September 6-10: PERMACULTURA IN PUGLIA – THERE'S MORE THAN OLIVES IN THEM THǣR OSTUNI HILLS

Trullo top, Puglian coastline from the train

Knowing I'm on my way to Puglia, I don't feel quite so sad about leaving the bustling lagoon of Venice. The ever further its waters are from my back, the more my city self settles into a sedimentary layer and the countryside self comes to the surface.  

After an easy switch at Bologna and passing through Ravenna, the tracks make for the eastern Adriatic coast. Inside the cool Trenitalia Frecciabianca carriage, views out the window reveal sunbathers prone in the midday heat, sometimes in alarming close-up near the tracks, back-dropped by a stripe of white sand, a sizzling void of azure sea and sky. Purgatory. 

In an instant I entirely ditch the stylish maze of art. I long to be outside, scuffed with red Apulian dirt.

Linking waterflow in the red-earthed arid zone with earthworks made from olive branches

For my friends living near Ostuni, at the top of the eastern curve of the heel of southern Italy, dedicated regenerative mediation with the land requires a cocktail of observation, research, elbow grease, locally-sourced mulch, and diverse complimentary planting systems, all spiked with assorted mammal manure. In the arid Mediterranean and EU-subsidized olive mono-culture climate, one devotional offering to diversity in their little oasis is a straw-bale cooled/sheltered, horse dung-packed old bathtub, full of zucchini.

Happy as zucchini in horse shit

In October 2013 Mark Meer and Paola Olacalo Calogero harvested their first olives here, right after buying a 0.5 hectare plot of olive-studded land. I’ve been taking strolls beneath their trees since September 2014, when Mark and I first met on a 72-hour PDC (permaculture design course) led by Rod Everett http://www.rodspermaculture.co.uk/ with assistance from Mill Millichap.  

The PDC was held at nearby dance, arts and permaculture project Cassina Settarte http://www.casinasettarte.org/wordpress/?lang=en, another place which I have since returned to twice. I’d discovered the most-affordably priced PDC via the magical, international internet/the all-encompassing UK Permaculture Association’s web noticeboard https://www.permaculture.org.uk/education/course-listings.

One of the local lucertola catching some morning sun

During a field day component of our PDC, our two-dozen-strong posse convoyed here through the Puglian landscape - inhabited by domed, white-tipped stone trulli - then navigated a labyrinth of dry-stone wall-edged roads and numerous olive groves before an ultimate slow-bump down a prickly-pear and purple-blue morning-glory avenued dirt access track. At that stage the property was a rectangle, mainly bearing ubiquitous old-root-stock grapes, 78 olive trees, a chicken tractor, a few chickens, and several bee hives. 

Unsustainable old-school 90s hose irrigation on a nearby property. DON'T do it like this

Track action

In the couple's first winter here they added, among others, cherries, mulberries, and Judas trees. They nestled their fruit trees and encampments of rosemary and sage beside low, dew-shedding stone walls. With guidance from Luciano Furcas, they placed small, carbon-matter-rich 'Bio-Rollo' spirals and circles into the ground to start off numerous, heavily mulched vegetable beds. Though Mark says there wasn’t really a comprehensive design for the land at the start: hopeful money forked out for enriching green manure crops proved a mistake – the imported seed failed whereas local (nitrogen fixing) vetch flourished. Lesson learned.

Aromatic perennial herbs like sage and rosemary drink in water gathering by the walls

The property has since expanded. Most tangibly, with one son, Diego, and the November 2016 purchase of adjacent sections of land - one with a house, one with almond trees - to create a 1.3 hectare grove counting 130 olive trees (2017 almond harvest, 18 kilos; 2016 oil harvest, circa 600 litres). 

They receive a small annual heritage and ecological subsidy. "If you have olives you get EU support money, but the subsidy has created a mono-culture in southern Italy," says Mark. Integrated, complementary planting systems traditionally add in perennial herbs, fava beans, and asparagus, though the latter's spines tear the olive-catching nets, so he's not keen on planting it in the grove.

The mega-thick-walled homestead, under renovation

The 2014 PDC working group I was part of had made development suggestions, mainly rejected - permaculture requires being open to feedback; open mind and thick skin optional but highly recommended. Though one suggestion of a giant, spiral-inspired, curving Bio- Rollo earthwork was placed this year to link all the property’s storage and capillary/wicking water zones. The Bio-Rollos here are made from copious olive prunings, gathered and bundled into long, flexible sausage-shapes, then situated as desired, forming a base for planting. On Mark and Paula's land the old cistern, earliest gardens, new gardens and earthworks now form a complete system. The earthworks "create fertility working with water."

Winter is coming, but another new garden is ready for planting

Cistern capacity has been dramatically increased to a total of 158,000 litres of life-giving water and both structure height and slope behind the house are being utilized to create adequate water pressure for a washing machine. Grey water from the house will go directly to fruit trees. As part of his inspiration, Mark recommends Art Ludwig's book Create an Oasis with Greywater, recently updated in a sixth edition http://oasisdesign.net/greywater/createanoasis/   

Perfectly adapted old root stock grapes that keep popping up everywhere, adding green to the landscape, are being grafted. New fruit trees continue to be integrated into the design. Though a crafty pack of dogs managed to break into the chicken tractor one night and savage all the birds, chickens - and their useful dung - will return. 

A dry composting toilet is being built using a design that uses gravity/slope to oxygenate faeces, a metal pipe grid to facilitate oxygenation further - "Oxygenation is the main protection against pathogens" - and hydraulic lime waterproofing. "No human shit will mix with water on this land," emphasises Mark. Sealed against mosquitoes, toilet contents will be removed regularly to another enclosed system for a year, then used as fertiliser for fruit trees.

Shitting bricks: the Clivus Multrum-design composting toilet's back side will be sealed with a door

The deadline for house move-in is spring 2018. Long uninhabited, it's been cleared out, internal walls freshly painted, and the kitchen opened up with a new skylight. I was feasted on by mosquitoes while painting boards inside for the loft bed: mosquito screens on windows are inevitable. A wood-burning cook-stove will be moved down from their current home and a wet-back added. 

New base for a straw-bale wall going onto the front of the house

A mini-system of terraces designed by a local friend, Jean-Claude, has been created on the small slope beside the house. An unconventional keyline-swale mash-up, it's an adaptation of traditional stone-walled terraces. The water this system helps retain in the land will gradually filter down slope to the circular garden in front of the house. 

Terraces mash-up

“Usually you wouldn't do this,” says Mark, “but in a desert-like land – we only have two big rain events per year – this system works well.” A substantial base of olive branch cuttings allows for oxygenation, covered by rocks and stones of various shapes and sizes, topped with soil, and the whole compacted beneath the full weight-bearing load of an excavator blade.

Aside from the tangible, intangible influence is creeping in too, as community mindset changes: one neighbour has been inspired to cease spraying an adjacent property. With time, knowledge and good practice, people are facilitating harmony. 

It's permaculture ethics in action: earth care, people care, fair share. Better stewardship for the future of the land, for people, plants and creatures we collectively have responsibility for, that's what it's all about.

No spray here, but watch out for prickly pear prickles

Let's call it breakfast, one of the season's final figs