Psakoudia, Greece, August 2021, Steppe FM :
Here is a more detailed description of the garden where we work for almost three weeks.
It is an olive grove of 30 meters wide by 110 meters long. The olive trees are about 5 meters apart, and between them, there are cultivation zones. At least on the first half of the land. The other half is virgin, trees apart, and the grass is rickety because of the heat. Most of the existing zones are of different sizes and are mainly dedicated to Solanaceae (tomato, pepper, eggplant, pepper...).
The objective for us was to develop and begin to cultivate the still virgin part of the land as well as to build some basic improvements (Low Techs to be precise) to facilitate life on the farm.
After dividing the daily tasks with the other volunteers, we begin our culture plan. We decide to create a dozen new zones, these are of two types: either they end in a circle surrounding an olive tree or they are simple straight lines. All will be about 6 meters long and 1 meter wide.
We then begin the work for the soil, which has never been cultivated and is particularly compact. Weeding with a blunt spade and then aerating the ground with a rusty fork looks like a CrossFit session under a burning sun (and that’s an understatement given the number of forest fires reported in the area). The soil is rather poor so we ameliorate it with wheelbarrows of rivers and dry sheep manure. We are also creating structures to support our future plantations.
The second week we do all our sowing directly in open ground. All we have to do now is put the automatic watering in place: 200 meters of semi-rigid hose to meander between the plants with intersections and taps to maximize the pressure.
In parallel to the garden, we create a desert fridge by digging a hole 70 cm deep in a place close to the house always in the shade, at the bottom of which we put a recipient. The goal is to keep food at a relatively low temperature to keep it as long as possible. This technology, very basic, is based on the fact that the soil is at a very little variable temperature (around 15°C) and thanks to the heat transfer induced by the evaporation of water contained in the soil, which allows cooling.
We also install solar lighting in living areas and stretch a few tarps between four olive trees for a little shade.
We also set up dry toilets, which in addition to saving water allows the creation of an input of organic matter which, once decomposed, will be a significant nutrient supply for the plants of the garden. The principle is also very simple: the use of water is avoided by a litter, with which every user covers his stool and urine; these vegetable materials (or lime) avoid fermentation and allow, by the nitrogen/carbon balance, a composting process that is reusable in the garden. The most complicated to achieve is finally not the toilet itself, but the box used to receive the compost and the screen to protect oneself from prying eyes…
We left the garden for about twelve days. On our return, we, unfortunately, found that some of our sowing in the open ground had not lifted. Looking more carefully we realized that pumpkins and beans had almost all risen. On the other hand, much of the winter salads, cabbages, carrots or beets either did not rise or were strangled by the impressive amount of weeds.
So we’ve learned a lot of new things at our expense. To sow directly in open ground, it is better to crumble the soil to make it as thin as possible and remove as many roots as possible of 'weeds'. And even in this case, it is necessary to differentiate between “large seeds” (squash, beans, melons, etc.) and “small seeds” (salads, tomatoes, peppers, cabbages, etc.). In fact, if the first ones are easy to lift in open ground, it is not the case of the second ones and it is better to go through a stage of sowing under shelter or nursery before transplanting the plants (except for root vegetables which are very difficult to transplant).
In order to repair these mistakes, we have created a nursery in which we have sown the seeds for the next season. And after less than a week the vast majority has lifted and will be transplantable in the coming days.
Finally, in addition to learning through meetings with people and thanks to the resources available everywhere, we continue to do stupid things… from which we still learn. And thanks to these, we are about to complete a “simplistic guide for a vegetable garden on a journey” that will soon be available on the Vents de la Récolte website.