Family home and garden - rural

Tarragona

Updated 14 days ago

Our finca is situated in Catalunya, near the village Riudecols (Tarragona) in the mountains, 400 m above sea level, about 3 km from the village. My husband and I (we are both Germans, 62 / 63 years old) live here in our paradise with a lot of animals (7 dogs, 2 of them still babies, 2 cats, chicken, geese and lots of ducks.) We own a total of 25 hectares, most of it forest. About 15,000 square meters are fenced, in which are our house and guesthouse, most of our animals, the fruit and nut trees and the vegetable garden with the greenhouse. We have very different kind of fruit (see below), and plant everything that could survive here, and we grow different vegetables for our own use. Our selection of herbs is increasing, too. We live a relatively self-sufficient life: All our water comes from our own well, in wintertime we mostly heat our house with our own wood or solar energy. We buy the things we can't produce like fish, meat, flour, rice, chocolate and more, the rest we try to use from our land. Technically, we are also self-sufficient and offgrid: we have a large area of solar panels, batteries to store the electricity, a diesel-generator for shortages. When you visit us, you should not be afraid of large dogs, as our 6 dogs, some of them very large, move freely within the fenced area. We are sorry, but because of our own dogs we cannot accept WWOOFers with dogs or other animals and although because our dogs do not know children, we don't invite families with children. You will live - eventually with other volunteers - in our guest house of 80 m2, it has two bedrooms, a fully equipped kitchen combined with dining room, living room and a bathroom with shower. It has a own terrace in front of the house. The meals we organize like this: The volunteers make their breakfast with provided food in the guesthouse, lunch (usually in the afternoon) we will eat together, dinner partly together, partly individually. Normally I cook with meat or fish, very seldom just vegetarian, therefore I describe us as „omnivorous“ and I do not invite vegetarians any more. It does not fit with my cooking style. The daily and seasonal work on our finca is varied: in the vegetable garden weeding and preparing the soil, planting, sowing, watering, harvesting and finally in the kitchen cooking and/or preserving. All animals need feeding, especially the poultry could be your job, another task is mucking out the chicken barn, sometimes we also slaughter. In autumn and winter is the time for wood-making, in summer perhaps pool cleaning. And then there is all the work a large garden with animals and self-sufficient living needs. We although appreciate your helping in setting the table and loading and unloading the dishwasher. Because the daily tasks are varied and need a bit to be learned a minimum stay of 3 weeks is required. Sometimes we have some projects, for now we are planning to enlarge our solar panel amount, perhaps a new chicken house with corral and we want to change a few of our raised beds to wicking beds. We could need your help with this. What you can learn on our finca: Language: If you like to improve your German, we can offer to speak German to you, our English is quite good. If your mother tongue is Castellano, we will be happy to learn from you, we speak Spanish, but there is always room for improvement. Gardening: Using already quite a few special treatments like homeopathy on plants, effective microorganism, building of Terra Preta and other ecological methods we love to introduce you to them and use them together, you could receive some knowledge about permaculture at our place, too. (We do not have always projects like this, but we can discuss themes although theoretically.) And we try to garden by the moon calendar. Technics: My husband can introduce you to modern technics like solar energy, maintaining the machines, cars, tractor and making wood. Cooking: I like to cook, to barbeque (very often meat, fish and seafood) and sometimes to bake. I invite you to cook together, make bread of sourdough or use or expand your skills in preserving. What you can do during leisure time: On our finca you may use our big swimming pool, can walk in the woods, select asparagus in March/April or mushrooms in spring or autumn (availability depends on the rain/humidity). Or just relax in the sun. The beautiful beach of Cambrils is 20 km away, the others a bit further. The nearest town is Reus, the next one Tarragona. We live near the wine region D.O. Priorato, which offers attractions as well. To reach these we recommend a rented car. To get to the civilization you need to walk down to the village Riudecols, this are about 4 km and then catch one of the rare buses. Please be aware that there is no good mobile phone or internet connection here on our ground. We have the perfect place to get a bit offline. Please add to your application the following informations (if they are not yet in your profile): - Age - Gender - Country of origin - School education - Last job and profession - Work experience - Experience with gardening, harvesting etc. - Skills with tools - Language skills - Eating habits (vegan, vegetarian etc. - or: omnivore) - Restrictions - physical and regarding food (allergies or similar) - WWOOF experiences For whom it may interest: Examples of our fruit trees/shrubs: The Nuts: Walnut, almond, hazelnut, pecan, pistachio (still without fruit) and sweet chestnut The "normal" ones: apples (more than 20 varieties), pears (about 10 different ones), quinces, peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries (sweet and sour - my focus in planting at the moment, we have 16 varieties now), mulberry, plums, loquat, kaki, kiwi, pomegranates, olives, grapes, figs Citrus: lemons, oranges, mandarines, grapefruit and extravagant citrus like lime, Buddhas hand, limequat, kumquat, kaffir lime, caviar lime. The beeries: Currant, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, aronia, mulberry, goji The wild ones: elderberry, medlar (Mespilus germanica), rose hips, rowanberry (Sorbus aucuparia)., juneberry (Amelanchier), sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides), cornelian cherry (cornus mas), korean cherry, chinese wolfberry, Japanese quince The exotic fruits: Pineapple guava (Acca sellowiana), strawberry guava (Psidium littorale), jujube (Ziziphus jujuba), prickly pear (Opuntia), passion fruit (maracuja), papaya (the last two in the greenhouse) Experiments (young trees): mini-kiwi, szechuan pepper, bladdernut