An addictive process
Our emigration to Spain implied a lot of new steps, actually a complete thinkover/rethink of our life and lifestyle. Because our life in The Netherlands was a complete other life than we are living now in Spain on our Finca Libertad. We lived a life which was very comfortable in a lot of ways, but we always created our own challenges to keep ourselves on our toes and develop ourselves. “Do not make life easy but challenge yourself and develop yourself. For an even better life.” This was and still is our motto. Our move to Spain was inspired by the challenge to become self-sufficient. Our flexibility and agility is one of the key ingredients we build our success on.
Being self-sufficient sounds really great, but there is a lot to discuss and investigate to make it really happen. First thing you need to do is determine in what way you want to be self-sufficient. Just for the important basics or for more; water, food, energy and more. Things like having your own water source, generate your own electricity, grow and prepare your own food or make your own clothing and so on. To be completely honest with you, being completely self-sufficient unhappily does not exist. For the simple fact that we always need other people to foresee our needs. Like in ancient history people had an exchange in food, this still is actual nowadays. Our vegetable garden is full of different vegetables, but our soil is not appropriate for all kinds of vegetables. So we need to exchange with friends and other people to eat in a varied way. And not to forget, sometimes the harvest is bad or small and you will need to go to the local market to replenish and buy your groceries. Last year was a bad year for my zucchini, eggplants and also for my onions and garlic. For me a personal disaster because onions and garlic are on a daily basis on the menu and also other vegetables are prepared to conserve for the winter months. My guess is that the causes for this could be some consecutive days of rain that struck my onions and garlic and also the goat manure from our neighbor Rafa probably has made the soil too acidic.
On a daily basis I walk the steps to see what is going on at that terrace, our special terrace where we have our testing ground. Here you can find trees small and big, depending on their age, and with a lot of biodiversity. Putting different types of trees on the same spot makes biodiversity valuable, but can be tricky with the different water requirements. Luckily this can be adjusted by limiting the water hoses, putting special clamps on them. Recently we put some baby banana trees there and now we are having patience to wait and see how this process will go. We love the platana canaria, a variety of bananas with a different texture and taste than the regular bananas. Here I put the word ‘regular’, this needs also some explanation. Because in fact regular fruit doesn’t exist. On our finca alone we have 3 types of mandarins, 2 types of avocados, 5 types of oranges and so on. Everyday we learn more and more about our land. Some weeks ago I discovered we have a mango tree and also a guava tree.
Except for the different trees and need of water we have the soil and weather circumstances that can differ in time. We ourselves can not change the weather, luckily not, but we can influence the quality of the soil. Like I said earlier, the goat manure may have been of a bad influence on the land. Horse shit should do much better tell us our Spanish friends. So that is another project to start.
Ameliorating the land is a priority, next to ameliorate the quality of the seeds. We want to have the soil with a good ph value so chances are great to have the vegetables flourishing. I think the next few days I will make an investigation concerning the soil, probably we need some calcium to add to the soil. Next to horse shit of course. And add some organic manure coming from elsewhere on our land. Last year nearly all my plants came from other growers who try to find non-gmo seeds to develop plants. It is clear that finding the right seeds and/or plants is a difficult road. In my drawer in the dining room I have my seeds ready to germinate in trays, planned for in about 5-6 weeks. All depending on the weather and some intuition. I am looking forward to growing our vegetables to eat them and to conserving them properly. Like the second last year, we got welcomed here by mother nature with a big harvest from all the vegetables I planted.
The picture below is the current situation of a part of our vegetable garden, hopefully I can share better, impressive images when the new work has started. Let us see!
There is so much to discover in the way you could be in some way self-sufficient.
We try to grow our own food and we try to have our own biological prevention from human diseases. Just like we do it for the orchard on our ecological farm. We also do this by living healthy, working and laughing a lot. Talking about health, last week I was having a tour with guests on our finca and they asked what I do with all the lemons. I answered that it looks like there are a lot of them, but I can use them all. Imagine using the peel grated on your salad or in other recipes. And this is next to the making of adorable limoncello, lemon syrup and the use for the pectine out of the pits in my mermeladas. Not to mention the helpful products we can make from our herbs, like infusions, biological antibiotics, ointments for our skin. Natural deodorants, natural soaps. There is a lot to study in my books about it, talking with other dedicated people, and simply trying with the plants and herbs on our land. I take my camera, do my field work, make pictures, search for it in books and on the internet. This is learning by doing it, having results and making mistakes. This is really fun! All part of the decision we made. We love it!!