Autumn Fruit

We're on the cusp between summer and autumn here in Puglia.  I love this time of year - it's still warm, but the storms that mark the end of summer have made the country green and lush and the leaves are turning gold.  The air is full of rich smells - bonfires and fermenting fruit.  The market is overflowing with ripe produce such as melons, peaches and prickly pears and the vendemmia or grape harvest is just round the corner.

This photo is of stuff I picked from our land during ten minutes of wandering around.  The colours reflect the season so well.  There's a lot to do on the land at the moment.  Right now I'm pruning the fig trees, which haven't been touched for four or five years and are tangled and overgrown. 

Whenever I prune trees I have Erminia's dead husband Paolo invisibly at my shoulder whispering advice - "you prune olive trees to look like a wine glass, but figs like an umbrella".  At the time he told me this I had no idea why, indeed I was suspicious that it was just irrelevant folk lore.  Now, after ten years looking after our acre of land I understand what he was getting at:  figs are a fragile soft fruit which you can't easily pick from a ladder, so you prune them like a parasol whose canopy is within reach of the ground, making the fruit low-hanging and easy to get at. 

Like so much of the old bugger's advice it's obvious when you think about it.