Hi there! I am Joseph.
I have been an expat living in central Portugal along with my beautiful girlfriend Mariana for six years now.
Together Mariana, my father Clinton and myself, would like to show you a bit of the daily goings on around our Portuguese farm / homestead / smallholding and all of the work we are doing whilst renovating, starting building projects, working with our livestock, DIY and trying to grow our little families own food!
In this episode we welcome you to join us in early spring time as we are given a tour around our dear friends farm house, which is for sale, in a rural mountain village in central Portugal.
I start the virtual tour by introducing Mariana and myself as I explain the reason behind our neighbour and friend selling his farm and home in central Portugal, we are not estate agents and have no financial involvement in the sale of this property but we believe this to be one of the most beautiful farms around and a bargain too, so it is our pleasure to help out our lovely friend and neighbour, Abilio.
We start the tour by walking down the long 100m private driveway, spotting all the different trees, cherries and of course big, beautiful, mature olive trees. The track runs from a tarmac road from the village and serves I think one other property and is a dead end. The property is situated close enough to the village where as you could walk to the nearby cafe.
Walking down the track to the farm house we walk past one of the cherry orchards, there are hundreds of cherry trees here and they are professionally laid out by Abilio, my good friend and neighbour. He is a cherry farmer by trade and you can see how well tended his whole farm is.
Once at the farm house we walk underneath a large pergola with 8 year old, mature kiwi vines, these produce an amazing shade in the summer with their large, wide leaves, these will keep your vehicle cool when you park underneath them as well as provide an excellent source of afternoon shade to sit under when eating lunch outside with a glass of home made wine. The property produces a couple of hundred litres of red wine every year and I know Abilio would be only too happy to show you how he makes his wine.
Next we take a look inside the main farm house, which is a nice size as it is, but has the potential to be increased in size greatly due to the existing stone ruin which is touching the farm house, this would make a great guest annex, extension to the house or even perhaps an airbnb type rental accommodation, providing even more income to the farm on top of the already established income of the cherry orchards.
After having looked inside the house we take a walk down past the second cherry orchard and right down to the bottom of the pasture land, a beautiful gentle sloped healthy meadow, around 1 hectare in size, this is sufficient for up to ten goats or sheep, maybe even a donkey or two!
At the bottom of the pasture we see a handful of beautiful majestic mature olive trees, enough to produce olive oil and eating olives for the house. There is a small piece of forestry just off the border to the farm and we spot a little sign that a wild boar had been there the night prior, harmlessly digging for worms and ants.
We say our goodbyes to Abilio and his wife Hilda as Mariana and I make our way back to our own farm. I set up the barbeque for the first time this year as we have had rather a warm week on the farm, with the weather unseasonably soaring up to the mid 20’s C.
I fire up some of Portugals favourite cuts to grill, pork belly slices and bifanas from my friends pasture raised pork and a nice rump steak. Grilling in the sunshine with a glass of Fundao red wine is a true sign that summer is on the way!
After our meal I take myself for a walk around the poultry pasture, where I speak about all the livestock, how they are getting on and I talk about the birds and the bees, quite literally, with all of the springtime reproduction going on. After the poultry pasture I visit the sheep and speak a little about our pigeon loft as well as the lambs finding their new homes.
Thank you all so much for watching along with us, have an amazing week ahead and I shall see you all in the next one…
See our journey to self sufficiency / permaculture / organic farming living in Portugal, trying to produce as much of our own food planting vegetables, growing fruit trees as well as looking after all our animals, such as our chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks, quail, rabbits and sheep – Shortly pigs too!
– Growing vegetables, raising meat and foraging on our cherry farm in Portugal’s Beira baixa, Fundão
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