ORGANIC GROWING

Sanillés Vision

The economic benefits of collaboration and specialisation (the macro-group effect), modern cities grow too large. Whilst in remoter areas businesses struggle unless they recieve subsidies.

Our vision for Sanillés is to develop a co-operative rural community where individuals are encouraged to freely contribute their creativity for the greater good and in turn take only what they need. In many cases a group such as this can generate a community surplus, which may then be re-invested in appropriate technology. By sharing a micro-group benefit effect rural viability can become a reality.

The opportunity to grow your own food in a time and effort efficient way is both economically and personally liberating.

Our Vegetable Gardens

Despite our altitude of 3500 feet, we are beginning to see an enormous productive potential at Sanillés by applying practical intelligence to create appropriate micro-climates. We currently grow year-round organic salads and various storage crops like roots, gourds and marrows.

We now have 2 levels of terraces in intensive vegetable cultivation. We are gradually inproving the porous granite sand with the addition of well-rotted manures and compost. We have a propagating greenhouse above the boiler room and solar water accumulation tanks. This capitalises on the residual heat and CO2 from the gas boiler. We built our own low-cost poly-tunnel frame for more protected cropping space. We use trickle irrigation thoughout the gardens in the dry months. The garden provides organic vegetables for residents and the restaurant.

Innovation

We experiment with unusual vegetables such as spherical Crystal Apple cucumbers, cucumber-shaped melons, lesser known members of the pumpkin family - such as Gem Squash - and exciting flavoured salad crops such as Rocket and Pak Choi.

We are expanding our section of medicinal and culinary herbs and have a pilot area for cane fruit. We are also exploring the benefits of the heat-store effect of stone walling.





International Links

We liaise with the Soil Association, the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales and Terre Vivant, near Grenoble. We host many volunteers from Australia, Canada, Greece, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Holland, USA and Britain. Many of whom also participate as volunteers in 3rd world countries so what we learn together spreads far and wide.