Category: permaculture

permaculture

2019 ESC Volunteer Project

Post author By Lou
Post date May 14, 2021
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2019 ESC Volunteer Project

Reflections and learnings from our 2019 volunteers - including a video they produced soon after arriving.

We are here!

Posted on May 10, 2019

Dear readers of this Boodaville blog,

Together with spring the Boodaville season has started in April. But our adventure as ESC volunteers at Boodaville has just begun. Adam, Maria, Santiago and me, Inge, have been selected as this years long-term volunteers with Claudia and Gala as our much needed mentors. We are all super excited and honoured to become a part of this beautiful place and meet all the amazing people connected to it. For the coming seven months we will live at Boodaville and in Caseres. We will be working on the site, be active on social media and hope to become part of, and make new, networks with other permaculture projects.

For me personally these first two weeks as a Boodaville volunteer have already made a huge impact on me. Meeting my fellow volunteers, Claudia, Anna, and all the others who are passionate about permaculture and Boodaville has been the best of experiences. Leaving my old life, my family and friends behind for seven months has been both exciting and hard. Jumping into an unknown situation like this project should be. I can now honestly say that having the right people around you makes taking a huge step like this so much easier. The philosophy of permaculture is not only obvious in the way Boodaville is designed but also in the way we work together as a group. We seek solutions instead of focusing on the problems. Our differences are not important, we all respect each other and focus on those things that connect us.

So please follow us if you are interested in our journey and the amazing thing we are planning this season for Boodaville. We will post content on this blog, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. We will also be present at the coming Maranya festival. Hope to see you there!

Reflections and learnings from our 2019 volunteers - including a video they produced soon after arriving.

Life of a Boodaville volunteer: May

Posted on Jun 17, 2019

So I here am, one month into my adventure. An adventure I share with my fellow volunteers, our mentor and our growing Boodaville family. A seven months journey into permaculture. A month does not seem much. Its only four weeks. Thirty one days of working in the morning, eating and relaxing in the afternoon and working some more in the cooling evening. All this while enjoying nature 24/7. The month May felt like a lifetime to me, but in the best way.

I learned that permaculture is based upon three principles: care for the Earth, fair share and caring for people (and animals!). When applying for this project I imagined most of my learning would be in caring for the Earth. And I have learned a lot, I learned how to use zais systems to regenerate the earth and get rid of your compost, how worms are not disgusting but beautiful hard working creatures. I learned that nature as a design inspiration leads to impressive gardens like our own Boodaville food forest. Also when you cut grass it gives the nutrients a chance to return to the Earth. A month ago cutting grass seemed to me a waste of time but I now consider it to be my new hobby.

But the thing I truly learned a lot about is caring for others (both people and animals). The sharing circles though often emotionally draining have made me realize many things about myself and others. And help me accept some of those. Living in a group, a community, a wolf pack, has both been amazing but also challenging. The key to being a successful group is not to never have friction but how you handle it. Storms may be gathering, rain may fall, it’s good for growing.

Last week I was asked if I have a motto. I found out that I do. “Perfection does not exist.” But striving for perfection is a noble cause. To me, permaculture seems a great way to at least try.

Thank you Boodaville for welcoming me so full of kindness!

Posted on Oct 23, 2019

“Everything that is really, really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom” – Albert Einstein

My first impression about Boodaville as a volunteer: Arrive – Breath – Stop your thoughts – Start working from inner silence. The first half of the day I spent with daily tasks of the very basic life in boodaville with feeding the worm compost, chickens, making wood chips for the food forest, cooking, having inspiring conversations with other volunteers,… The second half of the day I had the freedom to work on my inner processes. Everyone does this in a different way. I chose reading and meditating. Others use their time to learn Spanish or connecting with the land by riding a bike. So there is a lot of space of self-development, which creates amazing conversations and projects from everyone! On the weekend we had a great tree planting project going on. I learned about permaculture-principles and step by step we tried to bring the soil alive again, from really harsh conditions, the cultural way of farming have left for us.

In general I feel Boodaville is a place you can learn to build a new form of living together as society and learn to come back to your basic needs, slowing down from stressful life and reconnect with the environment by working with the land.

I really appreciate the people I met and the awareness of the freedom to choose every second from now on! People I met and the awareness of the freedom to choose every second from new on!

Sense of an ending, Boodaville 2019 (by Inge)

Posted on Jan 24, 2020

From the beginning of May until the end of November I was one of the lucky few who had the opportunity to work and live in Boodaville as part of my ESC project. Now my beautiful, intense, exhilarating, often frustrating and completely inspirational time in Boodaville has ended. Before I came to Boodaville I dreamed to one day be able to lead a sustainable, self-sufficient life. I dreamed about finding my place in this world. Finding people I can connect with on deep levels. Learning all the practical things I felt I did not learn in school. And hoped to have fun while doing all of this.

Boodaville made it possible for all the things I had dreamed about for so many years to become reality. The last seven months I learned to live without running water and electricity. I learned to take care of our gardens. How the plants actually look that provide us with food. I learned not to be disgusted by compost toilets. To see my human waste not as filthy, but as part of me and a vital fertilizing part of our ecosystems. Reality however brings with it negative things that did not appear in my dreams. There can be no good without the bad. And if you do not let the bad happen a lot of good things will also not happen. I had to accept sides of me I could ignore in my old life. I had to face frustration and pain. Not only my own but those of everyone in my community. And where there is a group of people, especially a group like ours with strong personalities, each from different backgrounds, different cultures, well conflicts will just arrive. You cannot help it. And maybe we should not want to. Because conflicts do not need to be bad, do not need to create pain, create division. They are a sign that people care. And when well handled they made us stronger. And while learning all of this, I had the best time of my live.

So I guess all that is left for me to say is thank you. The Boodaville site is a beautiful mixture and monument of all volunteers that passed through it. Boodaville as a place is simply amazing, and Anna deserves all our praise and gratitude for bringing it into existence. Matarranya and Terra Alta are both stunningly beautiful regions inhabited by the most generous and friendly people. Who welcomed me and the rest of our crew with love, food and a lot unasked but needed advice. I need to thank my fellow volunteers. The ones that were there with me from beginning until the end. And the ones that spent time with us. I am going to need years to truly realize how much you taught me. These months would not have been as amazing if you had been different people. So really thanks to everyone I met. Who proved to me that there are a lot of people that care. Care about our planet, about nature, about all animals and other living thing.

Lou

Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.

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Tags community, ESCvolunteers, European Youth, living permaculture, permaculture education, regenerative farming, Volunteers

permaculture

Erasmus + projects and soil workshops (On Friday’s I write)

Post author By Lou
Post date May 7, 2021
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Erasmus + projects and soil workshops (On Friday’s I write)

Read this post about our upcoming Erasmus+ projects and find out how you can join us on a Permaculture training! This week Lou also shares the Urban Permaculture projects happening in Barcelona.

It’s one of those days where I feel like I have taken on too much. A day to make sure I find the time for some nourishment and empowerment as well as a lot of movement and doing. I am surrounded by house and parenting work (Kira has to pack for Colonias this weekend) and also in the middle of funding applications, managing volunteers and leading workshops. But I have been juggling tasks long enough to have learnt that finding calm, quiet reflection and time to write really does give you space and help you find the joy in what you are doing. And as my yogi tea told me yesterday “Joy is the essence of success”.

So this weeks post is a gathering and organising of ideas, current projects, opportunities and needs.

erasmus + projects

1) living the questions, sanillés 21 – 29 june 2021

I am facilitating this youth worker training on “Regenerative Cultures” with the amazing Aline at a stunning location in the Pyrenees. Frank manages the place and will be hosting us and providing food and we are starting a new collaboration with Sam Miller. Me and Sam had a wonderful meeting yesterday talking about the soil food web, JADAM methods for growing effective microorganisms and we have planned the practical sessions to make and spray these “magical” potions.

We are looking for two volunteers to join us for the week! In return for all food and lodging and attending as much of the course as you can, these two volunteers will help us manage the participants in their reflections groups, indivdual taks, housekeeping roles and timekeeping – and be classroom assistants for Anna Louise and Aline. Please contact us if you are interested! thegurney@gmail.com INFO HERE

2) “BETTER THAN NEW” – YOUTH EXCHANGE AT PIPIRIMOSCA SEPTEMBER 2021

Jessica and Pere are taking the lead on organising this exchange near Valls in Catalunya. A week of exploring permaculture, circular economy and getting hands on experiences to develop skills at fixing and upcycling anything from technology, to building and clothes, to waste food! We are looking for 6 participants from Spain, all expenses paid, INFO HERE

3)ecosocial design everywhere, Youth Worker Training November 2021

Boodaville is very excited to start a new collaboration with Vidalia Intentional Community, and to reunite with Alfred 8 years after teaching our first course together (with the beautiful name “Think Like a Forest”). This project is still a half-finished application at the moment – deadline in 3 days!!!

4) youth exchange with vidalia

In a very last minute move, and mainly because Carlos had the capacity, we have also jumped in to put together a youth exchange with groups of young people coming to Vidalia to co-create the future living spaces, learn and share the important ideas and designs behind living as a community. (Also in the project writing phase)

urban permaculture workshops

I am also preparing for two workshops over the weekend.. thinking about plants, wooden posts, which screws we need, which photos I want to take and share, whether the “good soil” I collected from the Boodaville food forest is still alive after being in a cupboard downstairs for a month! (I hope so!)

Due to COVID limitations, both workshops are already full. We will do more!

Lou

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Tags barcelona, ecosocial design, erasmus+, escocells, euyouth, gardens, jardinets, planting, soil, urban permaculture

permaculture

2018 EVS Volunteering Project

Post author By Lou
Post date May 6, 2021
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2018 EVS Volunteering Project

In 2018 we invited two young people, as part of the European EVS programme to come and do volunteering in Spain. See their experiences and videos here!

2018 “Living and teaching Permaculture”

4th October 2018

Review from Jessica (her first ever blog post – when she was here as an EVS volunteer in 2018!)

I’m back in Boodaville. It’s great to be back and follow the rhythm of nature to guide our days. I miss that in our everyday society. It’s very interesting to see how my fellow Boodavillians have changed in the 2 months I’ve been away. They are so free. So confident. In touch with themselves and taking life day by day. It makes me realise how I have changed the last 2 months too. I adapted to life in our modern society again. Guided by the clock and appointments and my mobile phone. It is amazing how I bounced back into society life. Now I need time to bounce back in nature’s rhythm. The rhythm I prefer.

I’ve been doing various projects since I’m back. Redoing the insulation on the veggie fridge, making a functioning hay box (we need to find a new name for it… Aggelos suggested sheep box as it is insulated with wool now, not with hay). We lit the rocket stove we made this summer for the first time. It didn’t go very well, there was smoke coming out everywhere. Jordi, who is in charge of this project, calmly started to repair and showed me how I can make the best fire. He announced me the fire master. I’m also trying to bring a leather chair back to life by using the tools we’ve got. I love being creative. I keep surprising myself with the skills I never thought I had. I’m even learning Spanish. It’s hard to believe that I arrived only last week. So many things I have learned already.

Often we swim in the river and it’s not as pleasant as it used to be this summer. These days its more… refreshing I’ve got to say. And therefore getting in the water is turning into a challenge. I keep telling myself that it will make me strong and resilient. That works well so far. I wonder how long it will last.

23rd December 2018

This beautiful reflection is written by Aggelos one of two long-term volunteers this season:

Hello hello, probably for the last time, at least for this year. My EVS project has almost come to an end and it is in these moments when you think you would look back, remembering and reflecting upon experiences. But you don’t do it the usual way, just looking at photos, or wishing you relive some special moments because those moments are gone, they are in the past. That doesn’t mean you forgot about them but that they are a part of you now. You will never forget because you are who you are.

I cannot relate any more to the person I was when I first arrived in Boodaville. Frightened and scared that I had left everything behind, my friends, my family and the security of no change. The very first moments of complete sadness and without any sense of purpose. Looking around I could only see the emptiness and meaningless in everything. It was only when I talked to the people that were with me there about how I felt that I started to grow, to grow inside. No more wondering if I chose the right place, if I made the best decision.

“this was the first step to natural farming and reconnection with the true nature of all things. Because when you realise that the soil in your hand is not just a combination of water, minerals, organic matter and microorganisms but life itself, the essence of meaning, it is then you become whole not as a human but as part of everything.”

Living in Boodaville, in a way that most people would call primitive, can be frustrating and limiting at first. It is the mindset of the modern human, the prison in which he was born in not able to see the bars that would bring about his lust for escape. Letting go is the key for accepting the unfamiliar, the different.

After I got used to the facilities I learned to love them. Pooing and peeing in the ground to return the nutrients back to the earth, washing dishes with minimal water and soap, being aware that everything will end up in the soil, the element keeping as humans and a lot of other creatures alive. Even washing ourselves was done with the minimal impact on the surrounding environment usually in the close by river. As for our house, it was made out of stone walls and a green roof. The addition of a rocket stove, a very weird looking construction in which the wood burns more efficiently producing more heat which is distributed along a bench, made all the difference during the cold months of October and November. It was the result of team work from scouts, volunteers and the teacher.

In addition to the main house there was an old stone wall house next to it. My first very exciting task was to help rebuild the roof of that house with a bunch of other people also excited to work with natural materials. Bio-construction became something really important and fun for me.

Self-sufficiency is the desirable outcome of permaculture but it takes time to reach that point of a well established ecosystem that supports itself. The task was even harder considering the compacted lifeless bleached and withered soil in Boodaville. Years of ploughing destroyed the top soil and deprived the earth of organic matter and microorganisms. During my time in Boodaville one of my site tasks was to attend the future food forest, to water the trees growing there. But a lot of them died. We suspected that the soil’s compaction was to blame and when the time came just when the rain started we begun the regeneration process. Heavy mulching and planting winter plants such as cabbage, cauliflower, kale, broccoli, dill, artichoke and onions were performed. Sowing rye seeds and legumes as green cover completed the process of helping natural regeneration of the soil. When it was finished I could feel more free as I was thinking that this was the first step to natural farming and re-connection with the true nature of all things. Because when you realize that the soil in your hand is not just a combination of water, minerals, organic matter and microorganisms but life itself, the essence of meaning, it is then you become whole not as a human but as part of everything and nothing.

Our everyday life was as simple as taking care of ourselves but not in the egoistic and self-centered way we are taught to do. We were a community of people looking out for each other, cooking for everyone, working and learning together and supporting everyone when needed. The strongest feeling was that of the solidarity and the well being of the community. Everything was happening because of our determination and interest in building the future we think is necessary for a fair life in which the earth and the people are protected.

This core of people from different backgrounds interacting in an environment of pure cooperation was the result of similar goals and understanding of life. Consequently, the relationships build from our everyday communication and community life imagining the perfect future were like family relationships. The learning process was also quite different. Non formal education was possible because of the interests, diversity of people and their knowledge which allowed us to exchange information about almost everything and realise that you don’t need professors, universities and experts to learn things that are most useful for a life in harmony with the nature around us.

That is the most beautiful part of the story and in the same time the hardest one. When the time came to say goodbye after so many wonderful experiences like sleeping under the stars, playing music, singing, cooking together, sharing stories, laughing and just living the way we did we couldn’t believe that it was over.

I am so happy that I met all these people and so grateful for the time being together. I hope to keep meeting people like them that inspire me to keep fighting for the future I believe in. I will certainly continue searching for them and explore the path of permaculture wherever it takes me.

Lou

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permaculture

2018 Wicking Bed

A wicking bed is a drought resistant garden, watered directly under the soil, so nothing is lost to evaporation and the soil is always moist.

25th April 2018

We finished the wicking bed. Here are the designs and photos of the process!!

Read more about wicking beds here : https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/diy-instructions/wicking-bed-construction/

Lou

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Tags course, drought, ecological garden, education, living permaculture, mulch, nature, organic, permaculture, permaculture education, soil, water, wicking bed

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2016 The Roof Structure and Rainwater Catchment

Post author By Lou
Post date March 19, 2021
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2016 The Roof Structure and Rainwater Catchment

Photos and a brief description of the shade structure and rainwater catchment system we built in 2016. One of many permaculture practicals at Boodaville Permaculture project.

Posted on Jun 2, 2016

We have had an amazing month in May and I really can’t thank our crew enough.. this is the work of an awesome team! Two years after we first attempted this structure it is great to have it done.

I am constantly blown away by the brilliant people that come and get involved at Boodaville, and it is these brilliant people that make the project work, and especially Martin, Ondrej, Rob, Beth, Pablo, Olivier, David, Chloe, Alice, Quim, Nicola, you are exceptional and Boodaville will never forget you

Thank you

From the annual report 2016

The roof structure work week was May 14 – 21. Martin Dobson and Beth did an amazing job designing the structure, planning the materials needed and organising and facilitating the work done. Rob Durand worked brilliantly supporting Martin. We built a large wooden structure and a roof to provide shelter, but also very importantly to collect rainwater.

Lou

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Tags eco living, Permaculture design, permaculture education, Rainwater Catchment, regeneration

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Braiding Sweetgrass, forest floors and urban permaculture (on Friday’s…)

Post author By Lou
Post date February 19, 2021
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Braiding Sweetgrass, forest floors and urban permaculture (on Friday’s…)

This week I am mainly sharing someone else’s writing – quoted stories form Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Forest floor

“After dinner I take the basket of unwashed leeks to the tiny patch of forest above my pond to plant them. The harvesting process now unfolds in reverse. I ask permission to bring them there, to open the earth for their arrival. I search out the rich moist hollows and tuck them into the soil, emptying my basket instead of filling it. These woods are second or third growth but sadly lost their leeks long ago. It turns out that when forests around here grow back after agricultural clearing, the trees come back but the understory does not.

From a distance the new postagricultural woods look healthy, the trees came back thick and strong. But inside something is missing. The April showers do not bring May flowers. No trillium, no mayapple, no bloodroot. Even after a century of regrowth, the postfarming forests are impoverished, while the untilled forests just across the wall are an explosion of blossoms. The medicines are missing are missing, for reasons ecologists do not yet understand. It might be microhabitat, it might be dispersal, but it is clear the original habitat for these old medicines was obliterated in a cascade of unintended consequences as the land was turned to corn. The land is no longer hospitable for the medicines and we don’t know why.

The Skywoman woods across the valley have never been plowed, so they still have their full glory, but most other woods are missing their forest floor. Leek-laden woods have become a rarity. Left to time and chance alone, my cutover woods would probably never recover their leeks or their trillium.”

This story got me thinking about the forest floor around Boodaville. It is bare earth in many places on the south facing slopes, and scarce scrubby vegetation on the cooler slopes. We have plans to implement some holistic management to retain water, build soil, and thin out younger invasive plants and trees to encourage balance.

These forested slopes have never been used for farming, but have been subject to fires and replanting of pines – replacing the indigenous oak trees.

I am left wondering if there are any pockets of land in the Matarranya with the “Skywoman” examples of what the original forest was like. A place where we can study the forest floor and see what is missing in most places.

I honestly don’t think there is, but I will be asking around and exploring. Maybe in the history books there are notes on the composition of the forest hundreds of years ago. Of course the climate will have changed since then as well so it would be a combination of observation and experiment to see how we can regenerate forests to become rich in layers, resilient and biodiverse.

the state of the world (another quote from braiding sweetgrass)

We’ve created a cultural and economic landscape that is hospitable to the growth of neither leeks nor honour. If the earth is nothing more than inanimate matter, if lives are nothing more than commodities, then the way of the Honorable Harvest, too, is dead. but when you stand in the stirring spring woods, you know otherwise.

It is an animate earth that we hear calling to us to plant leeks and honour the gifts of nature*. Wild leeks and wild ideas are in jeopardy. We have to transplant them both and nurture their return to the lands of their birth. we have to carry them across the wall, restoring the Honorable Harvest and bringing back the medicine.”

(* I changed this sentence a bit to make sense in the context of the quotes)

This makes me think of the Charles Eisenstein video “What if we survive?”

The beautiful future we want is healthy Spring forests, regenerated ecosystems, and Ecosocial design everywhere, and we have an incredible amount to learn from Indigenous Cultures about how humans can be a force for good for nature.

This tweet from Sam Bliss about Bill Gates coming to save the world this week made me laugh, and the first sentence fits perfectly with my ideas! :

“The first step to solving climate change is to take all Bill Gates’s money and give it to poor and indigenous people defending their land against extractive and polluting industry. The second step is stop listening to Bill Gates.”

THIS WEEKS CRAZY IDEAS AND NEW STUFF

This week I’ve been getting overexcited by Urban Permaculture and getting amazing things going in my wonderful neighbourhood of Poble Sec. The podcast idea is going anywhere very quickly so sorry to those of you who were waiting expectantly for that! Anyway I met up with Abel, another permacultor in the barrio and today went to a wonderful talk in the community vegetable garden about urban food production during the civil war. They were farming 1200 hectares around the city and producing tons and tons of food. There were some great contacts at the event :

Nick Lloyd who does Spanish Civil War online tours

Carol from the Hort de la Font Trobada

The folk from Cuchara.cat

Marta Camps who gave the talk was great!

and a great association on their way to creating a platform for urban agriculture in Barcelona (Replantem) Huertos in the Sky

So yeah, that was a busy crazy week. All part of my plan to find an office in Poble Sec!! Maybe I’ll start recording the podcast from there. Or maybe next week I’ll jump into a crazy funding bid for “Communities of Practice” which are “how to research, share and adapt best practices and how the different transition movements can collaborate better to enable people to change” (No. I won’t be doing that, I can’t grasp anything concrete from that sentence. Is waffly networking doing much to help? It’s definitely not my thing.)

Other things Boodaville needs right now is help with social media strategy, more people to come on board with Rovira Regenerativa and we are looking for two long-term volunteers resident in Spain!

More next week!!

Lou

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The greywater system at our permaculture project

Post author By Lou
Post date January 27, 2021
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The greywater system at our permaculture project

In 2017 we implemented a very simple greywater system from the kitchen sink to a mulch basin. Looking at the photos now I can't believe we didn't do more for the poor quality soil!

Greywater mulch basin – We dug and mulched a 2m diameter mulch basin (to be pronounced for ever more in the french way (ˈbeɪsən ) 😉 ) A large fig tree will be planted in September because it is a species that especially enjoys greywater (from the kitchen sink – cooking and some washing up water), provides food, suitable for the climate, and offers shade. The water runs directly onto the straw mulch which works as a filter for the soap and food particles so they don’t enter the soil – the method is described in detail by Art Ludwig.

Lou

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Tags design, greywater, water, water management

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We got some serious work done at our Permaculture site this weekend!

Post author By Lou
Post date November 17, 2020
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We got some serious work done at our Permaculture site this weekend!

This weekend we got some serious work done - see our new dry stone wall and drain, the intervention in the food forest, the results of the olive harvest and the work we have to do to fix our green roof.

This weekend we were working with Nick Park from Cova Fullola to get a dry stone wall built between the two houses. Lou concentrated efforts on finishing the inside wall off the old house with lime mortar between the stones, working with mulch in the food forest, harvesting and sorting the olives and digging up the green roof so the builder can get in and fix it next week. The amazing Jessica was managing site to make sure we had energy, water and a rocket stove warm house to get us all through the weekend. Yes, these were 4 extremely productive days!

See what we did in the gallery!

Lou

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Tags caseres, dry stone wall, eco project, ecobuild, food forest, green roof, matarranya, olive harvest, permaculture, regenerative farming

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The Boodaville Yurt – See how we built it

Post author By Lou
Post date November 7, 2020
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Our hand crafted yurt crown by Rob Durand

The Boodaville Yurt – See how we built it

A little bit of Boodaville history about our first collaborative project! In 2010 we built our own yurt with just the help of a 12 page leaflet downloaded from the internet.

10th April 2010

Saturday, our first day building the yurt with the team.

sharpening the chisel – 3 hours

marking out the circle – 3 minutes

at the stinking rubbish dump sawing bits of wood to make floor bearers – 2 hours. key team members: arnau, gary, gary’s right testicle, pau, anna (officially NOT a fascist leader) and a dead cat.

making roof poles round at the end with a fantastically sharp chisel – 1 hour. rob d

drilling holes in the wall posts – 1 hour. phil

trench digging where the bearers will lie on the ground – 1 hour. team members chuk, maskell and smallchuk

lunch. yoopeee. perfect. coffee

levelling bearers and laying and nailing down floorboards on them- hours

tying the wall posts together with the most crucial building material… string – painfully slow and too many blisters

discussing whether to bury the door frame instead of sawing it – yes

discussing whether anna is, in fact, a fascist

wondering whether arnau will get out of the hammock, and whether it was just the morning beer that caused him to drive my van into a wall,

by sundown: floorboards looking flat, wall looking stringy, imminent football match being discussed, arnau’s car battery run down, some not that warm solar showers taken and beer drunk

by 3am .. most people full of wine and on their way to bed

11th April 2010

Sunday. nutella. coffee and tea at the same time. relatively low level of functioning all round.

more floorboards and wedging extra bits of wood under the bendy places,

more and more and more tying wall poles together – second half of wall started

heat. hunger. lunch. river trip option turned down because people are keen to crack on (and they were sitting in the shade at the time)

trying to make the lattice walls have a straight end, running out of string

hole digging so we can bury the doorframe and make a hobbit door.

starting to realise that we are not actually going to get this bastard put together by sundown… but we all had plenty of time to eat pancakes and hot potatoes.

most importantly there are volunteers to come back in a fortnight (24th April) and carry on

BIG UP THE TEAM !!!

24th and 25th April 2010

the very first thing i did this weekend was cut a piece of string and then into my finger with a stanley knife.

classy. i think the workers were impressed

me and phil did get some stuff done though.. we finished tying the second part of the wall, layed a few more bits of flooring (when i say layed, i mean put on the ground) and cut the edge of one of the foorboards as neatly as we could with a pruning saw. a jig saw is, i believe, the name of the tool that would have been suitable for that job.

by sun down we were appreciating beer, practicing going in and out of the hobbit doorway, and realising that hammering down the new flooring may be a rash move. new tasks should aways be thought through twice, preferably discussed with a team who’ve not had three estrellas, and in this case the chance of completely f***ing everything up was high enough to stop us. (that’s something i really need to watch out for when i’m building the real house.)

phil discovered the full horror of packing up in the heat on sunday morning but by the time we got up into the mountains and were actually touching the “three heads” (officially Rocas de Benet) we forgot about that,

“there’s so much rock it kind of blows your mind. there’s so much fucking rock” – Phil. 25/04/10

we walked through pine trees, under eagles, next to cliffs, across a trickling muddy attempt at a stream, up spiky rocks and discovered awesomeness in the true sense of the word when we sent echoes reverberating through valleys away to the edge of the park.

6th June 2010

guapos… i have a door!!!!

ok so it’s not a hanging door, but i think the door hinging task is made way easier by working with bare earth, if its too big i just dig

for those of you who think “well that looks like shit” can i remind you that i/we built it ourselves with the combined level of skill of maskell’s gcse technology class plus a bit of life experience, there was nothing there before and now there’s a yurt and its beautiful

i will sleep in it soon but my bed in the house is just so cosy and the night still has a bit of a chill, not to mention howling jabalíes

13th June 2010

My first sleep in the yurt!

And it wasn’t too freezing and I had beautiful dreams

i finished the yurt door – its on hinges these days and the walls are properly attached. it turns out that digging down to make space for the door to open is not a very good idea at all, know why?

You get a puddle, right in the doorway when it rains!

18th August 2010

The floor is finished!

floor recipe : old beams from the tip, bits of ceiling board, old wardrobe and luxury pallets nailed on. and a few carefully chosen rocks wedged under the dodgy bits. 1000 nails = $4.85 euros 25 nails = 1.25 euros and then i used a shitload more than i thought i would. i’m starting to think that i can do things pretty well myself, it just takes about 5-10 times as long as a pro – but i’m getting pretty nifty with a chisel.

13th September 2010

Fitting a sink, (no thanks to Phil)

something tells me that a piece of chipboard from an old cupboard is not strong enough to support a sink, but when has that ever stopped me before? Marcos told me again that he thinks the whole ger will come down at the first snowfall

so i bought those cheap a-frame things and fixed some extra supporting metal bits, laid the chipboard on top and spent ages making it fit neatly over the screws, then spent a proper ages trying to draw a smaller circle exactly 2.6 cm inside the outline of the sink

finally got round to the fun bit – sawing the hole out – and was rudely brought to a halt by phil breaking saw blade approximately 3 seconds after he started “helping”

so as usual, next weeks job is just a continuation of last weeks. one day i will learn that things take a really long time. (and never think about how fast it could be done if you took it to the wood shop)

good news : la pesquera near beceite is properly lush and swimming under the waterfalls for ten minutes made up for all the DIY sweating,

bad news : erm, ahem, bed bugs – there’s still a few hanging out in the guest suite. damn and DAMN, saw gary naked – to go with the testicle leakage mentioned in a previous post, (maybe that should be good news, sorry gary)

winner of the shooting star contest : phil with 225 points

2nd November 2010

Insulated but creaking

to those of you who don’t believe in the strength of the yurt have to admit that the roof blew off on monday. but only partly and only until me and bernat wrestled with it and forced it back down again with more tent pegs. it creaks quite a lot now

but on the bright side there’s a proper double bed in it now – ha ha! it fitted through the tiny hobbit door!!

the sides have been pegged down and covered with gravel for the winter and we hung up (fireproofed) curtains/blankets/towels all over the inside for insulation.

the porch wall continues to be an interesting experiment in building with fecal matter. the second section perches relatively precariously on top of the first – this wall will not be very straight – and i’ll be very impressed if our carefully m¡xed render is actually weatherproof; horseshit, flour and water goo, powdered milk, straw, sand, and olive oil.

15th November 2010

diy chimney instalation follwed by fire emergency

Friday : mission – buy a stove and a sheet of aluminium 40cm x 40cm with a chimney sized hole in the middle.

12:00 Encants market – stove €89, hot water bottle €6.95 (how did i ever live without one..)

12:30 asked around – hardware store, then industrial machine type shop and am now waiting outside a tiny backstreet door labeled “metallisteria”. a woman in a tabard moping the pavement assured me he would be back soon.

12:47 have decided to stick the chimney fitting together with velcro and just bought some

13:07 give up waiting, but then bump into metal man on the street who grumpily talks in terms of “days” to cut the aluminium and he wants exact measurements. apart from anything else this sounds pricey. (i am on a budget of zero- or verrry fecking close to)

13:28 at the organic veg. patch in horta to buy little baby cabbage, cauliflower, chard and leeks from a man in a wheelchair whose daughter speaks english and mandarin.

15:45 at Leroy Merlin (ie B&Q) where they have some aluminium but cut nothing to size

16:00 followed a sign saying aluminium at the industrial estate, they gave me directions to a place that actually sells aluminium who are now giving me extremely convoluted directions to the other industrial estate where i may be able to get what i need.

16:25 chuffed about successfully following directions but can’t remember shop name, randomly pull in here to ask directions. my, is that a pile of metal offcuts next to a huge machine that slices metal? i think it is

the stubbly man in a boiler suit was smoking while he found a sheet roughly the right size and got to work. the heavy machine pins down the metal then “bummff” slices it. he played around with tubes connected to compressed air and then used a solder to cut the circle.

between him and the other guy who had his ipod on while trying to resurrect a rusty car chassis i was expecting a horrific accident at any moment. my joy at finding this cheap and cheerful workshop was slightly dampened when it turned out not to be cheap – €10 was double what i expected, but i got it. yoop.

15:48 the windfarm near Caseres looks kind of impressive when there’s an orange sunset.

19:18 building supplies shop Calaceite : after discussing the best positioning for the chimney jigsaw and which types of tape i need for fudging together things that get hot, i was gossiping with the owners of the shop about the english caravan invasion and how the council is trying to ban them. i can understand why when the only light apart from the stars on the Arens road is from a tv inside a luxury motorhome parked permanently in a deserted valley.

21:35 soup and trying to decide if karl pilkington could ever be funny

22:10 hot water bottle, wooly hat, fluffy socks and two duvets

Saturday : mission – put the stove in and go to an “eco-fair” in a nearby town

10:07 building a wall out of a mixture of horseshit and powdered milk which has now gone sour and absolutely stinks

11:00 deciding where to put the stove

11:12 clearing out the insects i found living in the folds of the insulation. this could be a fun weekly task 🙁

11:32 still deciding where to put the stove so there’s maximum gap between the chimney and the wall

15:32 done but not tested and on the way to Ráfales

17:35 beautiful town, shit fair.

i don’t think a stand with imported plastic toys should be allowed to feature in anything eco. there were a couple of people promoting biomass and a talk on farm subsidies by a dull government bod. i was happy to stick it out until he finally reached his point, but Marcos was less patient.

18:35 after dark waterfall exploration – El Salt – AWESOME!!

19:05 stopped for a beer in Valderobres

02:35 after two hours in an almost empty bar playing eurocheese techno Marcos is still insiting this is the last drink befroe he takes me home. why didn’t i drive?????

the streets are rammed with gangs of teenagers in tiny skirts and thigh high boots. this is their night of the year or something, hundreds of them totttering and shouting.

“no Marcos i don’t want to go to the disco with them….”

04:52 home at last and its cold enough to warrant stove testing

04:58 yurt filled with chemical smelling smoke, water thrown on fire and evacuation to sleep in the house. more experimentation required during daylight hours with company. there was a definite panic right there, is this because i bought the cheap stove? eeeek

Sunday : mission – plant veg, tidy up and go home

20:17 success

29th November 2010

outside it was cold enough to freeze the water in the kitchen sink solid

inside the yurt : 22º

hell yeah

the chemical smoke mostly burnt away by late friday night and my chorizo chick pea soup was cooking on the stove. i would never have eaten that 4 years ago. i’m turning catalan

Winter vs the Yurt – Round 4

Apr 20, 2015

Boodaville is looking great! We made our first visit of the year this weekend with family and friends and the high rainfall has definitely not done any (permanent) harm to the site.

The yurt and the old house suffered the same fate as last winter with bits of the roof being ripped off, but at least this year we weren’t robbed.

10th April 2016

The yurt has been taken down, to make space for the geodesic dome!

Lou

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permaculture Rovira Regenerativa

2019 Regenerative Agroforestry at Mas Les Vinyes

Post author By Lou
Post date October 19, 2019
No Comments on 2019 Regenerative Agroforestry at Mas Les Vinyes

2019 Regenerative Agroforestry at Mas Les Vinyes

Notes and summary of ideas from the first weekend of the Regenerative Agroforestry course at Mas les Vinyes

Regenerative Agroforestery at Mas les Vinyes

Posted on Oct 19, 2019

I finally had the chance to visit the amazing Mas les Vinyes in September. The course on Regenerative Agroforestry is three weekends in total, and I’m writing to share my impressions and some of what I learnt at the first one. The weekend was absolutely brilliant – just to see the project was incredible, and we also had Carles and Sergi facilitating excellent sessions; theory, visiting the examples on site, and a practical, plus we stayed overnight and ate amazing food with the community there.

Even though the climate and land use is very different to Boodaville – it is greener and with a lot of animal grazing and grass – the sessions were really well adapted to give information to individual projects.

Boodaville has changed direction from the original permaculture eco-village plan, and as we see the world getting crazier, with people trying desperately to cling to power and money while environmental crises are not addressed, I am getting more and more interested in soil. Building soil. Fertile, nutrient filled, rich and bursting with life. Where fungus creates connections between different plants and trees growing together into a resilient ecosystem. The new direction is developing regenerative agriculture in the valley – a tough challenge in this water scarce, soil degraded area. I never thought I would be a farmer, but the impact of successful regenerative agriculture will be beautiful. And on the journey to get there, after ten years of creating, coordinating and administrating Boodaville, I now have the pleasure of learning, exploring, going out and connecting with other people and projects, and designing.

If you would like to know more about our new direction (including permaculture education, regenerative farming and ecosystem restoration please email me Lou : thegurney@gmail.com and I will send you information)

There is loads of info at Mas les Vinyes on their youtube channel and a great project EDUCA PERMACULTURA

SATURDAY MORNING – WHAT IS RA?

Sergi opens with a little speech about how Syntropic Agriculture won’t work in Spain as it uses loads and loads of water. I’m really interested in Syntropy and will bear this in mind and look forward to learning more!

What is regenerative? Productive, self-fertilising, healthy with no plagues, resilient (can withstand and recover from shocks)

What is degenerative? Production requires energy, requires nutrients, and leads to dead soil/ desertification

Jem Bendell is mentioned : DEEP ADAPTATION he wrote a paper on this as a way of coping with the collapse of our living systems and all the social craziness this has led to. The 4 R’s are Renounce, Resilience, Restoration, Reconciliation. Part of the process is to accept how bad things really are, to accept that people will be distracted by clickbait, and adverts, and continue as they have been “programmed to function” (words from the Lily Allen song “The Fear”!) Then you can find your way without these things damaging you, and engage with anyone. Ok I’m drifting off topic here…

We can adapt Regenerative Agroforestry (RA) to climate change, using Microclimates, Infiltration, the fact that forests have efficient, Slow transpiration rates – they don’t transpire all the water as soon as the sun shines like cereals (and rocket! Rocket will dry out your soil!!), Biodiversity, Low energy needs.

Characteristics of RA

tree layer
soil is a living element
symbiosis flora / fauna / micro fauna
efficient design

Types of RA

Food forest
Analogue forestry. This is where you imitate the natural forest of the region, but can use homologous varieties – so you might use a slightly more drought resistant variety of a tree, or a slightly different bush that produces fruit that humans eat, and this is agriculture, so you will be planting productive trees in the system. In permaculture design this would be in zone 3 / 4 much less maintenance than the food forest.

This picture is an analogue forestry design at Mas les Vinyes (MLV), they have replicated the forest behind using ecological surveying, and put the productive trees at the edges of the rows where they can be easily harvested. They have planted many species, indigenous and homologous trees imitating the climax forest behind. They only water the productive trees that are not native. (This project is also being funded by a research program – they are looking at what lives and dies to see how climate change may be affecting what natives live and die now)

They say there is a certification called “Forest (Garden) Product” so for responsible consumers out there you can look that up and buy even better than organic!

(more types of RA)

Alley cropping – they do some of this at MLV. Some crops do better in the “alleys” between the trees than they do without trees. This is part of the culture in many places not a “new” idea.

Check out the amazing Paulonia tree – a species that has loads of useful properties in RA systems – but needs a lot of water so no good for Boodaville.

River Agroforestry – this is illegal in Catalunya as within a certain distance from the river you aren’t allowed to farm. If you want to use animals in the system make sure they can’t get all the way to to river banks as their behaviour will increase erosion. I see a real potential for this in the bottom of the valley at Boodaville where there is no “river” but there is underground water – you can already see the bigger trees there making the most of the water available, it would be great to start putting some productive trees and designing a system around there.
Perimeter Agroforestry – where the trees follow a pattern on the design (NOT just the edges of fields around monoculture) but maybe following a swale/key line, or designing perimeters into your land to have more forest.
Silvopastoreo – animal agroforestry is what they do here at MLV.

Nice graph about mechanisation. Imagine mono culture cereal is 100% mechanisation – you drop down in the following order – alley cropping, 75%, perimeter about 60%, then silvopastoreo 50%, River about 40%, analogue 30% and food forest down the bottom at about 15%.

A tour of MLV

1st stop is the alley cropping, where we see rows of fruit trees with support species such as Eleagnus, Consuela, Buffalo Berry, Caragana. They have a nice Goji next to a Mulberry. Olivo ruso is in the system

2nd stop some “guilds” next to the veg garden. The border, at top of terrace wall is a great mix – rosemary, eleagnus and a pink flower ASK SERGI!!. They have a climber that got out of control, be careful with fast growing climbers. passion flower, nispero,

3rd stop analogue forestry

4th stop in the woods – they had cut down all the spikey, early succession bushes (the ones we get at Boodaville!) to leave space for sheep food and sheep?

Full list of species talked about with Sergi for Boodaville / water scarce poor soils

Cytisus Coronilla

Hippopae Rhamnoides – get male and femail, has yellow spine

Alfalfa Arbolia

Paulowina?

Capers?

Esparago

Pulsatilla (or something that sounds similar)

Cerbuxa (pruny kind of bush, something that sounds similar to this)

Caragana (Anna took seeds from Sergi)

Tanoceto (Anna took seeds from Sergi)

Palomera (?)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON – DESIGN

Process

define vision
analysis using permanence scale from yeoman. In order of permanent down to less permanent: – climate, topology (get a proper topological survey for new project – Jesus Ruiz can do this), water, roads/access, trees (dominant, abundant, frequent, occasional, rare, non-existent that would be expected), structures, sub-divisions, soil.
map of the land
sector analysis and preliminary zone map (Fire, Air, Water, Earth for sectors)
study of homologous ecosystems and biotic factors
define objectives of the system that need to be designed – including, market, economic, social ecosystem
have strategies like layers to cover time while trees go (eg growing veg under trees before they get to maturity)
define AR system to use
choose what to grow

Choosing what to grow :

decide on main cultivations, secondary cultivations, morfología y necesidades, and choose your support species. Support species have the following functions : mineral accumulators, creating organic matter, attracting insects, improving soil, covering soil.

SECOND PART OF DESIGN

proyección de especies
timeline for action
IMPLEMENTATION!!!

We then looked at two projects from members of the group and did an amazing application of all of the above, in about one hour we took two groups through the process and actually had half the design on the board! The best design session I’ve ever done.

Practical stuff that came up : If you are planting anything that competes for water put it more than 1.5m from tree. In general don’t plant permanent stuff closer than 50cm. Avellanas (hazelnuts) need 1000mm a year rainfall. oh. so maybe they won’t grow at Boodaville then.

SUNDAY – MICROBIOLOGY OF SOIL

Living soil has minerals, microorganisms and organic matter.

Aerobic microbiology makes humus. Anaerobic microbiology is what takes the minerals from the Roca Madre. Tractors mix these two, and that is BAD.

Structure : you need clay particles to hold soil together and the elements with a negative charge stick to clay (Ma, Mg, Z) The elements with a positive charge stick to the Roca Madre (mother rock. i’m sure it has a better name in English).

Fertility – Think about now, in the near future and in the long term. (This is where we have been going WRONG)

Fertility now : minerals are in the soil and water transplants them to plants once they are available.

Fertility for the next ten years : The soils needs organic matter. one way to get this is to let animals graze and eat 50% of the top of the plant. This doesn’t kill the plant (good) but also does mean the plant is damaged enough to lose 25% of its roots (good). The roots then become organic matter in the soil. So in RA we want to lose 50% of the plants at the top.

Plants auto regulate themselves, so if they lose leaves, then they will lose some roots. And if they lose roots, they will then lose leaves.

Ants take sugar (seeds, energy) down into the ground where they make fungus. Ants eat fungus. They even make different fungus in different places so they are resilient, and if some doesn’t grow, then the other ones will. Ants know more about different types of fungus than humans.

There are three pages of notes left!

Until I get another chance that is all for now

Lou

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Tags ecosystem restoration, living permaculture, Permaculture design, permaculture education, Regenerative Agroforestry, regenerative farming, soil