Well I finally got around to installing our new solar system at the beginning of this year after intending to do so for longer than I care to recall.

In total it cost me 3,500 euros and gives our family enough power to fulfil our daily needs such as lights, media systems, blender for all those healthy fruit and veg smoothies,  running the washing machine, pumping water from the well and running the circulation pump for the central heating system.

We manage to get by with 4 x 190 watt 24v panels and 8 x 170AH 6 volt batteries. I installed a 24v 1200 watt Victron inverter and a Victron Blue Solar 24/48 volt MPPT charge controller with a Victron BV 600s battery monitor to keep a check on the system.

For anyone local to us here in Benfeita near Arganil, Central Portugal I got the panels and batteries  for a very cheap price  from Robbie who appears at the local markets  and is a guy true to his word.

The Victron equipment I got from Jesus Tuxeido of the Spanish company Renovables del sur for a price cheaper than the main company in Holland can supply them.

As for wiring and connectors I got these from Robert Kuchta who is well established  here and an old hand at installing large systems.

I’ll try to find time to put up some contact details for these on our site www.aquarios.co.uk for anyone who may be interested  in doing something similar.  Here’s to lots of sunny days.

Strong thermal currents help spread the pollen from the heavily flower laden bowers.(May 2011)

After a pretty wet winter it looks like we’ll be getting plenty of fruit this year. This spring has been fantastic,  hot sunshine followed by warm heavy showers – a gardeners delight. The weather here in the central region of Portugal has been quite erratic over the past ten or so years that we have been here.  We saw serious flooding in 2000 followed by the driest year on record in 2005  and  cold winters with cooler summers for the past couple of years. However, things are looking pretty good at the moment. I took this photo just before the thunderstorm broke giving us serious hail (well not by American standards) and torrential rain. I think it fairly well sums up things over here, be it the weather, the people or the politics, just when things appear to be one way, in a breath they change completely to the opposite. Extremely extreme!

Sore throats and Colds

Sage and Echinacea in a drink of honey and lemon will get you over these types of illnesses very effectively and without side effects.  Both the sage leaves and Echinacea flowers (commonly called Purple cone flower and widely used amongst the native North American Indians ) can be easily grown in the garden and when necessary stored dry for later use. The way we  prepare it is as follows (note we cheat with the Echinacea)

1. Place a small handful of roughly chopped sage leaves into a mug and pour on boiling water.
2. Squeeze in the juice of a whole lemon
3. Sieve the mixture through a tea strainer into a clean mug.
4. Add 2 dessert spoons of strong honey (Manuka is especially good)
5. Add the recommended number of drops of Echinacea tincture purchased from a good health shop.

Sip slowly allowing the liquid to bathe the whole throat, relax and stay warm – you’ll be feeling better before you know it!

Note: The Sage and Echinacea both have antibacterial and antiviral properties and act within the system to help fight off invading orgnisms .

I would like to ask a question of any good herbalist out there. Here’s the problem                                                                     . Sweet Red Peppers and Chilli Peppers going wild

Having now spent 10 years smallholding here in Benfeita in Central Portugal I can say with some confidence that the climate here offers an interesting challenge. Actually, let me qualify my use of the word Permaculture.  I don’t personally subscribe to any particular religion either inside or outside of a church so despite having taken the course and pounded the Bill Mollison bible I would probably identify more with the late Masanobu Fukuoka and his “do nothing” method of farming.

That has not always been the case however. Since being here we’ve tried raised beds, sunken beds, raised beds in sunken beds, double dig,  single dig, no dig; mulch in, mulch on; rows, curves, semi-circles, crop circles and all methods of watering. The results have been patchy to say the least. Just when you think you’ve mastered it another surprise is waiting just around the corner to dash your hopes.  Take for example the year we made an all mulch garden inspired by the likes of Jean Pain.

Starting with a soil that was already rich and friable from several years of good organic cultivation we created raised beds from piles of composted matu (fine brushcutings) . A mixture of companion plants was grown through this in a tiered hierarchy representative of the levels in a forest system, all thriving and promising much. Then, for no obvious reason, things started to go awry. Plants that were once healthy started to look sick and wither away. We gave more water, tried a balanced organic feed, some of us even talked to them but to no avail, it didn’t take a ruler to show that the plants were actually getting smaller.  Puzzled. Then one day by chance, whilst watering the melons and sweetcorn we noticed water welling up around the basil and tomatoes some 20 yards away. Tentatively treading between the plants my foot was sucked into a void. The no dig soil had proved a perfect medium for the mice and voles to travel through leaving our plants high and dry. Our no dig garden had been most thoroughly dug. That was a few years back now. The following year a cat turned up, nature balancing itself. Charlie our ‘vegetarian’ cat

Actually the fact is that the cat became five cats. So although we no longer have a problem with mice and moles we  have ended up with a cat problem instead.  Being vegetarian – us that is – we won’t feed the cats meat so the  vegetarian catfood bill is probably costing us more than we are saving in the garden, which brings me to my question.  Does anyone out there know of a safe herbal contraceptive for cats?

I have come across a number of people who ,despite being concerned about where their food is  coming from and being generally interested in the well being of “other animals”,  having tried a vegetarian diet have reverted to eating meat once more.

The common factors here seem to be firstly, that being vegetarian is seen as just another challenge like becoming a member of a club , and secondly the problem of finding suitably interesting and satisfying things to eat.

The fact that you can prepare vegetarian meals which are  just as superb as those containing flesh is of little concern for the obvious reason that it takes time to prepare and many people prefer to eat when they are hungry, hence the giant fast food market. (In later blogs I’ll introduce some tasty vegetarian fare that is easy and sustaining).

There is a very convincing case for an animal free diet but until the alternatives are in place the conversion rate of meat eaters to plant based feeders will remain at the lower end of the curve, hampered by all those folks who can claim to have tried a vegetarian diet but found that it didn’t work.

The obvious solution and evolution towards vegetarianism on a global scale must be the production and marketing of excellent animal free meals in tandem with documentaries such as Earthlings ( which I only managed to watch less than halfway)

…or did we? Our mission was to give the heads of government a prod to make sure that they managed to get themselves off to the climate summit talks in Copenhagen this December. The event was organised by the non profit humanitarian action group avaaz.org As usual most of the people we contacted to walk the walk having already done the talk bit seemed to have rather pressing -wish I could make it but -I have a meditation class /washing the dog/cleaning the car …but may find time. So the turn out was rather small – how small? lets just leave it at small.
However I did manage to talk to the prime-ministers secretary who says she’s pretty certain that he intends to go to Copenhagen for an extended lunch crucial talks regarding the current overheating of the planet and its effects on a good after dinner claret rising sea levels and displacement of the millions of refugees from the low lying islands and delta regions around the globe.
I hear a portuguese conversation from the next table which goes something like ”…and the whole of Holland is below sea level, and all those other coastal regions, they’ll all be under water…at least where we are it’s quite high up…ha ha”
Of course it’s no great leap of logic to see that when the lowlands are flooded by water, the high ground wll be flooded with people …then just think how long it will take to get a coffee!  At least we might have a better turn out at the next demo.Discussing the Global Protester Drought! in Oliveira do Hospital