Permaculturing in Portugal

Podar no Minguante, menos damasqueiros e morangueiros (prune on the waning moon, except for apricots and strawberries). So says February’s Agricultura/Jardinagem section in the Borda d’Água, the Portuguese almanac that most people hereabouts seem to follow. So we’ve been following suit, especially since our neighbours told us that they’d also been informed that the February waning moon was the time to prune olives.

Oonagh up the tree, Helen cutting the sawn branches into stove-sized lengths

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We’ve been busy building a compost bin and wood store, not least because material for composting has been piling up from both the composting toilet and kitchen, and our firewood has been both rotting and remaining damp underneath its tarpaulin.

Oonagh helped for a while, but was really more interested in rehearsing her outfit for carnaval. So Helen and I did most of the work. Both compost bin and log store are now functioning, but we still need to build the roof to keep the rain off.

Oonagh “helping” to build the compost bin

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With all the time lost in December and january to the torrential rains and getting our basic living accommodation in a habitable state, I’ve been keen to get on with pruning the large number of vines on the quinta. Last year we were only here for 2 weeks in January and I was only able to spur prune a handful of vines without really much of a clue as to what I was doing. I didn’t kill them though, so armed with that knowledge and a few techniques learned at a recent garden open-day in Barril de Alva, we’ve set about tackling the vines in earnest before the warming weather starts the sap rising.

With so many vines to do, it’s not really been possible to adhere to the bio-dynamic calendar, so we have just been proceeding on a daily basis for the last week. In any case, I’m not sure what days vine pruning should be done on. Most people say fruit days, but to my way of thinking, you’d want the vine’s energy concentrated in its roots if you’re going to be hacking large chunks off it above ground, so I’d be inclined to prune on a root day.

Double Guyot vine pruning

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Thanks to Matt and Kirsten over at Quinta das Abelhas lending us their beautiful Dodge truck conversion when our prospective caravan fell through, we’ve been able to welcome our first WWOOFers to the quinta. Helen and Pepe joined us 5 days ago from a long stay at Quinta das Abelhas and have already made a huge difference to the amount of work we’ve been able to get done.

The Dodge

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Or is it?

It depends on what you mean by ’simple’. The trouble is that simple (leaving aside simple-minded for a minute) can mean both uncomplicated, and humble, lowly, basic. The two are not necessarily the same.

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At last, thanks to a load of firewood, I’ve been able to move over to the quinta. The yurt is drying out nicely, the accommodation organised for efficient and comfortable living, and the little Lange stove is performing superbly. It’s so good to be here!

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Yesterday I went back and fitted the stove all over again. I wasn’t happy with the way the flue was installed, even though it was fitted the way it was designed to be.

The single skin stainless steel flue pipes, fittings and caps (chapéu) on sale here aren’t the most ideal flues from the point of view of efficient stove operation as the thin metal leads to rapid cooling of the combustion gases, causing condensation of water vapour and creosote accumulation at an accelerated rate. I’d already swapped my initial choice of 130mm pipe for 110mm before installation to increase draw and flue temperatures, but the nature of the pipe is such that 20mm diameter probably doesn’t make a massive amount of difference. (Though what do I know? I’m not a heating engineer.)

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Christmas Eve. Seems a good time to get the stove finally in and working. I’d forgotten just how good this little stove is, and it draws to perfection with 3 lengths of 110mm flue pipe. At this rate I should have the yurt warm and dry and fit to move into within a reasonable time. Always providing I can source the firewood …

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Went over to Benfeita today to do some more work on installing the stove. It took me easily half an hour to get along the 1km of our track. Last night’s winds and rain had brought down some trees and I had to shift no less than 3 trees across the track to get to the quinta, each one progressively larger than the last. Just as well I happened to have a hand saw in the back of the van. (Mental note to self: keep one there at all times.) And just as well they were all relatively small pines that my girly muscles were capable of shifting. (Mental note to self: keep a tow rope in the back of the van for occasions when girly muscles aren’t enough.)

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Well at least in the virtual world …

My web hosting for this site expired today so I’ve been completing the migration to the new servers which are 100% solar-powered – for real, not through accounting convention – via Solar Host. Hopefully all should function as intended, but please let me know if you encounter any glitches and/or weirdnesses.

See my earlier post on this for more details. Right now, the sun’s shining in an almost clear blue sky so I’m off to Benfeita to install the stove.