October in our Venetian kitchen garden
From squash to sage. Autumn favorites from the hanging gardens of San Zaccaria, and which plants grow best in low-lying zones exposed to acqua alta.
In this post, I’d like to show you a video of my grandparents’ kitchen garden in Venice, what it looks like right now in early autumn. The heart of the garden is a rectangular courtyard with lawn and pozzo (Venetian well), and several plots were edible herbs are growing.
The courtyard is surrounded by white and beige buildings, once part of the San Zaccaria monastery on the one side, and the monastery’s guesthouse on the other.
This low-lying place was tended by grandfather until 2011. He used to teach us all about his beloved kitchen garden, which plants to choose and which not, and which evergreen parts were a “must”. And which fruit trees to grow (pomegranates and figs), and flowering plants.1
Even uva fragola grapes, the juicy black-blue “strawberry grapes” growing in the Lagoon and on its northern fringes, thrive in the courtyard garden, and melons love that salty ground as you can see in the image above.
Grandfather had been tending this garden since 1968, and it still provides us with colorful blossoms and fruit-bearing trees especially now in early autumn. There’s always something to taste, cook with and marvel at. Right now, it’s figs, grapes and raspberries. Kitchen laurel, parsley, mint, rosemary, basil and curry herb. Lavender and roses, the last blossoms of wisteria, kumquat, tangerine and lemon trees. Plus, a nice collection of oleander with white, red and purple blossoms. Such a quiet and lush place that you can see in this video, taken from the terrace above: