The permaculture workshop this year has continued the work started last year at the bio farm in Poieni, and it is an ample project of making the farm more and more efficient.
This year, continuing the workhsop that took place last year at the bio farm Poieni, it was an honour having Steve Hart with us – a highly skilled permaculture designer, originating from New Zeeland and a true world traveller.
He came accompanied by his wife Martina – also a biologist and ecologist. Together they held a practical 3 days workshop at our farm, helping to develop the permaculture plans that we are already aplying at the farm and mainly emphasizing on buinlding a good soil strucuture and on the reduction of weeding using the mulching technique.
A hands-on workshop that verified theoritical principles using practical methods by aplying them on the farms grounds.
The theoretical aspects were mainly discussed outside, in the shady gazebo. For the practical aspects, we have gathered informations from the surroundings, studiing the forests soil that has formed a rich layer of compost from the falling leaves. During autumn, the leaves fall from the trees and throughout the winter they are being slowly decomposed by snow, and so they become natural fertilizer.
We also studied the effect of wild flowers that surround the farm on the crop and on the soil. We came across new techniques of imporving the crop and we tried to implement the mulching technique. Mulching means creating a rich welcoming layer on the soil, at the base of the plants, so that they have an ongoing source of resorces for maximum of crop, but also to facilitate the picking of vegetables. By creating this protective thick layer, consisting of straws, manure and compost, the small plants will be protected from bad conditions of weather when they are still delicate, and will give us their harvest on this fluffy bed, and so the vegetables wont be harmed by falling on the rough ground.
We also visited the greenhouses in Poieni and the mandala garden that we built together with our volunteers on the National Week of Voluntariate, and we were happy about the multitude of colours, shapes and aromas of the medicinal plants. We visited our friends, the family of mr. Ungureanu – agriculture experts and very passionate about nature. Mr. Ungureanu shared with us his wisdom about plant carre and mrs. Ungureanu spoinled us with blackberries from their garden.
The rest of the time we organized trips in the surrounding forests to observe the natural humus and the rich forest floor, or we went hitchhiking în the nearby orchards.
Poieni Farm – a project that reunites energies and attitudes in a vision of optimising and stabilizing agriculture, by caring and respecting nature
All the participants were happy to test and implement the new techniques that they had learned, and we made plans for the future crops. We are all curious to see the results of our work, buinding slowly but thoroughly a responsible and respectfull attitude towards the harmonious integration of our needs in this generous and perfect system called nature.