safely into the house. But now we have built a separate chicken run for her and the ( hopefully) new chicks.

Here a few pictures to complete the description above.

  

before and after weeding

  

taking off excess young shoots and a happy caterpillar

  

after heavy rain and vegetable galore

  

cabbage and nespole

  

                                                 goji berries and pomegranate in bloom

  

collecting hay for the chicken house and fresh eggs

     

flower bed created by Lesley and " not a dandelion"

      

olive flowers before opening and after

  

sunrise and sunset in Locoe land

   

Rebel chick at dusk trying to sleep outside but it is not safe.

Wild pigeon in vineyard. not bothered by my presence and  a safer bird at night as it sleeps  very high up.

In the clip two of the new chicks happily together.

April 2024

Our journey to Sardinia started in Edinburgh airport. We left from there to Milano Malpensa to stay a night in the Hotel Villa Malpensa ( recommended). The next day we took the train to Milano Centrale and wander in the city before booking in the next hotel where we waited for Chris to turn up as he was coming from Scotland via rail through other countries.

                                              the breakfast buffet at Hotel Villa Malpensa

The following day all of us took the train to Firenze via Bologna. We spent most of the  day in Firenze and then on next train to Livorno where our boat was waiting. Trip on the night boat promised to be  a bit rough as there was a strong wind at the  start of the  journey. At the other end my brothers Tonino and Graziano were going to give us a lift. Waiting for their arrival in Golfo Aranci we had breakfast in the nearby café.

 Il Duomo di Milano  

                 Display of specialities ( cakes) from Florence; and Ponte vecchio

  

      

Some broad beans and peas. Preparing to stay in Locoe

 We spent Easter day in Oliena where the usual super meal was prepared. Easter Monday was in the countryside in Locoe...the classic Italian 'scampagnata'.

The procession in Oliena costumes on Easter day where the Christ and The Holy Mary are taken in a long walk through small streets. It starts  from two different churches and they meet up in the Piazza Santa Maria. This event is called "S'incontru" ( The meeting). As they touch each other an explosion of fire arms starts. After,some dances take place and offerings of sweets and wines for locals and tourists will last till lunch time.

         

The Church from which the effigy of Mary is taken  and the start of the procession.  Santa Croce and the representation of the empty tomb.

Work in Locoe started with the weeding of the Vermentino vineyard and Christopher give us a hand on this tedious and hard job. Other jobs included the watering of the numerous vegetable plants Tonino had prepared a couple of weeks earlier.  About 350 vegetables were planted. These included tomatoes, potatoes, aubergines, courgettes, lettuces, cabbages, basil, etc etc

      

the vegetables outside and inside the greenhouse

broad beans and peas planted in the distance . Many areas are left uncultivated

for the wild flowers, herbs, grasses to grow. This is a good practice as allows insects, spiders, butterflies and bees to maintain the health of the biodiverse landscape.

Another important job was to start directing the vines' new shoots  in such a way that their growth will be straight upwards . Before that the  process called Accolage was done by my brothers. Tying vine branches to the horizontal trellising wires as shown on picture. Three new shoots per plant and a fourth on at the bottom as a reserve one, just in case. 

in the meanwhile we were weeding around the plants in the vineyard

After the weeding we sprayed a preventive medication of Bordeaux mixture,  an organic fungicide composed of copper sulphate and calcium hydroxide (lime) and water. This is a treatment against powdery and downy mildew also known as peronospora.

A job to be performed without wind and in sunny dry condition. This will be done 3 times in around 30 days

 

Spring in Sardinia is a beautiful natural garden. There are dozens of types of flowers and some wild trees like the wild pear below that  attract insects including butterflies and bees.

   

      

       

A sea of wild flowers in Marazzino

Left Locoe for the house at the seaside for a few days; the weather has turned autumnal with lower temperatures and strong winds but the sun always shines in between the clouds and it is pleasantly warm when out.

At the weekend there was an event in the town of Santa Teresa to open the tourist season. It is called P.I.G which stands for Primo Maggio In Gallura. The event is open to all and includes a display and tasting of food, wine and beers produced in Sardinia. Some events are designed for kids and demonstrations of pasta making, chocolate making are organised along side of live music and street theatre.  Setting up the stalls:

   

   

November 2023 the year of olives

           

 November is going fast and the hard work of the last two weeks collecting olives will not be easily forgotten.

As promised in the last post, we want to update the situation with this year's olives. The trees have produced the most abundant crop that I personally can remember. We started collecting olives on Thursday 2nd November and the weather was good all the way through for two weeks that we helped. Sunny and warm  with the occasional breeze. So far we have collected 300 kg of olives but they still have probably another 300 kg to go if not more.

Team work;  Andrea performing acrobatics to collect the out -of-reach olives; though he prefers to let the trusty Panda help by providing battery power for the 'olive tickling' appliance, called, apparently, an 'abacchiatore'.

We decided to maximise our team's potential by carrying out the major pruning and the olive collection at the same time.  So Tonino went ahead, climbing into the trees or balancing on the broken ladder, to remove unwanted branches and shoots that would in future complicate, but not improve, the production.  This  involves the removal of substantial quantities of timber which are collected for household use.  The remaining branches and foliage have to be burned.  Until recently he would have been using a pruning saw or a chain-saw.  Now he also has a very handy battery-powered handsaw and secuteurs, which make the task (a little) less arduous and definitely quicker, though probably just as risky......

    

My brother Tonino lying on a bed of olives and Lesley and me working on pruned branches.

Reflection:
The most amazing thing which touched me was a comment from one of our elderly neighbours. He is from Orgosolo and he has a piece of land not far from ours. He stopped his car one day on his way to work  to chat with me (this is a normal thing as these people visit their land basically everyday) and he told me how he pleased he was to see our olive trees producing a good crop for the first time in a decade. He said that the pleasure in seeing the abundance of olives was as great as if it was his own olive crop.  His comment is an example of the closeness this people have to the land, even if it is not their own.

 

A tree after pruning 

  

The first task for us is to prepare the tree or group of trees by spreading nets on the ground around them or in the corridors between the rows.  Some weeks previously the ground will have been strimmed of dead grass to enable this.  Then it's just a matter of dislodging every olive you see from its branch, whether  still attached to the tree or on the ground, making sure it lands on a net!  Some people use their bare hands to strip the branches, some wear gloves, and wimps like us use a plastic comb similar to the toy rakes kids play with on the beach.  The aim of the pruning is to encourage branches that drop down, making their fruit easier to reach, but inevitably many more mature trees are too tall or in an awkward position, so we have to either climb them or use a picker on an extension pole.  Once a group of trees has been stripped, we collect the olives in crates ready to be transported to a local mill to be transformed into oil.  We were collecting an average of 12 crates of olives every day. About 20 kg each.  Every 100 kg was producing about 15 litres of olive oil.

                         Collecting olives at Graziano's land both in Esporlatu and in Locoe.  In Esporlatu which is in very hilly region about an hour's journey away, we were working on an extremely steep slope where it was often impossible to avoid slipping on the nets.  We were joined by Graziano's family, so proceedings were happily interrupted by a magnificent picnic!  Unfortunately, in order to make the most of the good weather and availability of manpower, we cannot afford to stop too often or for very long in the course of a day's work. 

The final week here in Locoe  is dedicated to burning all the off cuts from the pruning of the olive trees. We want to leave the place clean. 

Almond and olive trees against the early evening sunset in Locoe

The exceptionally hot weather persisted throughout the whole of September and October, so Battistino finally managed to jolly his brother into carrying out the long-overdue refurbishment of the water reservoir (pool) used for watering in the dry periods of the year.  So having emptied the pool, moved the goldfish (!) to a pool in another part of the land, Battistino re-rendered the outside and inside walls and floor and Tonino re-plastered them and applied a waterproof paint.  It now looks quite inviting!

Early in October, we were delighted to welcome friends Halina and Rory who were holidaying in Sardinia.....we were interested to hear their comments on our family 'farm' and look forward to finding out what else they got up to on their brief trip.

On 18th October, we made a trip to Sassari as Lesley was to sit her Italian Cittadinanza exam at the university there.  She is attempting to obtain an Italian passport and this is the first step.    We treated ourselves to a hotel for a couple of nights and took the opportunity of meeting up for a pizza with Anna, Marco and their daughter Martina.  As we had travelled north from Locoe, we decided to complete the tour by heading east towards Marazzino for a week at the seaside as the weather was still very warm.  On the way we stopped for a couple of hours to change buses in Castelsardo, an historic coastal resort in a prominent position on the north coast of the island.  Its old walled town is on the cliff-top.  Despite having bypassed the town many times before, we found that we had never visited properly.  Only a brief stop was enough to persuade us that we needed to spend more time there to explore properly on another occasion.

     

                      Visit to Castelsardo on the way back from Sassari; exploring in Marazzino

Aunty Maddalena on her 90th birthday (2nd November), here together with her sisters Cicita and Maria.