In our case, the reasons respond to an environmental and functional demand. First, there are a huge amount of logs and trunks from when the forest was cleaned for the very first time. As well, the area where the orchard has been happens to be located in a place where it would be hard to water the plants in the future. It sums to the fact that the base ground is highly compact due to the constructions conducted in the area during the last years – which sums to the lack of nutrients of that particular soil.ç

Finally, a good reason to plant a hugelkultur orchard  is simply to experiment and test it, to see if it will be able to create an environment humid enough to maintain itself and survive a hot and dry Mediterranean summer. That, if successful, is a great reason to create a hugelkultur garden, as summers can be devastating in this area if no rain happens within the hottest months.

One of the peculiarities of this project in particular is that, instead of rising it 1,5 or 2 meters above ground, the inner structure is partially buried. This comes out of a need to adapt the structure to its surroundings. First, the proximity of a wall, that will work as a heat accumulator during the summer. And secondly, its exposure to the wind. Both are reasons enough to try to avoid the maximum evaporation or simple loss of humidity through the sides; problem solved by simply burying such surfaces.

This 24^th, 25^th and 26^th of May Mariano Bueno has been in ValldauraLabs offering a workshop about biointensive horticulture.

He’s an expert, a pioneer and a great divulgator of Ecological Agriculture, Geobiology, Bioconstructions and the healthiest and sustainable life alternatives of Spain and South America.

During those three days he explained a lot of his knowledge about ecological horticulture. The most important, to understand the ground as a life organism, as through that premise one can understand which techniques are the correct ones to help improve the ground’s structure and fertility.

He talked about favorable and non-favorable associations between crops and its rotation. As well, the main problems in an orchard were explained, and the biological and natural methods to prevent and treat such problems.  Some examples would be the control of fungi infections through lactic acid, or how to prepare a mix of garlic and hot chilly to fight some of the crop’s enemies.

Some curiosities came along as well, as the fact of not being the moon who influences the planting and growing of plants, but actually the light reflected by the sun on the moon.

The theoric parts of the workshop were overwhelming due to his enthusiasm, dedication and vast knowledge, but the practical part was charming as a result of his simplicity and clarity.

They were three intense days, full of new knowledge and information, and it charged us with confidence and energy to keep going with this project and face new ones.

During the 20^th of May, Ferran Masip Valls visited Valldaura to teach a Workshop on Edible Mushroom growing.

At the beginning, Masip gathered the group of interns, and without further explanation, told them to collect different materials (strongly cellulose and hydrocellulose-based), which ended up consisting on straw, leaves, trunks, but also coffee grounds, paper, carton and whatnot. Those materials were, then, put into boiling tanks, in the oven, and in general terms under high temperatures for a long period.

What the interns had been doing was gathering the substrate on which the mushrooms would grow – substrate that now was being sterilized for the proper inoculation of mycelia. And while that happened, the real class was taught.

Ferran Masip taught about the nature of fungi in general, from a biological perspective; about the three different kinds of cultivation, which could roughly be explained as symbiotic forest-based mushrooms (such as Boletus), ground-ish based mushrooms (such as Agaricus), and raw materials – based cultivation (such as Lentinula). And about particularities and curiosities of the fungi kingdom in general.

For the class, the interns were provided with fresh mycelia for Oyster Mushrooms, or locally known as Girgoles (Pleurotus Ostreatus). Such mushrooms were chosen for being one of the strongest mushrooms, most productive, widely cultivated and easier to work with.

By then, all the substrates chosen were already sterilized. Provided with latex gloves, clean surfaces and containers in order to avoid contamination, the interns started inoculating their bags with their substrate of choice.

After a few hours, several kilos were inoculated, the bags sealed and left in a room with the proper conditions. A few weeks after that, the mushrooms should be ready to start growing from those bags, and hopefully nice meals will come after it.

TU-Berlin’s Urban Design & Communication (urbandesign.staedtebau.tu-berlin.de) – together with students from Michigan State University (MSU) and TU-Dortmund – visited IaaC’s Valldaura Campus during a trip to Barcelona. The excursion served as an introductory week to the international Workshop on “Borders: Visible & Unvisible” taking place in Berlin and Dortmund (May 13-25).

Faculty and students alike were eager to learn about dualities and differences in Barcelona – amongst them possible discrepancies between urban vs. rural (city-scape vs. land-scape), new vs. old, high-tech vs. low-tech, dependency vs. self-sufficiency, and so on. This dualities and the boundaries between them will be the topic for mappings and concepts for urban interventions in Berlin.

]]> https://legacy.valldaura.net/blog/2013/05/16/berlin-students-visit-valldaura/feed/ 0 https://legacy.valldaura.net/blog/2013/05/14/intelligent-beehive-done/ https://legacy.valldaura.net/blog/2013/05/14/intelligent-beehive-done/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 12:06:34 +0000 http://legacy.valldaura.net/?p=1852 Finally, the first of Intelligent Beehives is settled on the Valldaura fields. It is the first of what will be Valldauras’ honeybee hives.

As part of the International Permaculture Day celebrations at Valldaura Labs, the Action Group started off the days’ events by digitally mapping the walk from Mundet Metro station to Valldaura. The excursion took us through peri-urban environments, the Collserola park, the famous Carretera de las Aquas path and finally into Valldaura Labs!

The idea was to digitally record as much data as possible, to socialize our adventure and to learn from the facts. check out the fact sheet for more info and track our movements on twitter using #Valldaura.

The second part of our day of data brought us into contact with nature as plant hunters. Evan Jones, an expert programmer and intern at Valldaura Labs, created a mobile app that allowed us to note the geolocation and species of plants of interest using our smart phones. This follows the permaculture tradition being able to read the environment and to learn from it; and starts off the Valldaura plant encyclopedia created by Claudia Nieto, the Internship coordinator.

Preparing coffee may take long in the kitchen. One of the interns, Victor Guber, decided to solve the problem building a rocket heater.

A rocket heater is a highly efficient heater, which uses wood as fuel. It has a simple combustion chamber with an isolated and tall chimney – which ensures the full combustion of the wood before the flames reach the surface to be heated. His model was a success, and now one can have a tasty and quick coffee whenever it is needed.

Josep Mascaró, head architect of the Collserola Park, has taken a group of students of Valldaura to the Magerola hill, a close-by location. It is a peculiar place, right at the end of the Valldaura lands, where birds of prey can easily be seen and studied.

There, Mascaró proposed an exercise based on the duality that exists in the metropolitan parks, between the conservation of natural spaces, the human use of those spaces, and the aesthetics involved in such interaction.

Every morning, around 7am, the interns go to the henhouse to open it, so the chiken, ducks and goose can wake up for the day. The aninals then have access to the space they have outside, where they have water and food. The interns check that there is drinkable water for them, change the water from the small pond were the birds clean themselves, and then they feed the animals. They are feeded with a 1/2 ration of corn, 1/2 of special mixture. If needed, they change the fodder that covers the inside of the henhouse.

Between 12am and 1pm the interns go back to the henhouse, where they feed the animals with the leftovers of fresh food that they may not have used in the house. At the same time, they check for new eggs (and there are always new eggs!).

After 3, they open the fence so the animals can simply wander around. They don’t do that earlier, as if doing so, the birds may lay eggs somewhere outside, and that’ be both an issue and a waste – and finding those eggs an odyssey of Easter magnitudes.

Between 8 and 9pm they gather the animals, put them back to the henhouse, and start closing it all back for a night of sleep.