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Around their homes the Italian speakers planted the vegetables, crops and fruit
trees which supplied most of their food needs. Small and not especially fertile, the
blocks were farmed wdth the same intensive methods which they had adopted in
Europe; every last centimetre of soil was placed under cuhivation, a minimum of
livestock (fed on milk and fmh scraps) supplied animal fertiliser, and ingenious
irrigation systems were adopted. In these ways, the ItaUan speakers provided an
altemative to the more extensive farming methods of the Anglo-Australians, The
vegetable garden, which was placed within easy reach of the kitchen, provided carrots,
onions, potatoes, peas, beans and other basic food hems. Some families had their own
herb gardens and, like the Pozzis at Hepbum, requested flower and fmit seeds from
their famiUes in Europe (cf above p, 48); new plant species were thus introduced to
Australia (just as some Australian species would have been sent back to Europe)
broadening knowledge of culinary habits around the world. Many Italian speakers
planted extensive vineyards, translating another important ethnic tradition. With a cow
for milk, a few pigs for meat and some hens for eggs, the Italian speakers achieved an
independent and self-sufficient life-style and, excluding those families (like the
Righettis at Yandoit) who developed relatively large, commercially viable farms (cf
above pp, 124-125), this was the picture most often presented to Anglo-AustraUan
settiers ~ one of well-mn, efficient farms operated on a system of kinship ties.
Under the guidance (according to family descendants) of the patriarchal head,
Italian-speaking famiUes were organised to help clear the land for farming ~ often
working in conjunction wdth other families (as was seen with the Tomasetti and
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