“With the vinegar I produced, I can buy the time of the person who will repair my roof in return”

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Justyna Sokołowska: Joanna, you have been living in La Palma for four years and run a permaculture farm, i.e. a biodiverse farm, in harmony with nature, without artificial fertilizers, where food surplus is not wasted. When did the idea for such a way of life sprout in you?

Joanna: I come from Greater Poland, but I went to study in Germany, where I met Martin. Five years ago, we thought that although we apparently have everything, something is missing in our lives. We discovered what we missed in Uruguay. That’s where we found out what permaculture is. Moreover, we were able to experience it by living there for three months. Therefore, after returning home, we decided to continue it. We quickly decided to live in a place where the climate allows us to run such a farm and produce food all year round. We packed our bags and flew to Tenerife. However, it was only in La Palma and after two months of searching that we managed to buy 2 hectares of land unspoiled by civilization, which was what we wanted the most. It has been abandoned and unused for 40 years. Almonds, figs, citruses grew here and we started our adventure of life with them. However, we knew that our financial resources were going to run out soon, so we bought a food truck to get a surplus of what we were able to grow, process and sell. It was quite an easy path, as we have been vegan for 13 years, so we knew very well what we had to grow to be nutritionally self-sufficient. We also recently planted olive trees, but we are not yet able to obtain oil from them. So we take advantage of the fact that our friend has an oil press and supplies us with olive oil or avocado oil. Now we have figs and pumpkin vegetables, plums, peaches, papayas and avocados all the time. Here, the climate is favorable for vegans, because if one season ends, the second automatically begins.

What did you like the most about the idea of ​​running a permaculture farm?

First of all, everything you do is for yourself. This is not a job, for me it is fun and meditation. I am in touch with nature all the time and I can organize my time myself. Permaculture is not just gardening, it’s self-sufficiency, and that’s great! We eat what we grow. We have enough water, our own solar energy and composting toilets so that we can produce biogas.

Does this mean that you do not shop at all in the store and do not use the offers of service companies?

I haven’t been buying clothes for four years, because if I need something, I exchange clothes with people who make up the permaculture group in La Palma. We try to organize everything so that we do not need or buy anything from the outside. We eat gluten-free, so we don’t need flour. I only use it in the foodtrack when I cook for others. Community-assisted farming is also popular here. So sometimes we collect cabbage with the whole group and make sauerkraut together, or we collect fruit and make marmalade for the whole year. We have sugar cane, so we don’t buy sugar. In addition, we use dates, coconuts and bananas to sweeten dishes and desserts. We try to be creative, go beyond the limits and try new things. There is also a so-called time-sharing, when, for example, for the vinegar I produced, I can buy the time of the person who will repair my roof in return.

Joanna and Martin Joanna / private archive

I take it you’re cooking on the foodtrack?

That’s true. We also plan to build a resort with houses for rent for tourists who want to spend their holidays on a permaculture farm. We are looking for an option to finance this without having to take a bank loan. Unfortunately, the implementation of our idea was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and large restrictions that had a strong impact on our food truck earnings. There were no tourists, so we had nobody to cook for, and our income was almost gone. Then came the second catastrophe, because we barely dug up the covid last year, the volcano Cumbre Vieja erupted and tourism went down again. The housing situation in La Palma also changed, many houses ended up under lava, and people lost their possessions. At that time, we continued to cook, but only as part of volunteering and for people who helped others by cleaning the lava roofs. Now the island comes alive again.

And did you not think then to move to a safer place to live?

I admit there was a moment when I thought about it for a moment. But I quickly explained to myself that if the threat was really great, we would be evacuated. Besides, we are far from this volcano, which – like with a watch in hand – erupts every 50 years and is constantly monitored. In turn, the volcano on which our house is located will not erupt for the next several hundred years. We live well here, because we have unlimited space and we still want to implement the life plan we wrote out as soon as we arrived here. We are not even in the middle of its implementation yet, because we were stopped for a moment by a pandemic, but also by a volcanic eruption.

You have a 2 ha farm to cultivate and a food truck. This means a lot of work and probably a challenge for the two of you.

Yes, but there is also an institution here that helps with the reforestation and planting of endemic plants. For a small fee, you can get plants and instructions on where to plant them so that they catch on and that I do not have to take care of them too much. They suggest what will grow regardless of the erosion of the soil, or what trees to plant around the plot, so that in the event of a fire they will cut us off from the fire. Aid of this kind in afforestation of La Palma is popular and it makes things very easy.

However, on other points, you do not want to benefit from state aid. Why?

We are always looking for alternative opportunities, and this is because I grew up on a farm in Poland and I know that if you get a subsidy from the state, then with conditions imposed from above that must be met. You are, for example, obliged to mow a meadow within a certain time limit, so you drive a tractor on it, burn gasoline, and at the same time you kill insects or animals that live naturally in the grass. It is not in harmony with either nature or me. I know that it is enough to release animals – goats, sheep or cows on the meadow to mow it naturally. We also do not want to have a subsidy for the construction of houses, because we want to be self-sufficient.

What are your plans for the development of the farm, apart from building permaculture houses for tourists?

We are open to people from all over the world, we do cooking courses and vegan education workshops. Our Veganoteka is also liked by yogis, because the conditions are favorable for practicing yoga or organizing women’s circles. Some people book Veganoteka for private events, sometimes we also do them in our garden. I love the moments when I give people a plate of food and they ask what it is made of and what. Then I show the plant growing nearby and say that if they want to, we can approach it and tell them about it.

Joanna and Martin Joanna / private archive

Undoubtedly, this place and this lifestyle inspire culinary creativity. Then at the end of our conversation I will ask for a simple recipe a’la Veganoteca from La Palma.

How about a carrot “salmon”? Because we have everything we need here, i.e. algae, carrots and even salt. You have to cut the carrot into thin slices, marinate it with dill and algae, which will give it a fishy aftertaste. It is enough to keep the carrot in the marinade for 12 hours, but the most intense flavor is obtained after a longer marinating time. You can find more such inspirations on our instagram profile @veganotecalapalma.