Foreign country

[martMember]

Hi Charles,

Bit of a strange question but I wondered if your book on growing winter vegetables would be any use in Italy. You think I can shift your dates a bit. Understand it is not that easy but your no dig book is helping me out now and then and I really like your writing/gardening style.

Thanks,

Mart

ps. I’m in Umbria at 300m which is normal here, not to extreme.

[charlesModerator]

 Hello Mart

Thanks for your comments.
Apart from your weather being somewhat hotter in summer and generally rather drier (normally) I imagine it is fairly similar. Most of the advice will be applicable and you have the bonus of extra light in winter, so salads at that time of year will be more bountiful, also spinach and kale.
I should be interested to know more of how useful the books are in different climates and latitudes, for example the rights to Organic Gardening were bought by Hungarian publishers, and then by a Greek house, but they had to withdraw when finances tightened.

[martMember]

Hello Charles,

You’re wellcome.
Last year I hadn’t heard of you yet and did some experiment by myself which worked quite well. Funniest part was that there must have been quite a lot of seed in the compost/plant material that I put on top of the cardboard as tomato plants just popped out of the ground as did a lot of amaranth. The soil here is clay and rocks, maybe that should be the other way round. It compacts immensly when hot and starts cracking. Basically it is unsuited to grow anything in it as it is. The part I experimented on is producing some stuff and now with your book should work even better.

You are right about the light in winter months I have fantastic spinach and salads and kale though also here development stops somewhere in December. Might also be due to my not fantastic spot lightwise in winter. Can’t remember what production was like in my home country but cabbage and leeks I guess. We do have frosts here which kills a lot of plants in the winter. Last year a huge amount of olive trees got whiped out as well, it can be windy to. I got a tunnel to protect plants from strongest cold winds. Problem is buildup of water on the plastic which drips on the plants and then when it freezes…….

Anyway I’ll try to ul some pictures somewhere so you can see the setup and order the winter boo, they have at at the new amazon.it which saves in postage.
Sorry to hear about the book deals. I think there is a market for good info here though finances of people are tight and they are very stuborn. ‘We have always done it like this etc…..’ Also frightening the amount of chemicals, which they call ‘medicine’ they use. Lots of people don’t sow their own stuff, they buy readymade plants which to me don’t produce the most tastefull fruit and leaves. This year grafted plants are al the rage, costing an eye popping 6€ a pop.

Btw a question you write in your book you discovered putting cardboard on top works better, I wonder why and how do you keep it in place?
Saluti,
Mart

[charlesModerator]

 Thanks for your interesting observations about growing on an Umbrian hill. The wind sounds daunting. In midwinter, even at your latitude, there is a lull when light falls below a certain level, in your case for much of December and January, but mild temperatures can offset this to some extent.

When mulching initially to smother thick weeds or grass, I prefer cardboard on top so that it rots less quickly, compared to when it is buroed by moist compost and then loses the mulching effect. On the other hand, keeping it in place is tricky, I use some stones on overlapping edges, but in high winds this may not be enough. You may do better to use a double layer of cardboard and some organic matter on top.

Grafted plants are, I think, not worth the cost. I am doing a comparison of tomatoes here and currently there is actually more fruit on my home raised non-grafted ones, although the grafted plants’ leaves look healthier.

[Author]

Posts