An insight into our permaculture activities on the farm.

I first came to La Mohea in 1993, having just finished a Permaculture Design Course and being keen to put theory into practice. The six years since then have been fascinating, inspiring, frustrating and stimulating (never boring!) as we have worked towards our vision of a productive farm harmoniously integrated in its forest surroundings. This farm was first coaxed out of the forest 350 years ago, and we have inherited a living, functioning identity, created over the centuries, whose continued evolution is now our responsibility and whose abundance is our good fortune.

We are blessed and cursed in turn by our climate here; hot summers and mild winters allow a wide variety of fruit trees and crops. However, Andalucia suffers from seven-year cycles of drought and rains, with an apparent general trend of increasing dryness. Fortunately the farm is locally renowned as a damp place; we are on a north-facing slope backed by high mountains, and for three winter months much of the farm receives little direct sun. Then the overnight dew never dries out, ferns flourish on the terrace walls, and the moisture sinks deep into the ground where it is stored. This is what saves us in the drought years and keeps the trees alive during the long dry summers, when on the opposite side of the valley the earth is baked hard and dry.

The name "La Mohea" is derived from an Arabic word meaning "great oak forest", which is what the area was until the 16th century when the Arabs left. In the last 80 years, lax forest protection laws, overgrazing by goats, logging and fire damage have caused its slow degradation and invasion by pine trees. Trees are a vital part of all living systems, especially in areas with climatic extremes of drought and heavy rain, as they stabilise and protect fragile soils, and recycle the life-giving water we all depend on. We have propagated, planted and grafted hundreds of trees here in the last 10 years, so we are surrounded by ever more of them, rather than living amongst people as one does in a city.

We grow our vegetables under mandarin, apricot, orange and plum trees; the vegetables appreciate the partial shade, and the trees respond enthusiastically to the increased moisture and fertility in the soil. All the vegetable gardens are mulched with bracken from the forest, and we collect sheeps' wool from the local shepherd for mulching trees and no-dig potato beds. We have established new orchards of apples, plums, cherries, apricots and pears, where we have interplanted the young fruit trees with tagasaste (a leguminous nitrogen-fixing bush) for mulch, soil improvement, protection from the fierce summer sun, and chicken fodder (seeds and leaves). We sow green manures every autumn, and the ground cover is gradually changing from rough shrubby undergrowth to pasture with a mixture of grasses and leguminous herbs.

Thousands of times more moisture can be stored in the ground than in storage tanks, and increasing the water infiltration on our sloping hillsides has been a key winter-time occupation of ours over the last few years. Run-off from the dirt road is channelled onto terraces or into contour ditches (swales), where it spreads and soaks the ground thoroughly, dropping its useful load of sediment and leaves. We have built swales across many slopes, which are then planted with fruit trees; over time, as the swales fill with sediment, small terraces develop. On the steepest slopes we stabilise the downhill side of the swale with low woven palisades of tree heather harvested off the slopes prior to tree planting.

On the unterraced areas are more trees: cherries and walnuts in cool dark gullies, sweet chestnuts and fig trees in dips and hollows, and cork oaks and pine trees on the drier ridges. The positiioning of these trees in the landscape, together with their associated understorey bushes, tells clearly of underlying soils, groundwater and microclimate. We use these cues to guide our tree planting as we gradually replace the pine trees with more useful species like almond, apricot and leguminous bushes.

Fire is an important factor here. Initially we left the forest undergrowth to flourish unchecked, preferring the natural look, but we have learnt that selective clearance is vital to minimise fire risk. Biomass production is impressive here, and when you clear a patch of forest undergrowth you are left with huge heaps of brushwood. Rather than burning it on the spot, which is the normal local practice, we get a variety of uses from this resource. Long tree heather stems are useful for making erosion barriers across hills, for thatching animal shelters, and for supporting climbing beans. They also provide high-quality firewood for use in the kitchen. The remaining brushwood (mostly thorny leguminous bushes) is used for firing the bread oven.

Climatic extremes are another factor to be accommodated in any permaculture design for this area. After the last drought came the torrential rains; we were cut off for several weeks by landslides and swollen rivers, whilst the lowlands suffered dangerous flash-flooding. The rains prove the value of the resilience of permaculture methods. The combination of tree canopies and ground cover in the forest, total plant cover on vegetable and fruit terraces, and strong stone walls across the gullies, restricts active erosion to a minimum and greatly increases infiltration of rain water. In contrast, local olive and chestnut groves are seasonally cut and scoured by the rains, because the local practice of burning the leaf litter and ploughing leaves the soil unprotected.

It's very pleasing to see the inherent strength of our permaculture system clearly demonstrated - its simultaneous adaptability and stability with changing climatic conditions. Every year there seems to be some kind of climatic record - mostly undesirable - which point to an upheaval in normal weather cycles. In 1998 it snowed here (the first time in 50 years), and 1999 is so far the second driest year this century. But still the farm flourishes, the trees follow their yearly cycle of production, and we can always go out there and find something to eat.

Adapted and updated from article in the UK Permaculture Magazine no. 11 (Forest Farming in Spain).