Pan de Trigo Blog.

The blog is a diary of what’s going on here on our smallholding in Spain, it´s pretty much an allotment blog starting in March 2010 and looking back to before then from time to time to show some earlier experiences too.

We live in Extremadura, which is in the bottom left part of the country, we are near to the cities of Badajoz and Cáceres but near means over an hour from here…

Our house is called ´Pan de Trigo´, it means ´Wheat Bread´, most of the houses around here are called that, we are number 3. Our house is right on the very edge of Spain so we also have Portuguese neighbours, their house is called ´Pao de Trigo´ which I won´t explain, you can work it out. The time is always different for us and our neighbours because we are separated by a one hour time difference, but that doesn’t affect our vegetables.

The area is said to have an interesting micro-climate making it quite possible to grow anything from potatoes and peas to peaches and passion fruits.

We moved here in September 2008 and have had one year to experiment in the garden and the allotment. The plot is two hectares, it has over 150 olive trees, a small vineyard and a fruit orchard, we have some chickens for eggs and hopefully soon we’ll have bees for honey.

The allotment and our lifestyle will one day be fully organic but for now we are doing our best. Sometimes necessity, opportunity or courtesy prevent us from doing what might be seen as the right thing, but we are here to learn.

If you like the sound of what we do from the blog you can even come and stay here as a paying guest or as a volunteer. Have a look at our website www.holaextremadura.com to find about more about spending time in this area and if you are interested in volunteering to help us out we are members of WWOOF and Help Exchange which are both international volunteer exchange schemes.

Before we begin we would like to acknowledge Javier from Huertas de Abrilongo just down the road from here. He has been doing a blog on his family owned organic allotment for over a year, we have recently discovered it and thought something similar might be worth doing in English. Have a look at his diary, the photos will give you a good idea of what they do throughout the year even if you can’t understand Spanish, you will see why he is a great inspiration for what we are doing. Also thank you to the many interesting and helpful people we have met in the area especially our neighbours at Pan de Trigo and friends in nearby Alburquerque and La Codosera.