We’re on a mission to be as self-sufficient as possible here at Casale Volpe – with our vegetables, fruit and (coming soon, care of some hens), our own eggs. Neither of us has lived a rural life before. In the past, the most we’ve had to contend with is a small (typically north-facing) London garden, which did little more than give slugs and snails the perfect home.
Now, with almost 10 acres of land, we’re putting down the first roots – pun intended – of self-sufficiency, with the start of our vegetable garden and planting of some fruit trees. Whilst you can easily and cheaply buy small veggie plants here, we’re growing as much as we can from seed. Not only does this create another layer of satisfaction (ok, we mean smugness here), but it allows us a much wider range of interesting and heritage vegetables to grow.
Starting tentatively
So we don’t fail at the first hurdle, we’ve started with the easier crops, planting the seeds earlier in the spring for this summer. Right now we have four varieties of tomato (one being San Marzano for cooking, as no Italian orto would be without them), borlotti beans, zucchini (we’ve also been stuffing and frying the flowers), purple french beans, yellow french beans, two types of chard, lettuce, aubergines, peppers, a whole plethora of herbs and some companion plants such as nasturtiums.
We’re now starting to plan the winter crops, such as red cabbage, romanesco cauliflower – which is actually closer to broccoli but with a seriously mesmerising pattern of growth – and cavalo nero – a favourite topping for bruschetta. The great thing about this is picking and planning meals as the different vegetables are ready to eat. This will be our approach when putting together meal menus and picnics for our guests, so you’re always eating the freshest of fresh, packed with tons of flavour, at exactly the moment it’s supposed to be eaten.