a. Finca Luna

This is a sketch of the farm, divided into 8 mini-farms (each colour shows a garden + forest garden) which were used to share out the space amongst the action-learning students during 2006 - 2010, then turned into shares that people could buy, starting in 2011 (see EcoVillage project, www.8thlife.org).

The farm is being put under the ownership of a Foundation (during 2011-2011), which will be the base of the EcoVillage project.

These are the sub-headings of this section, click to go to each page (also in main menu):

Finca Luna

We aimed to document all of the finca designs in one place, on the web, & so created this Finca Design Wiki which the Action-Learning students (sometimes..) contributed to:

www.fincalunawiki.pbworks.com

There are many designs which are not on there, and some are out of date, but it gives a good idea of the kinds of things we have been busy with!

(it's in Spanish, so use GoogleChrome to translate)

An experimental Permaculture “Playground”

In January 2001 I rented a farm (on a 75ha property) in La Palma, cheaply but with just two months notice for leaving.

In the end I lived there 6 years but these particular circumstances meant that it made more sense to develop facets I could easily ‘take with me’ whilst caring for the earth in the most effective way possible under the circumstances.

In February 2006 I started buying the farm which is now the New Finca Luna, so here the design and development strategies are very different, and am now still figuring out how to combine with the various projects and commitments made during the first 6yrs on the Island.

The New Finca Luna is at about 650m above sea level on the NW side of La Palma, the greenest & most north-westerly of the Canary Islands. It is part of a small village (about 200 inhabitants) and at 15mins walk from the Old Finca Luna.

The elderly man who sold me the farm said it was 15,000 msq and the topographers say 5,500 msq: difference due to slopes (measured by farmers as fertile ground and ‘shrunk’ by house-builders to their flat-land dimensions).

A 200+old farm, the site had excellent land quality, untouched by chemicals for 10yrs, beautifully designed terraces (‘nateras’, collecting the cream), with various old stone buildings, water tank, many established producing trees and tunos + good transport access made it a very easy decision to buy, and I moved into the 4m x6m stone house feb 2006.

Protracted Observation

One concern with this new site has been to resist the temptation to rush with changes.

Taking to heart the ‘protracted thoughtful observation instead of rushed thoughtless action’ is difficult, not just because of my own impatience but also due to external expectations that, as a visible permaculture teacher, my own farm should be some shiny example of permaculture excellence.

My hope is that in 15yrs it will be, but am thinking of the 5+ first years of mainly for observation, as I have still very little real idea what would be most useful for this element to be, in the wider local economy, in the long run, especially now as the economic ground is shifting, possibly dramatically.

In the meantime working to maximize fertility in all possible directions, doing the ‘fairly obvious’ and ‘impossible to be type 1 error’ small and gradual changes, carefully observing all reactions to those.

Add more about La Palma?

< mouth of La Caldera

where our small 'city house' is (just on the border of the plain of Los Llanos)

< one view from the house is the Caldera itself,

the other view from the house is the Puerto de Tazacorte