Azienda Agricola Biologica Nico is located 20 km outside of Lucca, in a small town called Orbicciamo, where Federico and Elena Martinelli and their four daughters live. In this location, there are roughly 3 hectares of land consisting of the family’s house, olive trees, grape vines, a garden, and their two donkeys, Evaluna and Galileo. They also have a second location in Saltocchio, which is about a 20 minute drive from their house and is closer to Lucca. All of the market and CSA vegetables are at the farm in Saltocchio, this land has been in Federico’s family for generations, he comes from a long line of farmers, except for his father who is a doctor.
The day after I arrived Elena showed me around the garden behind the house and I spent some time cleaning up and clearing out some of the plants and the mulch that was placed on the ground to promote healthy soil. April is a really lovely time to arrive at a farm, you get to see the plants go from a bud to a blossom and the various shades of green is a breath of fresh air compared the monochrome of winter. It also means that there is a lot of work to do to after the dormancy of winter. From what Federico has said it has been a cold, wet winter, which hasn’t quite let up. Today is the first nice day since I arrived and in the morning it was raining, but it’s much better than the thunder and lightning that was relentless last night. Regardless, I was able to see that the design of their garden as well as their land around the house is set up in a very biodynamic manner, meaning there is a lot of intercropping and the plants aren’t singular. Everything seems to be melting into one, there are not large patches of dirt, instead it is all covered with plants which are mostly flowers.
The beauty is abundant here and I wish I could capture it better, hopefully when the sun comes out I can get better pictures to show how wonderful this place is. I’m also working on my Italian because language barriers are hard.
Ciao!