Bram van Overbeeke

Sounds to me like you have a biomass goldmine!

If you were living in Greece I would love to work together. We need more people like you in the permaculture movement! It's not just about gardening!

I live in Greece and would like to know  if any of these could grow here... I tried searching some of their names but these are quite rare fruits it seems. We get occasional frosts, but never for more than a night or two it seems. Other than that it is your typical Mediterranean climate with long dry summers and wet moderate winters.

This is a really amazing thread! Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put in. Any chance we could get an update? It has been a while since the last time you posted and I am curious how things are going.

Hi there Kostas,

my name is Bram and since October I live in Greece with my partner, we live near Marathonas. I am very interested in your efforts and am very happy to read your progress. I am already gathering carob seeds to plant when we go for hikes. I haven't read all the thread but I just wanted to post the following because it might just help you out a bit. It might have been posted before but still, in case it hasn't. There is this thing that people use in planting trees called 'bone sauce'. You basically boil the juice out of a bunch of bones and put it on your trees. The smell is horrible and some animals like rabbits and deer won't touch the trees. I would assume that goats wouldn't touch it either. Here is a video describing the whole process.

The 3rd year of Mike's passing is  coming up. Can anyone give an update on what happened to his legacy?

Bump. Did this get build? It seems like a very cosy design and would love to see pictures

Bump?

You say you treat the waste water on site, can I ask if you could post more details on that? I'm currently in the process of doing the same. Though it won't filter waste water, it will just bring the local water quallity up and provide airation. In holland this is called a helofyte-filter. A helofyte being a waterloving plant like a reed or a rush. Basically what we'll do is run the water through a sand filter in an IBC, then a shell bed and then two beds of rushes. The sand will obviously take care of turbidity, the shell will lower the PH so that heavy metals fall out. The rushes then readjust the PH to 7/7.5, extract the leftover heavy metals, a lot of nitrogen and breath out some of the last things like waterbound hormones, hydrocarbons and 'x-icides' which will/should break down easily under UV exposure. Then lastly the water flows through a bed of sweetwater mussels which will fix the phosphate into the mud.

How's your system set up?

Hey there Darren,

nearly a year ago you did a course in Crete, Greece. I really wanted to join but sadly couldn't make it due to financial constraints. I'd just spend the summer there and it looks like me and my other half will be moving there in the future. One of the most amazing and excitingly challenging places to be!
Anyway, I looked and looked but couldn't find an update on the course and if the design got implemented or not? How was the course? What do you think of Crete? I think it has much potential, I went to visit one of the botanical gardens there, it had many tropical fruit growing. More than I could imagine would grow in a Mediterranean climate. Did the design that came out get put in place and if not so, could I participate in implementing it still? I'd really love to do 'reconstructive earth surgery', like I've heard it mentioned. Coming from Holland originally, I know how to think about water and its importance Regardless if its in short supply or over supply, it seems to be the key element in any design.
Ah, and one last question: will you be coming back to Greece at any point? Or europe for that matter?

Cheers for your input,
Berry