Getting Started - Our First Blog Post!

Welcome to Sugar Valley and Happy New Year to you! We're delighted to share our journey with you and hope that you will enjoy it as much as us. It's been an exciting experience so far with many aspects needing to come together to get to where we are today! Quinta Vale de Canas was a working 45,000 square metre farm producing a variety of different fruits and herbs. It was sadly abandoned for a number of years but is now coming to life once more!  We received the deeds to the land in December 2021 and work has begun on clearing the ground to make way for building and planting.

Image: The digger hard at work

The trees have been pruned, as you can see from the photos, but don't worry - this quite brutal looking method will ensure that they grow back with healthy new branches and give them a good foundation for their overall long-term health.

Image: The orange trees now they have been pruned

Image: An orange tree in very poor condition

Many of the orange trees on the land became very wild and overgrown and were stripped of leaves on the lower areas by local roaming goats and sheep, this caused them to bear fruit higher up and the combination of this and a lack of water has led to very poor condition and any fruit that actually grows is bitter to taste. Cutting the trees right back will ensure that they grow into a new shape that is more beneficial for the uptake of water and nutrients from the soil. They will grow back to be robust little trees over the next couple of years and will produce juicy sweet fruit.

 Video: Pruning the orange trees
(View on YouTube to watch in full HD quality)

Image: The team sealing the tree stumps

All of the peach trees on the land were dead so we are in the process of removing them, roots will need to be dug out so that they can be replaced.

Image: Rows of dead peach trees

Video: The peach and orange trees

Image: One of the drainage channels

The plastic pipes that are the remains of the irrigation system are being cleared and collected in a trailer ready to be recycled.

Image: The plastic pipes from the old irrigation system

Image: The plastic pipes collected in a trailer ready to be recycled

We need to be sure that there is no plastic in the cuttings being burnt. Permission was granted by the local fire department to create bonfires.

Video: Burning the cuttings and the scrub

We are also busy with creating the plans to produce details of the required buildings, growing areas and landscaping together with working on styling for interior design and we have already commissioned a number of unique artworks for our living spaces to make them extra special for our valued guests. Watch this space for more updates as we share our progress!