About six weeks ago I went to see a potential job in the fertile plain below the old Roman town of Spello in Umbria.

The site consists of a former Tobacco Factory with house and outbuildings surrounded by approximately 15 hectares of fields that have been bio dynamically farmed for the past 25 years. It holds a certificate from the Italian Agricultural Ministry that validates this.

It has been purchased by the Barbanera Publishing Company (www.barbanera.it) founded in 1762 in nearby Foligno. Barbanera is Italy’s third largest publisher of Almanac’s selling over three million copies a year. Advice and information on all important events and activities in one’s life can be sought and answered using their Almanac based in part on detailed astrological calculations. In days gone by such advice was followed to the letter detailing when to have babies, when to sow vegetables in the garden, what colours to use in the house, whom to marry and what to do with your husband (or wife) once you had. Nowadays we have Vogue, House and Garden or Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen to help us on these tricky issues.

The project consists of designing demonstration gardens around the buildings for visitors and staff at Barbanera. Later developments would include a restaurant using produce from the fields that have been bio dynamically farmed. The long term aim is to provide a sort of lifestyle centre ……visitors would be able to spend a day or half a day and see how the land is worked bio dynamically and how these bio dynamic rhythms infiltrate our everyday life….with various specialised areas demonstrating particular crops or flowers.