Sitting down to eat together is a cornerstone of Italian culture. Perhaps you’ve heard about this or experienced it yourself, but for Italians food is a sacred substance and sharing it with others completes the rite. After years living in this country, I catch myself performing rituals of this culinary communion that I’d never imagined… Read More Sea Change
August is an awesome time to look back on all we’ve accomplished in 5 months, especially as we harvest produce. I’m really proud that despite some minor hiccups, e.g. 900+ pea starts and less than 20 mature pods, the forgiving fertility of our tilth and our steep learning curve has produced pretty rich results. Here’s… Read More Fruits of our Labors (Part 1, The Cornucopia)
Appropriately after dancing around the May Pole and celebrating Spring we’re starting to plant. We’re actually not far behind the rest of the valley since the weather has been frightful, with heavy rain falling far later than usual and even hail yesterday. We’ve been able to plant in the new “synergic beds” we built in… Read More We have plants in the ground!
Today we worked in the orchard, one of our best south facing fields. The orchard is full of various “forgotten” varieties of fruits and nuts. Because other varieties were more marketable, or the fruit itself is somewhat unusual, or for various other reasons many of these trees are rare. Unfortunately they were planted with property… Read More Finding contours
Today we went to a fair called the “Hobby Farmer” and found a young woman, originally from Holland, talking about permaculture and synergetic gardening. She lives in an ecovillage in Marche (a region close by), and she spoke about how to plant a garden in a synergetic way: not tilling the land and not compacting… Read More Synergy
It’s all been a little hectic as we “settle in” to the life here on the Fattorie Faggioli. As some folks have facetiously suggested, our whole mission to coax donkeys and keep goats out of the feed (et.c etc. etc.) is a daunting task considering the number of things to do and our minimal experience.… Read More The Problem is the Solution
