Soybeans

I planted edamame (green soybeans) in the garden before I left Italy this Summer because we like to eat them and they're hard to find here.  But we were delayed coming back, so instead of finding 4 long rows of plump, green pods, the beans were already too mature--turning tan and rough. I crawled about at the bases as a few plants in the shade hid a few green pods--and these we ate that night, steamed and salted--a simple treat made exotic by the local scarcity.  But the rest I let dry in the field...and these will hold until next summer. Since these are organic, non-GMO soybeans specifically bred for edamame production.... the seeds are more valuable as next year's crop than as this week's dinner.

Beetle trouble

Capnodis cariosa, Flat-head, Mediterranean Borer Beetle

This thing, or one of his relatives showed up for the first time last Fall. It had just finished munching all of the new flower/leaf buds of a small plum tree that we had just planted.

This is a borer beetle and while it's the grub that does the most damage (and is really, really nasty to look at),  I'd never seen an adult on the property.....and once I saw one, and started looking around...there were dozens. On all of the plums and many of the pears and as they strip off all of the cambium and new bark of the new shoots skeletonizing the newer growth and branches.....and on smallish trees that means no flowers and no fruit.
So I squashed him.
Sorry, I know that that's probably not cool or morally sound in the "BIG" picture but on our little farm I won't use insecticides on my organic fruit trees but I'm not above basic control methods (hunt and eliminate) when the balance tips too far in favor of the lower orders. (If we still had chickens, they'd help keep them in check).

"Beetle Trouble" Sumi ink and watercolor etagami
 on Japanese paper.

This is my September Etagami for my Japanese Etagami exchange. You can see the kind of damage they do in the eroded tip of the branch.

It reads, "Beetle Trouble" in Japanese.

Topworking Grapevines

Cleft-grafted Grapevine April 1.

The right graft is taking and is budding out (May14th)

About 15 years ago, when we had a new water line brought to the farmhouse. The backhoe operators, either out of carelessness or just unawares, managed to take out an entire row of old grape vines. After getting pretty mad, and trying to yell in Italian and waving my arms a bit; they did agree at least to partially pay for replacing the vines. So that Spring I brought home 40 grafted table-grape plants and planted them in the soft earth where the new lines had been sunk underground.
 Unfortunately, 15 ended up being mislabeled and, instead of a the Italian variety, Maraviglia--a very large, pink, seedless grape---when they started producing grapes 2 years later produced dark, black wine grapes that never seem to really ripen and that even the birds ignore. But they're vigorous, grow well and make grapes every year.
So this year. I decided to try my hand at grafting them over to a new variety.  In big vineyards this wouldn't be economically feasible but as my labor comes cheap and if it works we'll get a crop as early as next year.
Top-working is a euphemism for the rather drastic decapitation of the top part of the vine to be replaced with new graft wood. It is cut off with a saw about 15" off the ground and an axe is forced vertically into the top of the stump creating a split. I then take shoots from the previous year's growth from a different kind of grape and using the grafting knife cut it into a triangular, wedge shape. This then gets gently tapped it into the cleft I've made with the axe. Each stump gets two scions of graft wood. The tricky part is that the living part of the wood; the cambium layer--is under the bark and is a thin, green layer of living cells. The cambium layer of the graft has to be in contact with the cambium layer of the trunk--but they're different diameters and colors and if they aren't placed just right and in contact they won't fuse. The whole graft is then wrapped tightly with tape and then covered with a grafting/sealing compound to seal them and keep them from drying out.

I was encouraged by last year's grafting attempts. My pear and apple grafts all took and are growing well and the one failure--a plum tree I grafted from a variety I found growing in an abandoned village in Liguria (don't know what the plums will look like....) didn't grow last year but this year sent out two healthy sprouts from the graft and I took that as a sign to forge ahead.

So, 6 weeks ago, armed with a saw, a sharp grafting knife, a bag full of grape scion wood I had cut in late winter and stored in the refrigerator, a paintbrush and some grafting tape and glue I set out to try changing these vines to a grape we would eat.
I chose 8 vines and grafted 3 Muscat di Hamburg; 2 Sultanina Bianca (white seedless/sultana), 2 Uva Regina and 1 Pizzutello nero.

While the cleft graft is supposed to be the easiest and have the highest success rate. Those qualities must be true for more competent farmers than I am.   I can't say I'm overwhelmed by how successful I've been.

I grafted four scions but only the Left bud seems viable.

Here we are 6 weeks after grafting:

Well, this one seems happy.

I have 3 definite takes; They're budding out and are clearly going to be ok.
I have another 2-3 that seem to have, maybe, some swelling and filling of one of the buds....but aren't actually growing. And I have 2-3 that don't really show signs of anything and are probably dead.
I'm still optimistic though. It's still early Spring and In the best scenario, a few more will bud out and survive to make fruit next year.

This looks like we have nothing.

But MAYBE this bud is trying hard to sprout?

Worst case scenario is that they won't take. But since we weren't eating those grapes anyway, that's not much of a loss. And I can always just dig those out and plant new vines next Fall.
Here's a comparison of a grafted vine on the left (I used dormant buds so the plants are behind in their growth) and one that wasn't grafted and is growing normally on the right. I need only one shoot from each plant to be able to develop them into productive vines.

I think I can, I think I can.........

I'll post more photos as time goes on and try to chronicle my success/or failure with this grafting attempt.

Unexpected Treasures (Truffle)

This Saturday, while I was up in the trees pruning.  Sami called out...from afar......"Dad, I think we found a truffle....".

Clip, clip, clip. I kept on pruning but called back over the trees.
"I don't think so Sami. They grow underground and you need dogs or pigs to find them." I replied.
"Oh." he answered. "Well there's this thing with scales peeking out of the ground....I'll just dig it out.
He was out playing with our neighbor and I didn't hear anything for a bit.

A few minutes later he comes up to the base of the ladder (I'm up in the tree).
"Here. Look."

So I glanced down.
 It took about one second.

"Yes. OK. You're right.  That's definitely a Truffle." Then after a pause,
"Can you show me where you found it?"

So much for hounds. This is next to our driveway!

This is a staged photo; The truffle was put back where they dug it out to show me.

And sure enough. They had found, just peeking out of the wet/clay soil the tip of a black truffle.
Now there are HUNDREDs of varieties of truffles. Some are really good. Some are not. This smelled of earth/a bit of mushroom but did not have the really strong truffle smell of the highly prized white ones. But it didn't have the inky or phenolic smell of the bad ones either.  Tan inside. Edible. A Truffle.

I think I'll try to have someone with a truffle hound come over in the next few weeks.
Maybe there are more.

Starting Over

Sometimes you just start over.
It may not be well thought out, or prudent, or financially promising, or likely to succeed, but you do it anyway.
The small farm that started this blog has been idle for years---I travel too much and and am too often away summers and winters for work in the US to have kept my word in maintaining it.

Nevertheless, when a neighbor, who had been cleaning out his artichoke patch, asked if I wanted some leftovers.....I hesitated only briefly before saying " Yes".
He asked if I had the soil prepared already and I said, "No".
He said, "you'd better start....it's supposed to rain tomorrow...."
and I left his house with about 50 Artichoke plants.....

He saved the small ones. They're really good lightly boiled and eaten like cardoons.....but his wife can't stand them.....so he didn't need many and was happy to give away what would have ended up in his compost pile.

The soil was wet and heavy from Fall rains. Too wet for a tractor and too wet really to walk in.
I used a greenhouse tool to fork the soil over, aerating it from below, then tilled in lightly some well-aged compost.  Alex and Sami helped dig shallow holes, throw in a fistful of compost and a plant and cover them with soil. A single stamp of the foot to settle the soil around them. We cut off the tops of the plants to help them avoid withering before they put out new roots. We finished just before dark and it did indeed, rain that night.
They're Morellini, the small oval purple artichokes the Italians love (and eat raw or preserved in jars of olive oil).

If things go well they'll grow new roots and establish during the rest of the Winter and early Spring and come MAY they should be a meter high and a meter across and send up the flower buds that will become our next crop....and even if we have to be gone again this Summer; we will still have artichokes to eat before we go.

Note: Artichokes (carciofi in Italian) are a common local crop.  Each plant is a biennial, growing a big, spiny, bushy plant the first year, then flowering the next. While the flowers are enormous purple thistles, they are usually picked as unopened buds which you'd recognize as an artichoke.
Only one type is grown commercially in the US (Green Globe)-- a huge, round stuffing type of artichoke) but in Italy there are many varieties and in Florence, the favorite is a small crispy green or purple artichoke that is usually eaten raw. (You can't do this with a green globe no matter how fresh it is). Each plant dies after flowering but the plant sends up numerous small suckers/shoots before it does and these will flower or produce each year. So while technically a biennial, the plant will produce artichokes for years from the new suckers.  (We usually thin them to just one per plant so they get bigger and so did my neighbor, which is why he had them to give away....).