Posts under ‘Technopeasant & Quinta’

We now have 2 healthy hives of bees, with Matt doing a wonderful job as farm beekeeper, in his space gear. Our shared philosophy is one of organic, minimal disturbance, natural beekeeping. Bees are an important part of the local ecosystem, and as such we value them and their pollinating activities greatly. Any honey that [...]

Where vegetables are concerned, if you are buying it from a shop the nutritional value is but a tiny percentage of what food should be. There ain’t nothing so healthy and health giving, tasty and nutritious, fresh and flavoursome as home grown vegetables, picked directly from you garden only minutes before you eat it. And [...]

In between the rain showers over the last week, we have been planting lots of seeds and seedlings. Its that time of year again, and it looks like frosts are over. Some of the first seeds, that we planted in trays, sprouted quickly and have now been transplanted into the straw and horse manure covered [...]

After torrential downpours yesterday we woke to glorious sunshine and the sound of the first cuckoo – 21st March and spring is here!

If we can make it ourselves we will…and that most definately includes stuff for the kids.  Fridays round here finds ‘little ladies that lunch’, some of us ex-pat mums who get together to let the kids hang out while we catch up.  A couple of weeks ago we made playdough and it was a big [...]

At the quinta: It was pretty scary listening to the wind chucking the tiles all over the place, and smashing them all around.  Some narrowly missed the windows (and one embedded itself in the window frame) – eek! In the village: That white thing on the left is the concrete village sign, snapped in half! [...]

Birds are used as indicator of the general quality of the farmed environment because they sit near the top of the food chain.  I am interested to find out the range of bird species here, and whether there are any which we should be particularly helping and encouraging.  With this in mind we have put [...]

Myself, Matt and 2 year old Poppy arrived on the quinta in October.  In November we started our first olive harvesting. Andy would climb up the tree and prune the branches then throw them on to the nets below.  The gang would then take the olives off the branches until we had a net full. [...]

Any graffiti artists out there want a “working holiday” on a beautiful farm in sunny Portugal? We fancy some artwork on our compost toilet and water well! And … any suggestions for a more eco-friendly paint?

The mornings are still chilly, but we have blue skies and sunny warm days. As manhãs estão ainda frio, mas temos o céu azul e ensolarado dia quente. The chickens have started laying eggs again! As galinhas começaram a pôr ovos novamente! We planted broad beans in November. They are growing fast. Nós plantamos as [...]