Category: veggie

Our first big project was the construction of a big veggie garden. With the uncertainties of this new pandemic situation, we figured that it won’t be a mistake to create a slightly bigger garden, just in case we would have to become self-sufficient earlier than we had thought… The capacity of it should be able to feed at least six people or more.

We chose a sunny 500m2 patch that stretches along the steep, forested valley-side down to the river which runs 150 m below. There were just four small olive trees on this terrasse, so we wanted to include them in our garden design as a shade instead of eliminating them. First of all, we had to create a durable fence to keep out the many wild boars that roam these lands. Many people had warned us from these animals that seem to be quite a plague here.

Protection against wild boars

The main reason is that there are no more predators (i.e. wolves) around to keep their numbers at bay. Some locals have another explanation for this phenomenon: The legend goes that some farmer once bound a domestic sow (female pig) and had her impregnated by a wild boar. Later on, part of the offspring apparently managed to escape and therefore combined the original genes with properties from the domesticated mother. While wild boars usually only give birth once a year, these new wild boars (with partly domesticated genes) could now reproduce up to three times a year and get up to twelve young ones at a time!
Whatever the case might be, we soon discovered holes in pre-existing fences in other parts of our land. Following the trails that started at these holes we regularly discovered patches that had been upturned by a troop of wild pigs. So far, the damage luckily has been moderate since they didn’t reach the roots of the olive trees. Let’s hope it’ll stay that way!
Nevertheless, we were warned..

So we dug a trench, 50 cm deep and 30 cm wide and inserted more than 100 hard-wood poles (chestnut), each of them 1 m apart. The poles were secured by hammering granite stones into the soil around them

We continued by filling the rest of the trench with more granite stones and some rubble that the previous owners had dumped somewhere on the land.
After the main fence (150 cm high) was set, we reinforced it with a 1 m high heavy-duty steel-mesh which was buried around 30 cm into the ground.

Our volunteers Angi and Joel completed the job with two nicely crafted gates that would supposedly withstand any attempt by wild boars of ramming it.
After some weeks of hard labor we finally could start with the initial task of creating a veggie garden!

Preparing the beds and soil

The existing soil seemed to be pretty compacted, so we decided to loosen it with digging forks. The first layer was dry leaves and/or cardboard to reduce the weed pressure from below as there was nothing more than thick grass and weeds present.

Luckily, we got a few cubic meters of old soil (supposedly fertile) out of a ruin in town, where a huge fig tree has been growing for decades. The beds were then topped off with a 10 cm thick layer of soil mix (we added old chicken manure that we’ve found in a barrel – unfortunately, it was almost decomposed to soil). After putting the soil mix on the beds, we watered them down to moisten the soil and also the cardboard underneath.

The fun begins

Finally, the fun part could start: Planting the beds! Shortly after our arrival to the land, we had eagerly germinated a big variety of seeds, no matter if they were in season or not. We brought a bunch of seeds with us and we didn’t even know if these varieties would tolerate the much hotter climate here in the south.

We planted tomatoes, basil, peppers, pumpkins, zucchini, cucumbers, strawberries, leeks, salads, onions, carrots, broccoli (which was apparently not the right season – they grew like crazy but went straight to seeding stage), beans, beetroots, chard, corn and many other things would follow as soon as we got more beds prepared. Our volunteer Diego built us a nice broad fork to loosen the soil much easier as you operate it with your whole body, not just with your hands.
We eagerly mulched all the beds around the seedlings to avoid evaporation and to slow down weed growth. Since May was no season to find fresh straw, we had to take what was left over from the previous year (most of it got rained on), so we must have used some moldy bits in our mulch because some plants really didn’t seem to grow for weeks. Only after we had taken it off or have replaced the straw with other mulch (wood chips that we made with our shredder) the beds suddenly showed some increased activity.

The small house garden

We also created a small house garden which is running along and underneath a pergola-like structure that is overgrown with wine. We also included the pre-existing lemon tree, a loquat tree, a plum tree and a fig tree inside the fence.

These trees will most likely produce much more fruit in the long run, thanks to the irrigation in the surrounding garden. In return, they will help shade the plants from too much sun. The little wooden bench that Mario and Markus have built invites everyone to enjoy little breaks in the midst of a beautiful variety of plants and flowers.

This little bench invites everyone to enjoy little breaks in the midst of a beautiful variety of plants and flowers. If you want to know more about our adventures you can join our community and receive our regular newsletter.