This isn´t the lead up to a punch line. We really have 25,000 square meters of land which we have now had for just over 5 years. We pay the mortgage every month (sometimes barely). There is a farm house (not liveable) and even provide a lovely playground for the neighbours free range chickens. We do not however live on or even grow anything on the land.
Our neighbours grow things on the land. We rent it out annually to our neighbour farmer who alternates a crop every year on it. This year is wheat. We rent it for less than one month´s mortgage payment. Why, you ask? He maintains the land which would otherwise be a very large fire hazard come every July and we still get some money out of it as opposed to nothing.
Lately we´ve started asking ourselves what we can do with the land. It´s not an easy question to answer because you´d think that 25,000 square meters is A LOT of land. To live on sure, but to grow things on, it can add up to very little. For example, this same neighbour that we rent the land to has other land. He earns approximately 35,000 to 40,000 euros a year in olives. This is great except these are very mature trees and on a total of 100,000 square meters. This means that in 10 years we could earn about a quarter of that. Not really a motivating goal. So we came up with another idea.
Truffles are like the stinky cheese of fungi. They look gross, they smell weird and quite frankly are an acquired taste. Fortunately I have experience in that area as I love sushi, olives and crazy cheeses. I did some research on truffles as I found out that farmers in Oregon are now growing them. This made me think, “If truffles grow naturally in France and they can make them grow in Oregon, shouldn´t you be able to grow them in Spain? Especially the region where you can grow ANYTHING?” It turns out you can. If you buy a book on Amazon (the only good one in English really), email a truffle enthusiast in England and ask him for a knowledgeable contact person in Spain you´d be me last September.
I ended up getting in contact with a really nice, ridiculously knowledgeable Dr. of Fungus (that´s right you can get a PhD in Fungus) who helped us out. So now after a very positive soil sample and taking an afternoon to plant nine trees infected with fungus (probably the only time you really want your plants infected with anything) we wait to see if they first survive (did I mention I kill plants?) and then produce. It takes three years for the trees to produce truffles which grow in symbiosis (young Skywalker) with the roots.
I´ll be sure let you know the results so make sure you check my blog in three years time.
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