Kitchen Gardens
We have two main vegetable production areas where we grow our main staple crops to feed ourselves and our guests on courses and retreats. We sell the surplus in local organic shops and in our village. We are researching different planting methods and garden designs to see which are best suited to our Mediterranean, semi-arid context. We are also investigating which methods are the most low maintenance in terms of energy inputs, such as water, weeding, time etc. And which yield the most benefits in terms of soil health, fertility and crop production. It is an ongoing process of observation and feedback and the gardens are evolving with our own understanding. We came to La Loma Viva with very little agricultural experience but every year we see the mutual transformation of land and people. Click to see more...
Syntropic Farming
La Loma Viva is pioneering the work of Ernst Gotsch, by implementing his Syntropic Agroforestry methods in a Mediterranean climate setting. Ernst has demonstrated in Brazil that degraded cattle farms can be rehabilitated into abundant edible forest systems. In 2017 we set up our initial research site of 1000m2 during the first course with Ernst in Spain. We planted a few hundred trees and plants in a densely stacked, multi-species system. A thick layer of wood chip mulch was also used to protect the ground from evaporation and minimise the need for irrigation. This area has been highly productive in it´s first year. Ernst will return in autumn 2018 for the next course and in the meantime we are gearing up to implement the next area. Click here to see more...
Plant Nursery
We have started a small nursery to grow plants and trees to revegetate our land with healthy, adapted, productive species. We are growing many indigenous trees and shrubs, as well as some from other similar climate regions. Through the nursery area we also educate students on how to propagate plants, make cuttings, good soil mixes and how to plant different seeds. We start some of our annual vegetables here also.