Column: vegetable garden veteran

Just before the canvas of the last warm autumn week in Piedmont fell, Rik Rensen met Mr. Bogliolo; his fingers warped from rheumatism, at 82 he stood hoeing as if his life depended on it. His story – a day in the life of this vegetable garden veteran – can be read in the new Italy Magazine, which will be on newsstands from tomorrow. You can read a preview below.

I can already see him in the distance, Mr Bogliolo. He must be 82. Small, with rheumatic bent fingers. His much too large trousers are tied around his bulging belly with a flaxen rope. Those pants used to be, when Mr. Bogliolo was a little younger, much better padded than they are now. That's how you see it. His staring eyes, in which a light blue glow can be seen, look at me. He has probably not been able to read a newspaper for a long time.

Leaning on his gnarled-handled wooden rake, he inspects the mounds of hazelnuts he has just swept up in his orchard. It's the last hazelnuts which are still on the ground and which have not been secretly eaten by the piggies at night. There are still quite a few. Ten heaps of hazelnuts lie under the trees, shining in the setting sun. Good for at least ten hazelnut pies.

Are you well, Mr. Bogliolo? 'Abbastanza bene' (pretty good), he says, and pulls a frugal mouth. Then you know. He's just getting ready to start a long story when his wife, who's been watching us from the doorway of their farmhouse, interrupts him with her shrill voice. The wood for the stove in the kitchen has run out. Whether Mr. Bogliolo wants to bring a new load quickly. And now!

Repulsive gesture. No further response. After a marriage of at least sixty years, you know exactly what to do with each other. You don't have to mince words about that. He pulls a large handkerchief from his pants and wipes the sweat from his head. Raking nuts is quite a strenuous job.

I inquire about Mr. Bogliolo's health. Doesn't he work too hard on the land? The old man looks at me thoughtfully and points to his stomach. He was operated on last year because he had pain in his intestines. The recovery took months. And there were times when he didn't think he could make it. But now he is there again.

He has had more gas in his abdomen since the operation. His wife finds that flatulence very annoying. If it bothers him a lot, he is immediately kicked out. But he can't help it. A mischievous grin spreads across his face.

I inquire about his vegetable garden, which I always have to admire extensively. It's like this: Mr Bogliolo grows vegetables on both sides of the country road that runs past his farm. On the one hand he grows lettuce, on the other he grows tomatoes, zucchini and string beans. And behind it again lies his nut orchard. I don't think Mr. Bogliolo likes lettuce very much. Or maybe Mrs. Bogliolo doesn't like lettuce. The fact is that he always wants to give me a few bags of lettuce after every weekly chat. But because the couple Bogliolo grows lettuce but does not eat lettuce, the lettuce has grown out of its strength into hard stumps of green, which I classify as inedible. Therefore I hastily inquire about his tomatoes, which have been the trophies in Mr Bogliolo's trophy cabinet for many years.

He petrifies. He grabs my wrist and pulls me to the other side of the country road. There are some pathetic tomatoes hanging rather limp.

"It's been too hot and too dry," Mr. Bogliolo mourns aloud for his lost crop.

I ask politely if he can't water them. I shouldn't have asked that question. Mr. Bogliolo looks at me with the disapproving look of a vegetable garden veteran who doesn't tolerate city advice.

When I want to shake his hand, Mr. Bogliolo unexpectedly cuts a beautiful full-round tomato for me from the back row of tomato bushes. That would have fit in his trophy cabinet. We'll talk again next week.

Written by Rik Rensen. His book 'Puur Piemonte' was published this autumn, a second collection of his columns and photos from Italy Magazine. Photo above: Edward Hendriks