This is all about my stay at ‘Marroncello’ with my friend Esther, who I’ve known for nearly 30 years. She and her partner Thomas look after the land surrounding a 300 year old traditional Tuscan farm house. The land on which they live and work amounts to about 5 Hectares and the vegetable crops as well as the herbs for their business are grown on terraces or in the valley. Many different sorts of useful ‘fruit’ trees are also grown. The house is located at 530 m and can be reached by a 700 m long track on foot or by tractor!
Native trees consist mainly of Oak along with Ash, Lime, ‘Sorbo’ and Juniper.
Marroncello means: a small orchard with Sweet Chestnut trees. Apparently there is still a small stand of them much higher above the house.
When Thomas ‘found’ the property it had been derelict for 50 years!
I stayed for 4 weeks helping along with all the jobs to be done at this time of the year and enjoying the much more natural and simple way of life in very beautiful surroundings!
I love all the plants including the ‘weeds’ that grow everywhere. It has been a bit of a puzzle to identify some of them without flower, so I will have to go back at some point in spring or early summer to see those flowering, as it will make identifying a bit easier!
I have used mainly my own pictures, but I have also used several from Wikipedia Commons with much gratitude.
Follow the links in my contents page for easier reading, the different colour backgrounds are ‘blue’ for general interesting information, ‘green’ for different uses and ‘pink’ for medicinal uses.
This is a report of my time at ‘Marroncello’, a 300 year + farmhouse in Tuscany, Italy:
From Sunday 29th January to Monday 20th February 2023
Marroncello House front view
After spending just a week back in April 2019 with my friend and former classmate, Esther, I decided I would like to spend a bit longer this time.
In 2019 it had just been to get a flavour of what I imagined was a very down to earth and romantic way of living up in the beautiful oak-wood clad hills near Arezzo in Italy.
Before that week I had only been corresponding with Esther since the 1990’s after having both completed a course in Biodynamic Agriculture, back in the Netherlands. I left for Britain and she ended up in Italy!
It all sounded an idealistic way of living to me. Something I’d always envisaged myself doing one day; living in a beautiful place and as much with nature and self-sufficient as possible!
But the Covid virus prevented all the travelling after that first visit in 2019 and only this year I finally managed to get out there again. Late winter was perhaps not the ideal time to travel but with too many responsibilities from spring onwards I decided; it is now or never!
I had been spending 3 weeks with family back in the Netherlands before in January and then took the FlixBus all the way from Amsterdam Sloterdijk to Florence with a bus-change in Verona. It is a trip I am not likely to do ever again as it is extremely long and tiring! I left Amsterdam Sloterdijk at 3pm on Saturday 28th and arrived at Arezzo train station 24 hours later, 3pm, Sunday 29th January.
Esther picked me up opposite the station with her faithful Citroen transport.
Esther’s faithful Citroen van and scooter parked in the valley.
My entire stay can be summoned up in short by saying that this is a good, peaceful way of living but not really for the faint hearted and for people who need lots of entertainment or an easy, lazy way of living! Basically it is a very natural way of living with going to bed early and getting up early as well. The days are busy with jobs/ necessary things to do at that moment, but with plenty of breaks and good, honest food, mostly all fresh vegetables from the garden and bread made by Esther. Other items are bought on the local market in Arezzo or brought over from Germany by Thomas, Esther’s partner, who travels frequently between the 2 countries to run his wholesale business in Herbal produce and mixtures.
The house is a typical 300 year + old Tuscan Farmhouse and was found by Thomas nearly 40 years ago in a much dilapidated state. Trees were growing in it!
For a while, whilst he was doing it up, he lived in a small wooden house a bit higher up the hill; this is still being used for temporary accommodation for casual labour and friends/family alike.
The water comes from the stream which runs passed their house and is piped from about 700 metres above by gravity through a thick plastic pipe.
The electricity is through the Solar Panels fixed on the outbuilding of the bathroom/conservatory next to the typical Tuscany type roof with clay tiles. Occasionally a small generator is used to facilitate a washing machine and ironing!
The roof from above with the Solar Panels.
The heating in the kitchen, (2) bedrooms and bathroom (this has a boiler to produce hot water), is by ovens fired with the copious oak wood logs in an around their estate.
The kitchen and wood stove with ‘Zwartje’ (= Blackie) the cat!
There are about 3 hectares (6 acres) of land around the house and up the hill which is being used for crops and fruit trees and also has a stable + yard for their 26 year old stallion called ‘East’. There is a large shed for drying various herbs in the season, a work shed, a polytunnel and various other small sheds for storing hay or other materials. It is a steep hillside so the land has been made more easily accessible by making terraces into it.
The sun does not hit the house and parts of the land until mid-late morning, when it comes round the hill in the east. I was fascinated by the growing ‘sun-line’ on the hills opposite each day in the morning until it was also shining on us at the house!
The Sun-line on the hills opposite at 9.35am.
The hills around are covered in mainly gold-leaved oak, with the occasional evergreen of Italian cypress, Juniper or Pine.
The gold will slowly give way to the vivid green of spring foil I imagine… But that is another time!
The soil is a well-drained, grey/brown, sandy loam with plenty of shale like stone which is the base rock you can see occasionally on the badly worn tracks around. Heavy rain, just before I came, washed a lot of the surface away and made bad gullies, which were more awkward to walk on especially for East!
Introducing East in his cosy stable……
Many different types of (fruit) trees and crops have been grown during the 40 years Thomas has lived here and about the 25 years that Esther has been there. They aren’t all easily established as the soil has to be improved and maintenance such as watering and weeding is not always easy with so many tasks to do each day and not having enough people and time to do this!
I spent several days of my 3 weeks with weeding and pruning of some of the fruits and ornamentals (such as roses). Weeding of brambles and scrub was done with a pickaxe rather than a hoe on the stony slopes! They were often cut off with a sharp sickle first. It was all new to me; having worked my entire life mainly ‘on the flat’.
All the jobs took so much longer to do! Climbing up and down the hill all day long sapped a lot of energy!
This is why Esther made sure we had 3 good meals a day and several tea breaks! We needed it!!
It is also very much living with the weather:
There were frosts on most nights during my stay and one night it had been severe enough to burst the thick water pipe in the woods so that cut off our water supply! First we had thought that the water had just been frozen in the pipe, but when the water did not come after several days without frosts, we went to investigate and walked about 300 metres into the woods along the pipe. Suddenly Esther saw a water jet through a burst, explaining our lack of water!
The stepladders into the woods where you can follow the 700 metre long water pipe!
It was fixed the following day with another length of pipe and the help of a part-time worker, Rita, who lives in a beautiful mountain village about half an hour away.
The water can also be in short supply during a dry summer. Not just by the fact of no rain but also because the wild boars, which live in the woods, bite trough the pipe, in order to get to the water!
Solar energy is only there when there is enough sunshine!
Wood to heat the stoves is not ‘free’ as some of the casual labour had pointed out to Esther, but has to be cut first and then into logs and smaller sizes to fit the various stoves. In the cold months especially this can be a major task each day.
Also kindling needs to be gathered. A good kindling is made with the dead stems of Spanish/Rush Broom or Spartium junceum, which grows everywhere around on the dryer slopes. Also pine cones and dried peels of tangerines are used as firelighters!
In Bolivia and Peru, the plant is known as retama, (not to be confused with the genus Retama) and has become very well established in some areas. It is one of the most common ornamental plants, often seen growing along sidewalks in La Paz.
The plant is also used as a flavouring, and for its essential oil, known as genet absolute. Its fibers have been used for cloth and it produces a yellow dye.
Then there is the toilet!
The toilet with the view!
This is a fabulous ‘throne’ situated further away and above the house. Made of wood and looking out towards the neighbouring hills it is a bit of a climb to sit, stare and do your business; but it works and is so simple and clean with just a sprinkle, or two, of some brown oak leaves, waiting patiently next to the toilet. ‘It’ all collects in a large bucket, which needs to be emptied when it is full, further along the terrace, near the woods, to break down into harmless organic matter.
Organic waste from the kitchen is also dumped onto a heap on a lower terrace. This can eventually be used to improve the soil for the crops.
So the above is a little description of the workings in this peaceful home of Esther and Thomas.
I decided to lengthen my stay to 3 weeks in order to be a helping hand for Esther as she is mainly trying to manage everything by herself most of the time! Thomas spends a lot of his time in Germany to keep their business going. There are occasional/seasonal workers in the growing season, when needed.
It was a wonderful experience for me to spend these 3 weeks with Esther in these beautiful surroundings. I had been extremely lucky with the weather. Only a few days were overcast but dry and the rest was sunny or slight cloudy. The sky at night also was a sight to behold: Orion, the Moon, Venus and Jupiter were clearly visible most nights! Temperatures were varying to frost at night and early morning and then to spring and early summer temperatures during the day!
Esther having a well-deserved break with ‘Loekie’ the cat!
Some more pictures ….
Asplenium onopteris or Western Black Spleenwortis one of the several ferns at Marroncello.Helleborus foetidus or Stinking HelleboreSarcococca confusa or Winter Box is a lovelely sight and smell on a winter day!Xylocopa violacea, the violet carpenter beeloved the Sarcococca.
This is a one off blog about some weeds found in tropical countries. Most of those are actually exotics from other tropical climates which originally may have been introduced as an ornamental, just as in our own temperate world!
But you will be surprised that their are also temperate plants which can become weeds in the tropics!
My blog now got a big brother in the form of a short video each week about ten popular, or not so popular weeds!Watch the video below.
The Common Gorse or Ulex europaeus is a familiar plant in the Legume family! (All pictures unless mentioned otherwise are by Matt Summers)
What is now called The Fabaceae, was long known as Leguminosae and commonly these are known as the legume, pea, or bean family.
This is a large and economically important family in the world. It includes trees, shrubs, and perennial or annual herbaceous plants, which are easily recognized by their fruit (legume) and/or their compound, stipulate leaves.
It is not as big in Britain but an interesting and useful family all the same! Credits are due once again to Stace‘s Flora, J. Barker’s Medicinal Flora, Plantlife and Wikipedia for most information. The link on the scientific names are mostly from the Plant Atlas 2020 Online and the information from the habitats is also copied from this Online Atlas. The link on the Common Name is from a website with usually some more info and pictures of the plant. I try and use UK sites as much as possible!
In case there are any medical uses stated with the plants mentioned below, please take sensible advise from a qualified herbalist.
If you would like to learn a bit more about the classification of this large family I can recommend Britannica.com webpage
NN behind the names in the Contents means Non-Native (is similar to neophyte) and has been introduced and often naturalised into the wild. FBBC in the Contents behind the names means that it also occurs in the Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country!
The very recognizable stems of the Silver Birch at Cannock Chase
After all the native, short, flowering plants, this time a blog on the native, tall, woody trees called Betulaceae, which includes the main genus, Betula or Birch but also our native Alder, Hornbeam and Hazel belong in this family.
The Betulaceae or Birch Family is number 59 in Stace and has 3 straight native species of Birch as well as several hybrids, subspecies and introduced, ornamental varieties.
The birch is a typical pioneer, which means it can colonize new land very rapidly in the right conditions and can therefore be seen as a weed by some who wouldn’t like them to do this!
But most of us can agree that the Birch tree is very beautiful and hoping for you to learn in the following text that it is also a very useful tree as are its cousins, Alder, Hornbeam and Hazel about which I will tell you more in the second part!
In my last blog I introduced you to the main uses of the Asteraceae or the Daisy family. The first post was all about the classification of this large family.
Today I will list some of the commonly known, medicinal ones in our temperate climate, as mentioned in the Medicinal Flora by Julian Barker.
I will include links on both of the plant names so you will be able to read more about each plant on other useful websites. You can find more pictures on Wikipedia> tools >Wikipedia Commons as well as in the Gallery of Plant Atlas 2020 Online.
I will also colour code the blocks on the colour of the flower. Hope you will find that useful as well as pretty! Most uses are medicinal. Plants used as an ornamental or other uses are backed by a green colour! The link on the Scientific name as well as the information about habitat is from Plant Atlas 2020 Online (backed by blue).
Cautions: This is a ‘ethno’ blog on the known medical uses of the Composites or Daisy family. There are many cautions mentioned and self-medication is therefore not advised: seek help through a qualified herbalist!
Cardoon and Sunflower are both non-native ornamental as well as economical food crops in the Asteraceae (both pictures by Matt Summers)
The post on Asteraceae went through the entire classification and might have been a little tedious for you?
However, I do hope you find it fascinating like myself how classification does make sense, especially in large families such as the Composites or Asteraceae.
It neatly groups similar looking plants together and when these plants ‘look similar’ they most likely also have the same properties and uses.
This week we start with the uses of this family.
Of course weeds or native plants as I like to call them, are ALWAYS useful in any habitat situation, soil and indeed for other living creatures apart from ourselves.
When we pull out the dandelion or ragwort we are taking away a valuable food source for multiples of creatures. Is it really worth that?
An example of Herbarium book with Japanese plants from Siebold’s collection in Leiden, 1825 By P. F. Siebold – Sieboldcollectie Naturalis, Public Domain and thanks to Wikipedia
Hello dear Readers!
The Tuesdays of the last few months I’ve been busy with research in Birmingham’s Museum Warehouses. I’ve been looking at the vast amount of dried specimen plants of one of the 6 or so Herbariums they have stored in there.
Why I wanted to research Bagnall’s Herbarium in particular was because of the many local native plants Bagnall himself collected as well as the many plants from Sutton Park. This is a national important nature reserve and SSSI. More about this later!
