Bea de Munnik

Hi Carmelo, thanks for the tip! I’ve spoken to Elia but she’s a bit out of the way for us in terms of visiting :)

Hi John,

Which problem are you referring to? The water?

Hi all!

I've been (mostly) silently reading along on this forum for years now, but have not had the opportunity to do much gardening beyond a small project in my friend's garden, I'll talk about that in a different post soon.

Now, life has taken me to be a mother of a 4 month old giant baby, and while life took us to the north-east of Spain initially, we're now seriously considering moving to Portugal with regards to land prices, availability of land and last but defintely not least: the water situation.

We'll head over to Viseu on Saturday (6/6) for 12 days and I would love to meet some permie locals to hear about your adventures and mishaps. I can't offer much beyond our company and that of our smiley (most of the times) baby, but if that works for you and you fancy tickling some baby toes, we would love to come see what you've built and bring a bottle of whatever you drink.

A bit more about us: we're non religious people, from the Netherlands and the south of France, have lived in Catalonia for 2,5 years, sing and play the piano very amateuristically, want to enjoy life in nature and grow some of our own food, love the idea of growing a food forest in particular.
For me personally, I've dabbled in meditation since I was in my late teens, ended up teaching yin yoga and now work for a corporate company because money. My partner is trying to make it with his business in hopes of retiring early.

Some of our concerns in moving are the supposed widespreak bureaucratic corruption and people attempting to swindle you with land that isn't actually possible to live/build on. Another point of concern is schooling for our kid, I've heard very different things about the school system!

So if a visit is not what you're up for but you'd still like to give us some advice or just info in general, I'm all ears :)

Cheers!

Hello from another late to the show interested expat :)

We’re in Spain now because the north of Europe wasn’t really it. Things are too dry here (Mediterranean sea), plus way to expensive in the area we’d like to be in so after 2 years we’re starting to look towards Portugal to buy a house and decent (3000m+) plot of land. We’ll be working jobs so our project may be more small scale compared to that of some others I’ve seen on here, but anything is better than nothing (and a well, that we will definitely want).

So if anyone on here is interested in having us (partner, baby and me) over for a cup of tea somewhere towards May,
or has any general experiences they’d like to share on being an expat in Portugal with a dream of tending a food forest, we’re all ears!

Hi all, this will be my first post, so excuse me if I'm in the wrong forum-section

I've recently been given part of someones garden for a loan, to practice my newly found love for permaculture. The garden is situated by a river, with a very high water level (there's water about 20 feet beneath the ground surface. My piece of it is about 5 by 5 metres, which would be 80 square feet (I think..). The owner planted a swamp cypresse right in the middle a few years back, which is now about 10 feet tall.

Now, aside from taking away a lot of sun, in an already rather sunless country (the Netherlands), I'm also afraid that the trees fallen needles may cause the soil to be less suitable for other plants to grow there. From what I've observed from the swamp cypresses in a nearby park, there's only some weak grasses growing underneat, and some bulb flowers in springtime..

My problem is that the owner doesn't like the idea of my relocating the tree, unless I have some solid evidence that it is actually causing the soils quality to decrease.. (my argument that it's roots take up a pretty large part of the soil, and that the rest of it takes a lot of sun haven't had an effect..)..

So, does anyone have any suggestions? should I relocate the tree, shouldn't I, and for what reasons?

I'm happy with any advice!