organic vegetable garden, tuscany

this organic vegetable was designed to accomodate for the culinary needs and the ecological criteria of the late Edward Goldsmith, the founder of 'The Ecologist' ecological magazine.
Teddy, as he was known was also an avid gardener, along with his wife Catherine so this was far from the easiest of formal italian vegetable gardens to design. I clearly chose to underline the existing symmetry with symmetrical planting and this made maintenance and watering far easier.
In the year that this design took place (2003) we had the hottest summer for around 30 years. However, with the ecologica hay system, we made it through the summer without significant plant losses.