Visiting Other Projects

While traveling around Europe recently we took the opportunity to visit a couple of other projects for new inspiration and connect with friends.  On our way to Bulgaria we took the scenic route via Hungary and visited my friend Kristina in the village of Nagyszékely (don't ask me how to pronounce it, the Hungarian language remains a closed book for me) some 70km south of Lake Balaton.

I know Kristina from my Permaculture Design Course in Italy and she shares her time between Budapest and this village, where she participates in the activities of a small community.  It is a very rural area in a gently hilly country and 10 families within the village have got together to form a small community bound by their common interest in permaculture.  It's not so much an eco-village, but a naturally grown community.  It now attracts visitors from all over Europe and other parts of Europe willing to experience their way of life.

Kristina works a great garden with a great bio-diversity, using techniques such as companion planting and mulching.  She also has a few beautifully creative elements such as this 'willow tent'.  From the outside it looks like an ordinary shrub...

...but if you creep in through the gap, you are in a wonderfully secluded shelter:

We also visited a few other members of the community.  My favourite one was a tour of a food forest by one of Kristina's neighbours (her name escapes me just now).

Around every corner, something new and productive turned up, a mixture of annuals and perennials, vegetables, fruit, herbs, grains.  Her enthusiasm was infectious and the forest truly inspiring.  I leave you with another few images:

This week we visited another project in Greece in the seaside town of Pefkohori in the Chalkidiki of Northern Greece by my blogger friend Mary.  She has followed my blog for some years, but unfortunately her English garden blog has been inactive for some time.  Nevertheless, we have stayed in contact and exchanged seeds.

The garden she works together with her parents has some big challenges.  For a start they don't have much money to spare.  The soil is very poor and near the sea (500m).  The summers are very dry.  Although they've had the property for 35 years, running water has only been installed 2 years ago and they still don't have electricity and for shelter they have a small self-built house.  So she has been experimenting a lot with drought resistant heirloom vegetables and they collect the little rainwater off their roof in a large storage tank.  Keeping ground-covering plants plants to improve the soil is difficult for them for two reasons: giving shelter to venomous snakes and fire hazard.  A wild fire last year only stopped 500 metres from the property, narrowly averting disaster.

Mary's elderly parents still very much enjoy working the land, the father usually busy with some project or other around the house, the mother watering the plants:

I love the way Mary experiments with different types of seeds.  Here she has sown sesame for seed production, which I never realised what a beautiful plant this is:

This is a really interesting long Chinese bean variety:

Also this year they started keeping rabbits for food production and chickens are planned for next year.  Mary made the cage herself from recycled materials:

After enjoying a few days of Greek hospitality and a few dips in the sea we returned to Bulgaria, more of which soon.  Thank you Kristina and Mary for your hospitality... :)

Organising the Essentials

 

 Rain seemed to have been a feature of our recent travels.  We've traveled the length and breadth of Europe, mostly on family commitments, and every time we crossed a border it started raining soon after.  First eastbound from Italy into Slovenia, then Croatia.  The brief crossing through Serbia remained dry and most of our first stay in Bulgaria.  As we headed west again the rain followed us through Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and back into Italy.  In Switzerland it rained, and in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and in England.  When we returned to rainy Holland we were told there was a heatwave there, while we were in rainy England.  Now we are finally back in Bulgaria and... apparently it never happens here in July... but, rain.  Proper rain!  It absolutely bucketed it down on Sunday.  But luckily we had shelter in the shape of a garage.

On the latest leg of our travels we have been joined by Alex, who had helped look after our land back in Italy for the last couple of months.  Now we just left Maiemi in charge of our home affairs.

Before getting into proper permaculture design of the land, initial plans include a strawbale house amongst other things, we needed to make our stay a bit more comfortable for the more immediate future.  So first projects we tackled addressed our more basic needs: food storage, disposal of human excrements and hot showers to clean ourselves after a long days work in the sunshine.  Yes, after the big storm the sun came out again, baking us.

For food storage we made a very simple mini-fridge made from 2 terracotta pots half-buried in the ground with a layer of sand between them, which is kept moist.  The evaporation will cool the contents of the inner pot which is covered with a terracotta lid.  It's small but it keeps our fantastic Bulgarian yoghurt (the BEST in the world!) and feta cheese cool even on the hottest days.

 Then came the more urgent task of constructing a toilet.  We had plenty of material and our need was great.  So we decided to build a temporary mobile compost toilet, before making any final design decisions on a more permanent solution.  So first of all we dug a hole and stuffed some straw inside:

Then, to make it all a bit more comfortable, also in view of Vasko and his family joining us soon, we built quite an elaborate portable seat.  That way, once we have filled this particular hole, we can can dig another hole and carry the whole structure to the new location and plant a tree in the old crap hole.  Here is the process:

Material of a previous house was used to make a simple 4-legged structure.

We closed the top and attached a regular toilet seat for comfort.  ...and finally the test...

...after we covered the front side for aesthetic reasons and put crosses on the other side for added stability, and moved it to its position above the above mentioned hole.  All we need now is a privacy screen, which we will install before the family arrives.

To clean ourselves after a hard days work we rather wanted to have a hot shower.  Running cold and colder water was the only luxury we had so far.  So we were given a blue water barrel from Vasko's cousin, in fact two barrels.  First task was to paint one of them black to absorb the sun's heat and therefore heat any water inside rapidly.  After a few attempts to elevate the barrel and secure it at a height we finally decided to lower ourselves.  We have an old leaking concrete water storage container, so we simply decided to clean that out, put the barrel on some old concrete posts and descend into the pit to have a shower, like so:

The eventual plan with that daft concrete container is to construct a greywater cleansing area, but more of that once we get to that point at the moment we are just trying to make the camp comfortable.  Here is a view of the bathroom / toilet area, including full action pics of Susan trying out the shower!

In the meantime, back in Italy...

I'll come back to the survey on the land in Bulgaria, but for the moment we are back in Italy and I thought I'll keep you all up-to-date on what's been happening in Italy in the meantime.  The boys we left in charge have been working... well not that hard, but don't be too hard on them.  The weather has been crap during the month we were away, unlike in Bulgaria where we had a month of sunshine and temperatures in the upper 20's, low 30's.  So they couldn't really get out that much and that combined with the amounts of rain promoting the growth of weeds, it's tricky.  Even the week we've been back, there were only really two half decent days to fight back the jungle, today being one of them.

Everything is late this year, the cherries, the plums, the figs, the pears, but on the plus side, all the trees and shrubs we planted in the food forest and elsewhere, as well as the potatoes, had a good watering in and survived happily and were glad to be freed from the encroaching weeds.

First priority was freeing the potato terraces and earthing them up.  This is the higher potato terrace, which they share with the kiwis.  One of the female kiwis died this winter, whilst Stud the male is coming down with flowers.  The surviving female still is a bit shy, I hope she'll be put to shame by Jenny the bi-sexual kiwi (she used to call herself John...), which you can see in the foreground together with Ronaldo the fig tree.

 The lower potato terrace was a creation by the late Bart inside the future food forest. Note the interesting zigzag line neatly avoiding Jenny (no relation) the Rotella apple tree, Arthur the autumn olive, Heike the gingko tree and Gina the Tuscan broom.

In other news in the food forest, Sally the service tree is doing is well:

...ably supported by Ellie the elaeagnus ebingeii (by supplying nitrogen)

...and everything else survived including Conny the Cornelian cherry and Yukako the Japanese quince:

The future pond hasn't really progressed much, but Charity the mahonia is bearing edible fruit.  Bet you didn't know you could eat the fruit of this plant which is usually grown for decorative purposes.

 

...and the milk thistles (silibum marianum) is thriving, a great medical plant for liver problems.

In final news, Paul the mulberry tree (Mull of Kintyre...) is already forming fruit despite still being in a pot rather that in it's final location the arbo-loo (a hole in the ground, where you shit in and afterwards plant a tree in).  The reason it hasn't been planted yet is that the alternative to the arbo-loo, the compost toilet, has yet be constructed too.  So the boys have their work cut out.

Wish them luck and better weather as we head off on another odyssey northwards on various family business.  Oh and for those of you with an interest in wine as well as gardening and Italy, I have started a new blog on that subject where I share my wine adventures on my travels.  Pop in on the Wine Anarchist and visit me there too!

S for Survey, P for Plants...

I

To help with the design process for a permaculture garden I was taught a number of acronyms to remember what to do when.  The first one is SADIMET, which stands for Survey, Analysis, Design, Maintenance, Implementation, Evaluation, Tweaking.  So having done a base map of the garden in Rozovets, we are still way not ready to start any designing, let alone starting to do any altering work on the property. 

If you are intending to design a place, first take a step or two back, slow down, hold your horses!  The survey is the most important and time intensive part of your work, so it was good for us to spend some time on the plot for a while.  One of the first things you observe also follows an acronym: PASTE, which stands for Plants, Animals, Structures, Tools, Events.  So let's start with the survey of Vasko's plot in Rozovets with the P for Plants.  Another acronym is used to indicate how frequent the plants occur: DAFOR, which stands for Dominant, Abundant, Frequent, Occasional, Rare.  So I will put one of these letters after each plant name.  Here comes the list in no particular order, with some of their uses:

Broad-leafed dock (D in places) - edible and nutrient accumulator

Dandelion (F) - edible, nutrient accumulator,medicinal, ground cover
Mugwort (O) - edible, medicinal, nutrient accumulator
Stinging nettles (O) - edible, medicinal, attracts beneficial insects
Various grasses (D in places) - ground cover
Mallow (A) - edible
Wild raspberries (F) - edible

Rue (O) - medicinal, insect repellent.  This herb is actually native to the Balkans!


Vetch (D in places) - limited edible use, nitrogen fixing






Wild roses (F) - edible, bee attractant
Red clover (A) - edible, nitrogen fixing, bee attractant
Hemlock (O) - useful for knocking off you mother-in-law...

Something from the mint family that looks like lemon balm, but smells more pungent (O)
Bindweed (R)
Hollyhock (O) - edible
Tulips (F)
Periwinkle (O) - medicinal
Wood sorrel (F)- edible, nutrient accumulator
Burdock (O) - edible, medicinal, nutrient accumulator
Various walnut, cherry and wild plum seedlings (F)
Goosegrass (O) - edible
Sweet violets (O) - edible, medicinal
Wild lettuce (R) - medicinal, halucinogenic
Yarrow (O) - medicinal, edible, nutrient accumulator
Bugloss (O) - edible, bee attractant 

Bladder campion (O) - edible
Some white flowering brassica (R) - edible
Shepherd's purse (O) - Edible
Cornflower (R) - edible, attracs beneficial insects.

So much for the plant survey. What we cold start doing without the need of designing or planning was chop down some of the plants for mulch and adding nutrient to the soil.  Here is Susan in action with some great hoe-like implement we found at a local hardware shop.

We didn't get everything cleared during our time there, but about abthird is looking a lot more accessible for now.

 

Also many of the trees are diseased and we got going cutting out much of the dead wood:

 

Finally, I discovered that the local grocery shop in the village sells seeds.  We will now leave Bulgaria for a little while to come back in a month to finish the job, but we thought it would be nice to be able to harvest something when we do come back.  So I prepared a little bed near the fron on the lowest part of the land and sowed some beans and raddishes. 

I wouldn't normally sow in such straight lines, but the hope is that the beans will climb up the fence.  It's really more in hope that any serious expectations.  If it stays as dry as it has been during the month we've been here, it's not likely to yield much at all.  This is the variety bean I sowed:

We have managed to get our first harvest of cherries off the land before we left though and... The starlings nesting in an old street lamp above the land started flying just before our own departure.  A good omen?

Designing a garden in Bulgaria

 

After the initial set back of loosing Bart at the very start of this project, Susan, Eddie the Beagle and myself returned to the village of Rozovets to set up camp and start designing a garden.  The plan was that our friend Vasko let us use his land to camp on, work on, grow on, while him and his family were still in the UK.  This way we could decide if we liked the country and , if we did, they would come back to their native soil and we'd start a small community living off the land.  After what happened we were all over the place to start off with as you can imagine, but whatever else happens we decided to at least design a permaculture garden for Vasko and his family, who has been helping us a lot through the bureaucracy following Bart's death and also in memory of Bart, who died on this very spot.

So I will take you bit by bit through the design process. The garden is located in the small village of Rozovets on the egde where the Thracian Plain meets the Sredna Gora, right bang in the centre of Bulgaria, an area also known as the Valley of the Roses, because this area is responsible for 90% of the world's essential rose oil production.  Just now it is the harvest time

The garden is located at an altitude of just over 500m a.s.l. at almost the highest point of the village.  To the north, west and east the Sredna Gora hills rise, with no other villages until the northern flanks of these hills for some 20km or so.  To the south the vista opens up to the Thracian Plain with the city of Plovdiv visible some 50km to the south and on a clear day the Rhodopi Mountains can be seen in the distance.  The climate is therefore hot continental in the summer, with high humidity and some very cold winters, with severe frosts common.

Let me take you on a brief walk around the property if you've got 5 minutes to spare:

But first things first, I had to create a base map on which to base my design on.  This is it here, giving a nice idea.

The whole property consists of about 750 m2.  I have not yet drawn in the contour lines, but the north-eastern side is the highest point sloping down slightly towards the south-western. 

So much for today.  Next post I will put up the results of the PASTE survey as well the soil test and other factors which will help me make up my mind how to design this garden.

In fond memory...

Most new beginnings start with an ending.  This one was more dramatic then we expected.  On day 2 of our stay in in Bulgaria my cousin Bart, the inimitable 'Conspiracy Cousin', suddenly died of a heart attack.  He had lived with us for the last 2 1/2 years, worked with us, laughed with us, cooked for us, joked with us, admonished and adviced us, he became like a brother to me.

On the days that followed his death, as we struggled through the bureaucratic mess of having him cremated he kept sending us little messages.  I'll leave you with a couple of them:

At least I'm sure he would have agreed with our choice of funeral director:

R.I.P. Bart