The biggest surprise

The biggest surprise was that nasturtium leaves and stalks are really delicious when cooked. (No, really.) Steamed and then tossed in olive oil with garlic. So the free food's going well! On top of all the veggies and numerous ways of eating home-grown mushrooms, we had (well, the blokes had) wild boar sausages the other night, courtesy of Mario. He and his posse spent last weekend conducting a concerted campaign against the boar that are ravaging not only our veg patch but also the just-sown fields of the farmers round here. They ended up with three boar. In the case of wild boar my normally strongly anti-hunting ethic goes into reverse, as these are animals that have no natural predators here and the population has just gone crazy since they were reintroduced a while back. They do a huge amount of agricultural damage. My hopes that Mario's efforts would end the digging-up of our garden were dashed, however, as this week the beasties dug over the broad bean bed and trampled much of the broccoli and greens. Deeply upsetting. I'm setting up an electric fence round the veg patch now, and if that doesn't keep them off it'll be watchtowers, searchlights and landmines.