Camps de Can Purtell: the start of a thriving land based community

18 June 2023. Cutting fennel in good company

Sometime in late June I was wielding a machete at dawn cutting giant fennel out of a field of Khorasan wheat when I realised I needed some help. It was Saturday, and I had been cutting fennel for a week between the hours of 6am and 11am every morning. So I took my phone out of a grubby pocket and called to Dean Xavier of Can Cristofol Farm Shop and asked him for some advise..“how do I ask for help Dean?”

He told me to put the machete down, and to write him a text saying what I needed for him to share on his volunteers group. To be honest I felt ashamed and it was not easy for me to do, so Dean kindly encouraged me some more and the next morning, Sunday at 7am I found four strong men parked up by the field.

I laid out the machetes that I had borrowed from neighbours around the area the night before, asked them to choose their blade and we set to work clearing fennel.

Afterwards we ate a delicious breakfast of some of my home cured native breed ‘porc negre’ bacon on toasted Xeixa bread made by Ryan one of the very kind people who worked hard with me that morning.

Since then I have opened up Can Purtell to community in a way that brings me and others much satisfaction, comradery and joy. Can Purtell now has a community watsap group ‘Camps de Can Purtell’ which publishes seasonal activities that the Can Purtell community can participate in. Such as stacking bales of straw, harvesting carobs, burning dry wood from pruning the carob trees, casting field beans by hand.. whatever the season brings. We are normally just a few hours and there is always good food involved after the work. It took me a while to figure out how to bring community partcipation into Can Purtell, 2 years in fact. It turned out I just needed to learn how to ask for help.

You can join the watsap community group by sending a watsap to +34690395767 or with this link https://chat.whatsapp.com/DFp5G9XYGihBOI3z6mvFeP