Grass, Grapes and Olives

Our guests left yesterday and, much as we enjoyed having them, it is lovely to be back to just the two of us and la dolce vita. Well, not so dolce because yesterday afternoon we had thunderstorms and some heavy rain. This is the first rain we have had since we arrived in Partigliano. So, this morning we rose at 6:15 and started burning the grass just after 7 am. It was a lovely morning. Within a couple of hours all the grass plus the vine clippings were on the pile.


Here is Dom dumping some of the last of the grass on the fire.


The heat, and yesterday's rain, have been great for the plants. I bought two strawberry plants soon after we arrived because I like the pale pink flowers. Now the plants are covered with ripening berries. Yummy!


While Dom was stoking the fire I finished pruning the vines. Here is a picture of one of the tidy rows. Because we arrived so late the plants were heavily overgrown. Although I cut them way back they still have 4 to 6 grape clusters each. Two to three times as much foliage went on the fire as was left on the vines. This is not the optimal way to care for the vines (they should have been pruned in Jan/Feb) but it is what we can manage only being here part-time.


The grape clusters are just starting to flower. Here are the buds before they open.


This is grape cluster that has started flowering. The flowers are tiny and the clusters look fuzzy after the buds open.

Interestingly, the olives also start out as clusters of tiny buds and then open to tiny flowers. They are somewhat larger than the grapes but, from a distance, the trees also look "fuzzy." There are also loads of flowers on the olive trees and the bees are buzzing around them happily pollinating. If we still own the house in the fall, and the weather cooperates, we could have a good harvest in November.