01/06/2026
👩🌾 In May our hands not only harvested plenty, but planted many new beings in our gardens. May they grow and flourish under the sweet summer sun that June will bring us.
🌾 Mustard harvest
May is when we get into the fields and harvest all the wonderful mustard out in the land. First we plucked the pods when the plants have dried. Then we carefully crunch the pods by wiggling them through our hands in order to separate the seeds from the pods. The seeds are cleaned from dirt and dust and soon we will be making fresh creamy mustard!
🍅 Mulching and Tomato planting
This month has been wild for our gardens team who put their strong arms to work for a massive mulching action. All the grass that was cut earlier this year to prevent fires from spreading in our village, has finally dried completely and can now be used as a nice mulch for our gardens. Our garden beds have been filled with many many tomato plants that are eagerly crawling their way up the caña sticks and rope structures.
💚 New biogas prototype
Following the first test of the biogas prototype, which had some errors, we have been investigating further into how to produce the biogas correctly and under what conditions: after a few weeks of research, Sara did not give up and was able to carry out the next prototype, which involves creating, on a smaller scale (with 4 wine bottles), different mixtures of horse manure or a mixture of horse and chicken manure. In an insulated environment, Sara is now controlling the temperature with a sensor and an electric blanket to provide the energy needed to maintain the heat between 34 and 37 degrees, so that in approximately 14 days we can determine whether we have finally been able to produce biogas and with which mixture, in order to scale up the process.
⚡️Sara also worked a lot on fixing the electricity in one of our houses, connecting it to our batteries and making the lights shine bright again!
