O Monte

We arrived by train to Faro, a 20 minute drive from the farm we were staying at in Portugal, but we had not heard from Doreen, the woman in charge. She was supposed to get us from the station, but she was not picking up her cell phone or her house phone. This could have potentially been the first bump in the road of our trip, but she finally responded to a text we sent.

Doreen picked us up and we hopped into her old, dusty station wagon. She was originally from Holland so her English is great. We talked on the drive to the farm about the corrupt Portuguese government, the apathetic population, and the lack of outputs produced by the country. I really didn’t know much about Portugal before I arrived, but the best way for the info to stick is to learn from the locals.

So we arrived at the farm, O Monte, and it was of course beautiful. Wild flowers were growing everywhere, the house was quaint, and the dogs came to greet us. The farm also acts as a guesthouse, but at the moment, there are no guests. So Tammy and I are staying in the apartment meant for paying customers. It has a full kitchen, bathroom, living room…the works.

Day two, we got a tour of the grounds and she showed us the olive, fig, almond, and carob trees. It is a small farm, but it’s a lot of work for one person to do alone.
The rest of the day, we weeded. Childhood memories of pulling up dandelions on 163 Flocktown Road flooded back to me. Since the harvest of the trees happens in the fall, we are going to be preparing the farm for summer, i.e. weeding, repainting, cleaning…

Farming Tips:

For a tree to grow strong, farmers do something called “graphing.” Like a skin graph, farmers take out a piece of bark of the new tree, and replace it with a piece of the good, flourishing tree. The new tree will adapt and act more like the successful tree. Voila! Great success.

Doreen also told us that avocado trees grow much better when there is a different type of fruit tree next to it. A lone avocado tree is not likely to produce any fruit.