Quinta de Corujas

Building a small production greenhouse

Posted on May 11 2016

When we rebuilt the house one thing we decided to add was a small greenhouse. We picked a spot with great sun exposure and a convenient pre-existing wall and built a small glass and granite building. T...read more

Building a practical large compost pile

Posted on Apr 4 2015

We have two donkeys continuously outputting large amounts of manure. Between leftover straw and manure we add about 3 cubic meters per month to...read more

Egg yolk pudding

Posted on Apr 13 2014

All sorts of things are named pudding, sweet or savoury, with ingredients that can include dairy, starch, rice...In Portugal puddings are desserts, cooked in specific pleated moulds with a lid. Milk-ba...read more

Converting Par36 bulbs to LED

Posted on Apr 3 2014

Last year we got an electric car to go around the farm. It's a Toro Workman and it has an electric tipping bed that carries 400kg and climbs our steep paths with ease. We're really happy with it. We bo...read more

Building an observation hive

Posted on Mar 31 2014

When we started beekeeping one thing we read in multiple places was that getting an observation hive was a great way to learn. An observation hive is basically a glass sided bee hive so that you can lo...read more

Early spring recipes: purple cabbage and chicken stew

Posted on Mar 30 2014

This is what we call comfort food. It is lovely for an early spring dinner by the fireplace when it's cold outside. Serves 5-7.Ingredients: 2 m...read more

Adding comb guides to regular bee hive frames to go foundationless

Posted on Mar 30 2014

We've been running foundationless frames on all our hives. It's less work and may have some health benefits for the bees. To do this though we've had to retrofit comb guides to our regular bought frame...read more

The tomato season is on!

Posted on Mar 5 2014

Winter always seems too long and in January we have all those seeds patiently saved from the previous season, plus the packets with the new things we want to try, and little patience to wait for warmer...read more

Attracting swarms to get free bees

Posted on Feb 28 2014

We have told the story before about how we stumbled into beekeeping. Our first year as beekeepers we were able to attract a swarm directly into a hive without much effort. Last season we got 4 the same...read more

Spring is upon us and the bees are flying

Posted on Feb 26 2014

We had the first few early spring days at the farm. All the early bloomers are in full force and birds are everywhere. ...read more

Building our herb garden

Posted on Feb 22 2014

Herb gardens are delightful places, or so we thought even before we began to care of Corujas. Our first book on gardening was actually on herb gardens. Others followed, such as Jekka's.Getting water to...read more

Really fast risotto in a pressure cooker

Posted on Feb 8 2014

We've recently become huge fans of the book "Modernist Cuisine at Home". It certainly changed the way we cook risotto. It used to take over 40 minutes to prepare a risotto the traditional way (constant...read more

How we stumbled into becoming beekepers

Posted on Feb 8 2014

When we got the farm there was an old bee yard an uncle used to run. It had been abandoned for at least a decade and yet there was still one surviving colony. We let it alone at first but then decided ...read more

Using leftover olive oil to make soap

Posted on Feb 3 2014

This weekend we made our first attempt at making homemade soap. It was pretty straightforward and a lot easier than we had anticipated. There was some leftover olive oil from 2011 in the bottom of the ...read more

Making our own olive oil

Posted on Feb 2 2014

Our location isn't ideal for olives. We usually only have any meaningful quantity every two years. We've been trying to improve that by bringing in new olive trees of different species and watering the...read more

Summer recipes: gazpacho

Posted on Aug 4 2013

One of our favourite summer dishes is gazpacho, the best cold soup ever. Come August the farm is usually producing tons of different kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions and bell peppers and we kee...read more

Summer recipes: chicken kryptonite

Posted on Jul 23 2013

This is one of our favorite summer recipes when we have lots of basil and zucchinis. The name is self-explanatory once you see the final result - it looks radioactive green but tastes superb. ...read more

Summer recipes: traditional grilled sardines

Posted on Jul 21 2013

Grilled sardines are a traditional summer food in Portugal. They're in vogue right at the start of summer when they're eaten in a bunch of traditional parties. In reality the time when they're really g...read more

Summer recipes: pesto

Posted on Jul 20 2013

We've been making pesto for a few years now and have tried every variation you can think of. This is the basic recipe on which you can experiment by adding extra ingredients if you like. We tend to pre...read more

Aerial firefighting, an unwelcome summer air show

Posted on Jul 20 2013

Every summer we keep a close eye on the the other side of the valley for any new fires springing up. We have a simple telescope that we use to keep an eye on any suspicious smoke. Sometimes when we cal...read more

How to milk a goat

Posted on Jul 17 2013

Ever since we started having baby goats, we saw the need to milk our goat, either because she had too much milk, which caused her pain, or because we had to tube feed the kids. ...read more

Francesinha - Porto's famous "sandwich"

Posted on Jul 16 2013

Without a doubt one of the best sandwiches you can make if you can call it that. It's a typical pub dish in Porto, usually accompanied with some fries to dip in the sauce and a nice beer. You can get t...read more

Reproducing camellias from cuttings

Posted on Jul 15 2013

Camellias are beautiful plants that look great in most gardens. Unfortunately they can be quite expensive and since there are a lot of different species it's hard to get the exact one you want. Thankfu...read more

Building a forest garden

Posted on Jul 14 2013

We've been considering the forest gardening concept for a while now. Martin Crawford's book on the subject is an amazing introduction, tutorial and reference. The idea is to run an agricultural system ...read more

Watering the kiwi plants continuously with drip irrigation

Posted on Jul 13 2013

We've installed a bunch of automated plant watering systems throughout the years. We've done a lot of them based on water timers and pumped water. Lately we've been trying to water directly from the tw...read more

Winter recipes: homemade tangerine liqueur

Posted on Jul 12 2013

This winter, we decided it was time to start making liqueurs. We had got some grape marc spirit to use as the base alcohol, but you can use almost any kind of strong alcohol to make liqueurs. Vodka, sp...read more

Cutting out a swarm from the owl box

Posted on Jul 3 2013

We put up the owl box much too late this year for an owl to nest in it. It seems it was perfect timing for swarm season though. Even though we had a few bait hives out and caught a few swarms in them t...read more

Swarm moving into a bait hive

Posted on Jul 2 2013

Come spring we decided to put a few bait hives around the farm to attract any passing swarms. The one hive we had last year was a swarm that moved by its own accord into an empty box we had around. A b...read more

Building a solar wax melter

Posted on Jun 30 2013

As I was looking at a piece of leftover metal sheet from building the owl box I realized we could use it to build a solar wax melter. Bees make comb to store honey and polen and as "wombs" for new bees...read more

New baby goats