The Landscape of the taste of Salento: the rapacaula (Brassica rapa sylvestris)

The Landscape of the taste of Salento: the rapacaula (Brassica rapa sylvestris)




If you take the road from Lecce to Galatina and after traveling the detour to Soleto at the second roundabout (the one with the CNG service station) on the road to reach the end Collepasso. After the roundabout intersection with Cutrofiano Aradeo on that road and what was once the Villa Speziali said to have been made by Porcinai there is a great selling vegetables. They are grown on deep soils that are left and right of the road and sold by each of the farmers.

They are all fresh vegetables and tasty. Today I will focus on rapacaula of Salento to Bari is called "Cima di rapa" while in Naples "friarielli".



The Landscape of the taste of Salento

There are places that become colors, flavors, light and fresh air entering the nostrils. These women and men of Salento Lecce who work the land on the road to Collepasso have built a landscape, a place to cross with the wonder that is subject to a scheduled visit of a beautiful journey. To work every day of my beloved San Cesario di Lecce I prefer to go this route Ugento and adored in the fastest way to Gallipoli. Why do you prefer? For this wonderful road, this real taste of the landscape that I recommend to everyone. A real "short-circuit the Farmer" that makes you buy them directly from him, those vegetables that characterize the landscape of the taste of Salento. A paradigm to be imitated! I say to my fellow citizens of San Cesario di Lecce to the many who work but do the farmers do not do what I have described, take the vegetables and loaded onto a truck, take him away, the market, without the fantasy of delights is observed and enjoyed by my countrymen who may develop a landscape just 5 km from Lecce and wonderful that the City could draw their own local buyers interested in the product.



The road rapacaula Galatina - Collepasso

The turnip (Brassica rapa sylvestris) can be sown directly on the ground but now, almost everyone, buying or producing "Mo chiantime" or that the seedlings are transplanted later in summer and early autumn, in rows 30 cm apart and at 30 cm intervals along the row.

And what happens to this plan after a few days? In an early vegetative stage here that emits a basal rosette of leaves. Then slowly passing the time, as we will see is different depending dell'ecotipo, finally arrives on playback! And 'right now that rapacaula plant (Brassica rapa sylvestris) of Salento, which develops at the ends of the stems are soft and fleshy inflorescence ones that only have to write my mouth water is mmmmmmm!



The rapacaula can flower after 80 days or after 200 days.

The passage of time from sowing to flowering is different depending on the rapacaula dell'ecotipo.

The early use ecotypes rapacaula 80 days from sowing to flowering (eg Quarantine) ones 190-200 days later. Of course the height of the plant is proportional to the length of the growth cycle in fact, the early populations are low cut (50-60 cm) and late spring as high (110 cm). So were sown by the end of last August - early September and is continuing to spread in this month of November, resulting in a collection continued to climb from late October through the winter until you reach the next spring. The only recommendation is that you must collect rapacaule before the flowers are open!



Seeding the rapacaula

If you have containers fill them with soil, seed, or purchased from the garden and mix it with 50% of normal soil. Take a piece of cane and take a deep hole with this five millimeters in each container. Now take a pinch of seeds, the seeds of rapacaula careful because they are small, and put them in the hole you made. At this point, close the hole which contained the seeds with a little 'end and the soil washed down gently, I would advise you to use a sprayer. Wait until the seedlings are born and let them grow up to about 4 cm. Now look at which of the four plants that have sprouted is the weakest and remove it. After a week and go back to look at which of the three remaining plants is weaker and also remove it. Finally, after another week (14 days have passed since the first time) between the two maps left remained the most robust and eliminate the weakest! After another two weeks (30 days after sowing) the seedlings are ready for transplanting.



Transplantation of rapacaula

First clear the piece of land you want to allocate and rapacaule concimatelo with organic fertilizer. Buried with a shovel manure compost better if also called compost or compost, is the result of decomposition and dell'umificazione a mixture of organic materials (such as prunings, kitchen scraps, manure, slurry or waste of gardening as leaves and cut grass) by macro-and micro-organisms in particular conditions: the presence of oxygen and balance between the chemical elements involved in the transformation of matter, which I suggest you obtain directly from the compost and manure in the house who then pelleted uniform cylindrical pellets with average diameter and average length that you can buy.



Formation of the flower of rapacaule

Formed a bed with a rake and canals which are 15 cm wide and will be used for irrigation flow. Arrange the plants of rapacaula to 30 cm on the row and make sure that the files are 30 cm apart from each other. With a suitable tool that we called "chiantaturu" practice holes and strung sull'aiola rapacaula planting deeper than they are in the root ball to almost reach the first leaf. Then create a small depression around the map, do so by pressing the earth, and with the usual spray to provide localized watering for at least 20 days, after which you can irrigate rapacaule with scrolling in the gutters. So well watered to allow the earth to adhere to the roots.

Good luck and once you have collected, enjoy!



Antonio Bruno