Soilblocks Rock!

Soilblocks is the shit! It is so good! So easy and without plastic! I can recommend everyone who wants to do seedlings to do it with soilblocks. With the right mix of substrate the seedlings in the soilblocks has all the best conditions to grow and will germinate very quickly with good aeration and humidity all over. The blocks hold the water like a sponge and the blocks make it possible for the roots to grow straiter and not spin around like in a pot or in the plastic "crates". When you are ready to transplant into your beds they are easy to separate and chuck in. We use one part compost, one part peed, half a part pearlite, two different types of rock dust and blood meal (to provide a slow and continuously supply of phosphorus). 

The soilblocks are available in various sizes for different seedsizes and for the different stages of the plants growth. 

Our delicious salatmix growing beautifully in the soilblocks

Easy transplanting of Kohlrabi

The Garden

The garden consists of 15 beds that are 30m long and 75cm wide and then we have the greenhouse consisting of 5 beds that are a bit shorter, 20m, but also 75cm wide. Having the same sized beds makes it possible to use the same tools and covers for the whole garden.

Andrew, my garden master has planned everything in the garden himself and before I arrived the placing of the garden was decided, and the area was broad forked. They mulched the edges with straw to later plant different plants to function as a hedge and windbreak. When I arrived in the beginning of February, they had already started removing the perennial weeds like quack (couchgrass), but we continued two months more also doing other small things in between. The real fun started when we began planting things in the hedges and seeding in soilblocks in the greenhouse.

Developement of the garden:

Development of the greenhouse 

In the beds we are growing:

Various types of lettuce for salatmix: red and green oak leaved lettuce, Endive, Rucula, Misuna, Red mustard, Spinach, good gardener lettuce, Russian kale and romaine. We also have also planted: Spring onion, onion, sweet peas, Broad beans, Turnip, Radish, Purple Kohlrabi, Carrots, potatoes, squash, aubergine, Tuscan kale, cauliflower, broccoli, Swiss chard, beets, cucumber, cantaloupe, hot peppers, sweet peppers, tomatoes. Some herbs: Dill, Cilantro, parsley and purple and green basil.

In the hedges of the garden we planted: 

Chamomile, lemonbalm, artichoke, calendula, sweet corn and colorful native corn from south America, various flowers, sage, thyme, oregano, lavender, rosemary, asparagus, fresh garlic, trees: hazelnut, fig, plum, almond. We also planted some beets, kale and cilantro for seeds. We also have an exploding amount of fungi (fiunny Guys) in the hedges!

Mountanious Landscape

Tajo Algarin and two horses bonding in the sunset

The landscape and nature here is amazingly beautiful and endlessly discoverable. Rocks, clay, flowers, trees, spiky bushes, thistles, small ecosystems, insects and wild boars! Yes! I saw wild boars one of the first days I was here! I was wandering around in the hilly area, to find some of the 80-100 horses that are here. I found them, but far away from the volunteer house “El Nido” (The Nest/Reden). Suddenly the horses look up. I look in their direction and I see two big, big black wild boars and a bunch of “piglets”. Oh my quack, I am telling you, my heart was almost falling out through my throat after all that talk about fencing between Denmark and Germany, because of wild boars (btw that is such a stupid idea). I picked up a stone and left silently in another direction.

The Mountain behind La Donaira

Crystal stones in the area

Rainbow Mountain of clay

Amazing big old spanish oak trees

Typical native flowers of the season

I think it is an almond tree

A butterfly taking a break on a wild savage plant 

I enjoy the nature every day, either when walking around the 700hectares that this Finca/farm occupies, with all its different plants and animals to discover. Or when I am walking back to El Nido after working in the garden, and stops to sit and stare in a new spot. It takes about 10-15 minutes to run down to the garden and about 30minutes to walk back uphill, so breaks are needed! I feel wonderfully free when I am running downhill in the morning, always with a bit of adrenalin from the fear of breaking a leg. It is a good warm-up and awakener! Or I enjoy the view from El Nido, laid back on the terrace, from where I can see the beautiful mountain, Tajo Algarin, in front of the Finca/Farm and the mountain behind the farm.  

The left ring is around El Gastor, the middle ring is The Garden and the right ring is La Donaira and where we live.

Tajo Algarin seen from both sides

This weekend i finally climbed Tajo Algarin, which i have been longing to discover ever since i came. I went there with a girl from Lithuania, who walked at least 400Km with her horse and with a very philosophical guy from England. We had a great hike with deep philosophical conversations and ended up smearing black olives from the trees in our faces and hair.

The importance of rain

Today it rained for the first time since i arrived on the rainy 1th of February. Both February and Marts is usually rainy months, but ever since i came we have only had hot, sunny days. This weekend we had about 22degrees Celsius and we were burning in the sun. The small streams are already drying out and the clay soil is cracking. I was lucky the other day where I found a teeny tiny waterfall on the field. 

The old farmers are predicting that it will rain a lot very soon as it is supposed to and then the summer will be extra warm this year. Let us hope that they are right about the rain, but the heat I am a bit scared of! How will 40-50degrees Celsius be for a silly Danish girl who is not used to that!? It is going to be insane! My garden master Andrew keeps talking about how to make shadow for our plants in the garden with green nets and tall beans planted in the beds. I surely understand why it is so important to provide shadows for our crops here, but I will have to relearn that in Denmark where it is kind of the opposite. It is also super important to have good water storage and management, such as ponds and reservoirs. Juan Jo, a local guy working here, showed me the water system here and it is huge! It is on the whole farm and it is necessary.

I pray for rain while learning to play “Regndans” by Danseorkestret on guitar.

Quack attack!

What the quack?! Quack makes us act quirky! Quack quack! 

A picture of the pile of quack that we have pulled out so far

As mentioned in the introduction, removing quackgrass is a practice of patience. It is like meditation. The Garden Master Andrew and I have been trying to get rid of the evil weed by hand for about a month to create nice beds to grow vegetables in. The garden is supposed to make the Hotel of La Donaira and the volunteers food intake self-sustainable. If the garden becomes a success, which we believe it will, because Andrew is great and has a lot of experience, it will become part of the CSA (Community supported agriculture) program. To survive the fight against the quack we have had many philosophical conversations and made a lot of jokes.  Here is a story about the quack:

Quack has a well-functioning brain and memory! It is a very smart and strong grass that has probably existed way longer than the human species. It probably survived ever since the very beginning of this planet, both surviving the meteor rain and the extinction of dinosaurs. That is how stubborn and steady quack is. Quack will live longer than the human race, because quack says "fuck global warming!" It survives heavy rains and heavy draughts. The strong roots lives under ground and reproduces when cracked into pieces. Actually cracking the quack is the worst thing you can do if you are trying to get rid of it, because every single piece will regrow and BOOM your problem just expanded into an almost unmanageable problem! This is an antique skill the quack has evolved throughout its time on earth! It will do anything to survive. It can move and it can make alliances with other plants, like the wild fennel, and even with stones! You shouldn’t talk too loud about your plans of removing the quack, because it will hear you and it will try to do anything to survive! Even when you grab it, it will try to escape!

Luckily my master, Andrew, is teaching me exactly how to cope with the quack and soon I will be a certified quack manager/ quack technician. Quacknician. You cannot have a farm unless you are quack certified. If you want to avoid quack, don’t become a farmer. If you want to learn about patience, become a farmer and learn from fighting the quack. There is a huge satisfaction and release of endorphins when finishing a bed filled with quack and that feeling can be antidepressant. SO fighting quack can be a method to help depressed people get rid of their depression, but it can also make it worse if you don’t have the strength to finish it, then it will have the opposite effect. The quack is dangerous and can make you almost go insane, that is why Andrew and I sometimes act a bit weird. The quack made us act quirky.

We have been talking about different quack-businesses. We talked about selling quack as jewelry, like necklaces and bracelets. We could also make a great business out of putting quack into farmers’ fields and then go to their door like: “Hey, do you have problems with quack? We have the solution!”. Damn we would get dirty rich with our skills! Actually we should teach monks to zone in on the quack and tell the quack to leave!  The meanest thing ever would be to put quack into other peoples’ gardens!

You might be thinking “is quack really not good for anything?” and yes, after all I must admit that quack is good for something. It helps giving structure to the soil and attracts microorganism that are good for the soil. It prevents soil erosion, which is pretty good in an area that has heavy rains. We would might not have had that good soil if it wasn’t for the quack. The quack is also really good feed for animals. Imagine how great your animals must be after eating such a genius plant! We should throw the quack on the mountains to help prevent erosion and for feed to the animals. 

Here is a picture of how evil the quack is. 

It pierced through another plant! 

Nothing can get in the way of quack!

Introduction

Holaaa!

Heeey!

Heeej!

Welcome to Quack and Quirks!

I am Laura Mathilde or Lama, from Denmark and this page is about my experiences on my Agricultural internship at the Farm/Finca: La Donaira in the beautiful mountainous area of Southern Spain. 

The name of the page was developed together with my new friends from my internship place. They are people from England, Germany, Belgium, France, Holland, Austria, Sweeden, Argentina, United States of America and of course Spain. Since my Garden Master, Andrew, from the States and I have been pulling out a lot of quack (also called couchgrass or Grama in spanish) from the new garden together, I thought that quack would be a nice tittle. Quack is a practice of patience, which i am learning here. Quack is also the sound of a duck and since we do have a lot of different animals here, they should also be represented in the tittle! Just to be clear, i do not put the meaning of a German quacken into the word, because that is a person who pretends to have medicinal skills, which he or she does not have and I will not pretend. 

The word "quirk" means to be a bit odd, weird, excentric and having a mind of its own, which are words that fits to me. I am a bit quirky and i will be sharing some quirky things.

Sooo the two words together adds up to something good! 

Quack and quirks!

Welcome!