Gardening

Good neighbours not only hand goodies over the garden gate but they haul your old 'goodies' from the back garden and take them away to the tip.

You'll remember that I've written about our elderly neighbour, Vaso.  She's still a powerhouse at 84.  This morning she was sitting on the flagstones with a very sharp knife trimming fresh bamboo canes which will be used on their garden.

Her son looks after most of the vines, olives, lemon and orange trees now and strims what Vaso hasn't done by hand.

His latest interest is a vegetable garden.  But before starting on his own he came and cleared out our back garden, literally shaving the earth and hauling all the old iron and wood from the back to the front and then taking it away in his farm truck.

I don't know how many times I've posted photos of the 'treasures' removed from our back garden.  Well, here's another pile.  The lawn mower does work I think.  That was given away.  We had a miniscule lawn about 10 years ago.  Hard to imagine now.

The 'before' photo

Down comes the grapefruit tree.

Now we have a view, of a clean back garden

That stump is all that's left of the grapefruit tree.  It always had loads of fruit, the most bitter fruit I have tasted.  Even a kilo of sugar couldn't make it into an enjoyable marmelade.  The tree hid our view from the living room of the hill opposite, site of the ancient Temple to Poseidon.  There's no temple left, just a few stones.  

Now the pine forest and olive groves are in open view and I can sit in my armchair and watch for sasquatch, or the movement of tourists on the hill top, when they arrive again.

The wood from the grapefruit tree is stacked ready for next winter's fires.  I'll let you know how grapefruit wood burns, in due time

An unbelievably clean back yard.  And there's more rubbish to go out.

This other tree with orange fruit is a bitter orange tree which we're leaving for now.  What the previous owner thought he would reap from these bitter trees I cannot imagine.

There are still 2 lemon trees standing, a sweet-orange tree and a mandarine.  The green plant in the foreground is basil