An olive grove lost by the Mediterranean, August 2021, Steppe FM :
We arrived at the garden on the 2nd of August, in the middle of a hot afternoon. We spent the previous days riding slowly along the sea.
We first arrived at Georgio’s store, we get to know him: He is a forty-year-old Greek, he started gardening during the Greek crisis and it became his passion (Our first podcast interview about his story will come out soon).
Then he takes us to the garden, about 5 km from the village of Psakoudia, where we follow his little white Saxo on the sandy roads.
We arrive at the garden. And it’s great! It’s less than a kilometre from the sea. It’s an olive grove of about forty trees. In a corner, there is a small brick shack with holes as a window, with inside a tent and gas plates for cooking. Next to it, there are toilets that look like a fitting booth of the 30s, a sink for dishes and, most amazing, an outdoor shower.
We plant our tipi in the back of the garden where the grass is yellowed by the heat. We even add a small layer of straw under the tarp for maximum comfort!
!
The three of us dine together. Georgio runs both his vegetable shop (open 7 days a week from 8 am to 9 pm) and the garden. He’s having a hard time doing everything on his own and seems pretty happy we’re here. When we talk about projects that have already been done, we realize that he is starting to trust us to take care of daily tasks (watering, harvesting, tying tomatoes, chicken management, etc.) and especially that we will be able to take initiatives for the non-cultivated part of its small farm. In short, we are free to create new areas of crops, carry out Low Techs…
Georgio is going to pick up two young Spanish women who will also be volunteers in the garden.
An hour later, the two girls arrive. They are very different from us: very young, well dressed and with huge wheeled suitcases and this is the first time they leave their native country. We try to get to know each other by drinking a beer. And it’s not easy! One does not drink alcohol, does not speak English very well (to tell the truth, does not speak much in general, even in Spanish), the other, is much less shy, speaks very good English but seems held back by her friend.
We spend the two weeks alternating work in the garden when the heat is bearable (early in the morning and late in the afternoon) and going about our business in the middle of the day: coffee in the village to work on our podcasts with the computer, prepare the rest of the trip, contemplate the lightning of dry storms, going to the sea and beaches, napping and reading in the shade of one of the olive trees. Well, there are worse working conditions even if the sun is merciless.
We try to integrate the girls and even if I get along better and better with one, it’s a waste of time with the other. We also spend a few memorable evenings chatting with Georgio over a bottle of local wine embellished with Tsipouro (Greek grapefruit brandy that is produced directly from the garden bunches).
We usually go to bed late, because, in this scarry summer, the most pleasant is the night especially when we have a card game and a few cool beers.
Finally, the two weeks pass very quickly, the sowing of beans and pumpkin begin to come out that the girls already leave. In one day we complete the objectives we had set for ourselves. And after one last crêpe party with Georgio and his family, Rico leaves for France and the wedding of his older sister. My parents join me two days later for what will be a big week off.
After two weeks spent with my family sleeping in a bed, eating out at restaurants, debating ecofeminism with my sister, sleeping in the tipi in the middle of nowhere with the family and especially resting at the beach, I’m back in Georgio’s garden with the dog as company. I had almost forgotten the pleasant weight of loneliness.
While waiting for the few days before Rico’s arrival, there is a lot to do (grape harvest among others) especially since I realize that a large part of our seedlings in the open ground has been strangled by the weeds.
Rico back, we give ourselves a week to finish the plantations on the new boards, build two or three more improvements on the ground and especially to prepare our route and our next stop which will be for sure in Turkey!
Comments