Hi there, my name is Rosa I'm a 44 years old Algarve autochthone (that means that my family is from here and I was raised here also), I studied psychology in Lisbon, but soon realized living in the city is not for me. I felt the urge to return to my fathers lands, certified organic for over 30 years, to avoid their abandonment and; the loss of all traditional oral knowledge regarding managing orchards within water scarcity. I've been here for 16 years now, transforming the old Roman Villa houses into eco-tourism, developing strategies to make the farm profitable, sustainable and self-sufficient in food. Our aim is also to be self-sufficient in energy by the end of the decade but seems everyday more complicated. We also have a non-profit art and culture organization that aims to explore diferent ways of living and organize a communal living with people that pass by.
Our type of agriculture is 'natural' agriculture as we don't use any chemicals or even organic fertilizers – we fertilize everything with manure from our animals, compost and organic garbage and only, use olive oil to avoid some plagues in young trees like citrines, bottles with vinegar trapping the Mediterranean fly, etc.
We are in the natural reserve of the marshlands of Castro Marim and VRSA, a Ramsar Convention protection area (protection for waterbird migrations), where you can watch rare birds. We aim to construct a small ornithology observatory as well.
Nowdays, the farm has 11 workers divided in 3 main areas:
A) Agriculture - with 5 ha of adult fig trees, 6 ha of baby orange trees, 2 ha of centenary olive trees, 9 ha of carob trees, 5 ha of marshlands where we used extract sea salt traditionally (now is rented to another family) and Flor de Sal (the salt flower), 1 ha of almond trees.
B) Production & transformation: transforming prime-mater into bio/gourmet products like jams, aromatic olive oil, fig truffles, dried figs, etc.
C) Eco-Tourism - managing the self-sufficiency areas: vegetable gardens, cleaning communal spaces, cleaning/refurbishing houses
For fig crop we usually work with local people, mostly old skilled workers that teach us traditional agriculture secrets that you can learn as well. We do not follow any particular agricultural “dogma” since we combine several experiences & knowledge bodies within creativity and adaptation. We promote that all our volunteers, pass by our different areas whenever possible, being the farm cycle & rhythm the main structural force of work. We search for people with good vibes, positive working & cohabitation habits, responsibility, humor and creative minds. We allow everyone to express themselves into work as long as its useful & articulated with the farm.
We expect 5 h/day of work 5 days/week for lodgement and food (all produce from the farm plus weekly delivery from shopping lists made by wwoofers themselfs).
Depending of the season we can receive from 1 to 8 woofers at our wwoff house - a wooden cottage by the pool with two main rooms accommodating 4 each. We prefer woofers staying longer than 3 weeks and up to 6 months (longer stays are normally re-assessed after 1 month, just to check if host & volunteer feel right about it). Different proposals can be considered. Wwoofers are invited to enjoy and use all farm facilities, pool, tavern, library, pond & pond deck within leisure hours. We only have 3 workers living at farm so social life is self-organized in between volunteers.
General tasks by seasons (need of woofers):
September: drying figs, planting strawberry plants, fixing roofs (2-4 wwoofer)
October: harvest quince and making marmalade and jelly (2-4 w)
November: harvest olives for conserve and extracting olive oil, plant beans (6-10 w)
December: helping to make fig truffles and pack them (2-4 w)
January: prune trees use cuts for tree nursery, clean vegetable garden and replant (2-4 w)
February: orange pruning and fertilization with cow manure (4-6 w)
March: cleaning gardens and painting the old houses with lime and traditional pigments (4-6 w)
April: cleaning gardens, planting veggies and painting the old houses with lime and traditional pigments (4-6 w)
May: cleaning gardens and painting the old houses with lime and traditional pigments (2-4 w)
June: Fig harvest, making fig jam (10 w)
July & August: Carob harvest, Fig harvest, sea salt harvest (depends of lodgement availability, but 4-6 w)
All year jobs: making this an EDEN, proposing your ideas to improve it: compost toilets, children's playground, ornithology observatory, etc. We also have a water dam that collects water from the rains and could use some hands for cleaning, building observatory, tipis, etc.
The weather here is generally good in winter (sunny and temperatures from 10 - 25ºC), autumn and spring is incredibly good (18 - 30 ºC) although there are windy days, summer is really hot (25 - 35ºC).
As you can see, its an ambitious project in which we aim to provide local authorities an example that sustainable, organic and ecological projects can be the future to our small village, and that mass tourism is making traditional knowledge and agriculture disappear.
Regards,
Rosa
Read more
Learning opportunities
Vegetable farming
Fruit or nut farming
Poultry farming
Sheep or goat farming
Forestry
Flower farming
Aromatic or medicinal plants, teas
Seed saving or production
Vegetable or fruit preservation
Food justice / sovereignty
Methods or systems
Holistic management
No-till farming
Permaculture
Regenerative agriculture
Host type
Production farm
Certified organic
30
Hectares
|
74.1
Acres
Accommodation
