By Victor Greto
Call what Dominic and Lilliana Vivolo have a piece of paradiso italiano, Italian heaven.
It smells that way, especially in the 90-degree, thick humid air of a mid-July afternoon.
The scent of peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, grapes, string beans, eggplant, watermelon, lettuce, spinach, celery, basil, Swiss chard, escarole, onions, bay leaf and raspberries meld into an indefinable but familiar lush and loamy aroma.
But it has be nurtured and loved daily.
That’s where Dominic comes in, early in the morning to check on the progress of the plants that seem to cover every available space in the immodest yard of their modest home in Old Cooper Farms.
In the Vivolo garden, rows of tomato plants climb and arch over a canopy in the middle of the garden.
Most of the plants stand like 9-1/2-foot-tall sentinels, their huge, heart-shaped fruit held up by string and nourished by rainwater.
A few plants are even named after their seven grandchildren, including Riccia (Rachel), Sophia, Nicky, Dominic, Lauren, Julie and Domenica.
Just last week, Dominic pulled off a 3-1/2-pound tomato, near where he plucked out a 3-foot-long zucchini, its lower belly rounded like a middle-aged man’s paunch.
He and Lilliana, slice some of the zucchini into chips and place them in square wooden cages Dominic built, to dry in the sun for three days, to be used in such things as lagonza, a dish that includes string beans, zucchini, mushrooms, peppers and bread crumbs.
Nothing’s wasted, not even the yellow flowers that bloom on the zucchini. They’re used as a main ingredient in pizza fritz, fried dough that Italians eat like soft pretzels.
Dominic waters his plants from the rain he collects in seven barrels in his garage. The downspout fills them, and he uses a small pump to push it out through hoses to soak the base of all his plants.
Tap water is full of chlorine, he says, his accent as thick as the air. Occasionally he has to use it, but mostly the skies provide enough.
Of course, one waters “never from the top down, and always at night, about seven o’clock” he says, so there is no chance of leaves burning in the sun, and the plants can brood in water throughout the twilight and darkness.
Dominic, a retired stone mason and bricklayer, spends his mornings walking the rows of plants that always seem to need his help.
He uses no pesticides, so he’ll tell you he does nothing to earn the greenest of green thumbs, but it’s tender loving care, says Maria Cella, who lives nearby.
She was the Vivolos’ neighbor across the street when they lived on Sycamore street in Wilmington, near St. Elizabeth’s Church. She moved just before the Vivolos moved here nearly three years ago.
The Vivolos moved from Bagnoli Irpino, Italy, in 1970, a town near Naples to Wilmington, where Lilliana’s mother and father lived.
Like many an Italian before him, the old country remains deep in the palm of his hands. Not a green thumb, but a thick topsoil of a peasant-working class past that weighs as heavily on his shoulders as his tomatoes on their vines.
But Dominic has not let the weight of the past – or his tomatoes – stop him.
If you look closely, the tomatoes have been coddled and strung up carefully, defying gravity.
That seems to be the key, because the fruit of these plants, from tomatoes to zucchini to string beans, seem to be just like aging people, wanting to just give up, grow fat and fall to the earth.
But they’re not allowed to in Dominic’s garden: he acts like a kindly father, supporting and tasking his kids to reach their full potential.
That potential is realized often within the hands of Lilliana, who turns the tomatoes into marinara sauce, Bolognese sauce, puree, jarred peeled or whole tomatoes.
Nearly 100 tomato plants last year produced 224 quart jars of different types of tomatoes, from the huge heart-shaped ones to the slimmer Italian tomatoes to grape tomatoes, plum tomatoes and round tomatoes.
The Vivolos don’t sell their bounty. It’s all for family, neighbors, old friends.
Dominic even grows his own seeds from a makeshift hothouse on side of their home, squares of plants he covers with glass and tarp in the winter.
Every two years he orders two truckloads of topsoil blended with manure.
The fruit and vegetables are canned and jarred in the refreshingly cool cellar of the house.
Throughout the year down there, the Vivolos make bread and cheese and sausage, canning and packaging their spicy concoctions.
Their grandchildren also hang out with them down there, and not just 6-year-old Sophia.
For the toddler Domenica, Dominic took a child’s car seat and tied ropes to the cellar beam so the child may be content and absorb the aroma of old Italy while her grandmother bakes bread and cans the fruits of their labor.
Gardening tips from Dominic Vivolo
Use rainwater to nourish your vegetables and plants.
Everyday, walk through your garden and tie the plants and fruit so they don’t fall or break the plant.
When you water, only water the base of the plants, never the leaves, and do it in the evening.
Use no pesticides.