After many years of little attention we have turned our labours to the land of Casa Verde. At the front of the house is a steep peice of terraced land. A very traditional form of land maintainence in the area. Most of these terraces were made by hand centuries ago to enable land owners to have flat pieces of land on which to grow fruit and vegetables. The most popular use round here is for planting and growing olives but there are plenty of fruit trees too and pieces given over to the ‘orto’, vegetable growing plots.
At the moment we are busy strimming and repairing the terrace. The olive trees, that need pruning every year, have not been looked after for a while so we are learning how they should be cut. At the beginning of the season they should look like champagne glasses, with three or four branches rising up to form a cup shape that lets in light and allows space for new growth in the middle and yet not so much that there is not enough nutrition for all the olives to mature and to be harvested in December.
The weather here has recovered again after a wet start to May and the evenings are now becoming warm and inviting us out to walk . The Acacia is in blossom at the moment so the air is full of the most delicious aroma, but this week we head back inside as we begin the renovation of our part of the house, hopefully by the end of the year we will have some luxury to enjoy.
As a footnote we were part of a pub quiz team on Monday in Lucca and guess what we won!
Cheers.