If I may, I’d like to suggest looking at the videos of the Natural Farmer (John Kaisner) on Youtube. He gardens/has a property on the northern tip of Sicily in a climate that sounds very much like yours, Giorgio. He has several videos about mulching, what kind of mulch, how to preserve and use water etc. in that very dry climate. In his experience straw gives too little protection against the soil drying out so he uses leaf mulch with great success.
Hope I haven’t stepped on any toes by suggesting this, otherwise my apologies.
