The circle of life
At Hektor, we try to make to most of out of our land and vegetables and fruits. That’s why we have our own circle of life.
Seed
Of course, it all begins with seeds. We try to grow as much of our plants as we can from seed. Mostly, that works pretty well!
Grow
Our vegetable and fruit trees get the chance to grow in our permaculture farm: surrounded by their best friends, which are not necessarily of the same species.
Cut & (first) harvest
Of course, plants need cutting and harvesting. Did you know that many plants give several harvests? Our red cabbage, zucchini or cauliflower get a first harvest, and then grow small new treasures every time again. Why would you throw away a plant like that?
Composting & nutrition
Many of the cuttings and overproduction are reused at Hektor. Here are some examples:
Cuttings and overproduction of tomatoes are fermented in tons. This fermentations is used later on as fertilizer.
Many plants get part of their fruits back as well. For example, we leave the last mulberries and the guayaba’s on the ground so they get that valuable nutrition back for next year.
We dry our citrus peels and mulch them.
A lot of our leftover greens go the farm animals: they love them and we get great stuff in return.
Fertilize
Here it is: the famous kaka from the donkeys and sheep. It is a great way for us to fertilize our garden, knowing the animals were (partly) fed with what we grow! Our worms turn this kaka into perfect humus.
Blossom
Next to harvesting, we also give a lot of our plants to chance to blossom: we’ll cut a lettuce a couple of times, and then let it blossom. The same goes for zucchini, cauliflower, … It gives us a great opportunity:
Harvest
Harvesting at Hektor is more than just getting all the vegetables and fruits together. We also try to harvest as many seeds as possible. While cooking, we’ll keep separate some of those, but also the seeds of our lettuces, mustard, zucchini’s, pumpkins, … are harvested so when can use them again next year!
Dry & Store
And then it’s dry and store time. All of our seeds get dried, stored and labelled so we can use them again at a next stage of our garden. Or for your breakfast maybe!