Casalinho

Category: Permaculture

  • Permaculture Design Course 1st – 9th July

    Whoo-hoo! It’s that time of year again, where we get to planning our annual Permaculture Design Course here at the farm. We’re excited to announce that Silvia Floresta will be joining us to teach what will be our sixth PDC, 1st July – 9th July. We’re a little late off the mark in getting things more »

  • New Summer Courses

    After the terrific feedback we received following June’s Permaculture Design Course with New School Permaculture, we’re excited to invite Helder Valente back next month for a couple of brand new courses. One of the areas of Casalinho that we need to put more work into is our forest garden. I’m sure we’re not alone in more »

  • A Visitor’s Perspective: Serge’s Diary (part 6)

    This is part of a series of posts where we ask one of our volunteers or visitors to say a few words. Serge has been volunteering with us for some time, and this is the final part of his diary. This instalment covers Serge’s last days as a volunteer, and his participation in the recent Permaculture Design more »

  • How to: Make Compost in Just 18 Days

    One of the practical sessions during our Permaculture Design Courses is often the building a hot compost heap. Pretty much any organic materials left in a pile will compost eventually, but by carefully shaping a heap with the optimal mix of ingredients we can ensure that it creates heat, speeding up the composting process and killing weed more »

  • Gift idea – and help us build a windbreak!

    We’re planning a windbreak and privacy screen along the road. With our neighbour having clear felled his forest in the summer and the ‘improved’ road being higher than the level of our land this is becoming increasingly urgent. So what to choose? We’ve decided that the bulk of the hedge will be medronha (Arbutus unedo more »

  • Permaculture Designs

    Our recent Permaculture Design Course culminated in a design exercise, taking the lower part of the property as the focus and me as the ‘client’. The designs were full of innovative ideas, and it was really interesting to see how closely some of the ideas matched my own. Here they are, group by group. Group more »

  • Life post-PDC

    It feels like a long time since I’ve sat down and written anything for the blog. My apologies, we’ve been so busy that I’ve been falling asleep every time my bum hits a chair! With the assistance of an absolutely fabulous bunch of volunteers we managed to get our new Volunteer Space / Training Room more »

  • SLU update – It’s all over

    It’s over. The focus of my life for the past six weeks, the Sustainable Land Use course, has finished. I’m not sure whether I should be whooping with delight or weeping that it’s all over. Certainly I’m happy to have my Permaculture Design Certificate in my hand and a head full of ideas. But I’m also more »

  • Casalinho’s Permaculture Design Course Announced!

    Jeroen and I are really excited to confirm the dates of the first official Permaculture Design Course to be held at Casalinho e Escabelado. It will be held from the 10th to the 19th of June 2011 and be taught in English by Lesley Martin. We’ve had some interest already, particularly from volunteers in what more »

  • SLU update – Woodmanship

    This week our module on the Sustainable Land Use course is Woodland, and joining Patrick in teaching is Mike Gardner. The teaching is a complete contrast from the last fortnight and Mike has introduced a totally new dynamic. His comments about killing squirrels and shooting deer (both a major pest in a managed woodland setting) more »