The autumn equinox has just passed and we are gearing up for a busy new season at Almenara. The summer was much cooler than we had expected, which made it easier to keep our gardens, nursery and young agroforestry systems watered and thriving through the dry months.
Summer has a different rhythm here. We care for plants and trees, catch up on maintenance, and prepare the land and our buildings for the coming rainy season. We are finally finishing improvements to the workshop at Catalina, alongside many other repairs and small interventions that will better prepare us for the rains we hope autumn and winter will bring.
All summer we work to bring water to the landscape; now we’re preparing to receive the rainwater that’s on its way to us.
EMCCINNO: A new cycle of Trees · Water · Commons
From January to June this year, we implemented the first iteration of our EMCCINNO pilot, bringing together a wide range of activities around three interconnected threads: trees, water and the commons. This means we are now roughly halfway through this three-year Horizon Europe project exploring the intersection of arts, culture, and the climate transition.
Almenara is a “pilot” or living laboratory, experimenting with ways of fostering regenerative relationships between people, place and ecosystem. Over the summer we have been reflecting on what we learned, and from October through May 2027, we will begin a second iteration: adapting and improving some activities, experimenting with others, and strengthening the connections between our work at Almenara and the wider territory around us.
Below are some updates from across the pilot and the activities that have emerged so far.
JARA Returns
Our monthly Saturday JARA volunteer days return this autumn, with support from Objetivo de Luz. This year, each day will have a theme connected to the season and to practical ways of regenerating the places where we live.
We’ll begin with several sessions focused on the landscapes immediately around our homes: creating syntropic rain gardens and planted beds that capture runoff from patios and roofs while creating dense, edible and beautiful landscapes just outside our windows.
This year JARA will also begin travelling beyond Almenara, with activities in places such as Santa Lucía and elsewhere in our local area.
Next JARA days: 24 October · 14 November · 19 December
Follow our Telegram group for details and announcements: @almenaravejer
Find our more and watch the trailer teaser here.
Algarrobo: Rural Culture in Paternilla – Sustainability, Art and Culture
On 17th and 18th October, our neighbours in La Paternilla are celebrating rural culture with the first doors-open tour of the valley. Despite its proximity to Vejer, the valley is completely off-grid, with residents managing their own electricity and water supplies. The event has been organised by the community itself to share places, knowledge and ways of life linked to caring for the land.
You can join in the event before by entering your recipe in the Cooking with Carob competition, with prizes provided by Califa Vejer, and/or by participating in the workshops designed to create short site-specific performance pieces to share during the weekend.
On the Saturday, you can explore initiatives related to art, crafts, the culture of trees, water, food, sustainable transport and ecological transition, with the carob tree as symbol and companion. On Sunday the celebration of community life continues with a gathering featuring exhibitions, music, paella, second-hand market and more workshops…
For more information visit the web here.
Art, Water and Territory
Later this month, we will host artist Alberto Crespo, who will begin developing a project mapping existing and lost springs and wells in our area. Through interviews and workshops with local people, Alberto will explore the stories, knowledge and relationships surrounding these often overlooked sources of water, eventually developing an exhibition that we’ll share more about soon.
He is just the first of a series of artists who will participate in EMCCINNO, hosted by Be.Time and developing installations for the mirador at Buena Vista, which we look forward to unveiling in the spring.
Ampadrinar un Alcorque (Adopt a Tree Basin)
Through the long dry summer, we managed to keep most of the young plants in our syntropic basins along the Cañada alive.
Once the rains return, we’ll organise another community day to add biodiversity to the existing basins, replace what didn’t survive, and create new ones—continuing to transform this shared edge into a greener, cooler and more abundant corridor.
Collaborating with Our Local High School: IES La Janda
Aula Verde
We are continuing our collaboration with IES La Janda to create an Aula Verde, an outdoor classroom adjacent to the school patio.
Candela will lead regular workshops with students from the vocational Agro-Gardening programme, as well as other students from the school, to co-create, plant and care for this new learning landscape.
Pequeñas Resistencias (Small Acts of Resistance)
We are also expanding Pequeñas Resistencias, bringing more groups of students from IES La Janda to Catalina for day-long field visits.
Through walking, observation and hands-on activities, students will explore different forms of the commons and discover ecosystem restoration through the interconnected lenses of water, vegetation and collective care.
From Almenara to Permaculture Magazine
We continue to contribute quarterly articles to Permaculture Magazine, sharing some of the ideas and experiences emerging from our work here.
Our latest article is now available to read in the blog section of our website.
Weaving the Fabric of Collective Action: From Community to Policy – How to Climate Solutions Take Root?
A Season for Deepening
This coming year, we are deliberately resisting the temptation to begin lots of new projects. Instead, we want to deepen what is already here: to finish, repair, integrate and strengthen the many things we have begun over the past few years.
That means densifying our young syntropic systems, pruning young and old trees to stimulate new growth, improving our nurseries, beautifying and caring for the spaces around our homes, and strengthening the systems that allow all of this work to continue.
