Plant an orchard in Romania

Have you ever dreamt of planting an orchard for your family and the generations to come?

Creating a space of abundance, safety and beauty?

Who are we

We have that dream! It is our aspiration.

We are Jimmy (25) and Aurora (26) and we are worried how depleted soils combined with drought are threatening food security. For this reason this autumn we are starting regenerating the soil by planting an orchard.

Our Backstory

After a few years of traveling through different realities, from Sicily's desertification to the erosion in Costa Rica, along side research and inspirational encounters we realized that our desire is to get our hands in the dirt.

The Goal

Create a healing space where fruits and vegetables are organically grown. To make this happen we are applying the principles of permaculture and syntropic agro-forestry, which means we'll be planting in high density/diversity. To start this orchard, we’ll plant seeds, cuttings and bare root trees. The seeds and cuttings we’re collecting ourselves. However, for the bare root trees we are collaborating with a local nursery specialized in ancient tree varieties that are drought, freeze and disease resistant. This will bring back a diversity of resilient and rare species, that can later on be shared or further propagated.

Where

As a first experience we’re aiming to turn 500m² of Aurora's ancestors land into a food forest. Located in an isolated and rural part of Romania, we chose this place because it’s not completely affected by modernization, closer to nature and ancient knowledge. Plus everything is slightly more affordable and there is availability of land.

When

This Autumn 2022!

What Kind of Trees

Diversity and strength were key in the selection process. But lets be honest, we also chose those that had awesome colors. Fruits like cherries, apricots, pears... Nuts like walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds...

How the Funds will be used

For the 500m2 we plan to put in around 40 trees. The prices go from 4€/ tree to 20€/ tree. All the funds will be used to purchase fruit trees from the nursery as they are listed in the visuals above. There might be some changes based on availability. On average each 10€ donated equals a tree.

Some Honest Thoughts

We are scared, we have doubts! We don't know if all our new ideas about growing an orchard in 2022 will work. We've travelled, researched, watched tons of videos, asked so many questions to the people we met, made their ears explode! How do you start an orchard in the conditions of 2022?

We get quite a lot of pessimism around our ideas, and few people have tried the exact systems we're interested in.

We are finally trying things out on a considerable scale and there is no such thing as valuable as trying when it comes to nature, ecology and agriculture. At the end of the day, we hope that the things we'll learn will be useful to all. If yes we'll make sure to share it on some social media platforms!

With the passion of the ancient generations, the determination of the modern agro-businesses and the optimism of kids we're trying to become a bit better at taking care of our food sources.

Towards a lighter future!