#dearchai

This year i was finally able to fully grow the grapevine in the garden!!! 🥰🥰🥰

I mainly followed a friends advice, discovering it was nothing that complicated after all 😂😂😂 and a few weeks back i finally harvest the grapes.

i almost forgot to tell you about the vegetable garden!!

This year I got more serious about it. I prepared all the soil around early spring, to start set up for the plants. I took care of it all the way to this result!!

It's hard to take a pic that gives the right idea about how big it is. Now it takes almost a third of all the garden, and some plants just keep growing no-stop 😂😂

So far i have several tomato plants, coming in different types, some salad, some zucchini plants.

As well as eggplants and peppers, but those haven't made fruits yet.

I’ve already harvest much produce, and am very proud of it!!! Especially because some of the plants were not my own work but grew anyway 🤣🤣 like the potatoes and pumpkin - which came from the compost i made myself from kitchen scraps!! 😄

Oh and I also harvest plums from the tree already in the garden!! Since i’m not very fond for plums, i made some jelly out of them, to bake a tart 😋😋

the last couple of weeks around here have been kinda rough. We experienced a massive heat wave, having +38° degrees 😱 but fortunately yesterday we've been blessed with a gentle rain, and temperatures are definitely more comfortable!!

In the weekend I was able to spend time with a close friend of mine, who invited me at her family's mountain refuge. It is located in a small village near the top of little mountain, 1300 meters above sea level.

The place is so wonderful. And it was very chilly, i kept my hoodie on all the time 😂😂

Here’s the flowers I chose for you today. We have not just one, but two!!! :D

But first, a short backstory to them. I can’t quite remember if i mentioned this before in our letters, but around a year ago i made a little pond in my garden!! I am very passionate about natural science, plants and ecosystems, so when my sister’s ex boyfriend suggested to create a natural pond, i really couldn’t resist.

Maybe in the future i’ll tell more about it. For now, i am very proud to show the water plants that flowered for the first time this year!!

(they really don’t have a common name in italian, so i’m just going to address them by their botanical names)

This one is called Ludwigia.

I didn’t even know that it could flower, so you can imagine my surprise when one morning, while watering the garden, i found this big whole bright flower in the pond 🤭

The other one is Egeria.

It actually grows completely underwater (the green parts are the ones under the surface level!) but when it’s mature enough, the little white flowers will pop above the water! They’re very tiny, but so cute!! Here a close up

Today’s flower is wild violet! In italian “violetta”.

This one is fairly common around here, and i particularly appreciate it for the nice smell and the intense color. In early spring, before the grass becomes tall, you can find carpets of violets!! :D

The flower i choosed for you today is narcissus (in italian "narciso")

Today's flower is hyacinth! (in italian “giacinto”)

In honor of your bday, i want to start a serie of post about all the flowers blooming in my garden and around it - hope you'll enjoy!!! 🤗

Here's the first one!!

It is saffron!! (In italian "zafferano").

I planted it last autumn! It came in bulbs that are similar to little onions, but actually kinda poisonus! The only safe part to eat is indeed the flower stem, hearvest to make the spice. The flowers are little, and come in early spring, in a variety of colors.