While Aberto went to spend few days with his parents, I spent one more day in Mantova and met Federico e Valentina from Fondo Cimbriolino.
They have a permaculture project just outside Mantova, in Cimbriolo di Marcaria.
They are already very active organising courses in their property, although they haven’t finished the house yet. They are building a strawbale house.
They find the best way to learn is to invite some expert to give the course at their place. The participants to the course usually pay the experts, they provide food and accommodation for everyone…and they get the best advice on how to do the work! Some of the techniques they use are pretty advanced, like the water purification station with gravel, where they are also going to put plants. This results in high-quality courses with expert participants. And have now so many good contacts among the Italian permaculture people.
In first plan, clay and dog hair mixed. The pattern is formed with different types of clay coming from the region.
Fun fact: in some sections they mixed local clay with dog hair instead of (the “ordinary”) straw. Valentina works in a dog-grooming place: they made the best use of the locally available and free resources!
They are working towards collecting rain water (so uncommon in Italy, and Europe in general!) to form a pool and water the garden.
They planted a lot of local varieties of plants, which they got from a local nursery that was giving away heritage fruit trees for almost nothing. Federico said that the neighbours were staring at them when they were in the field planting what it seemed to be pots, because people are used to plant grown trees.
In the area farmers have some problems with a digging rat, and they totally solved it by creating a raised bed with a steel net inside. I could notice it was dug all around but the critters couldn’t get in!