About us

Keela is a sizeable 18-hectare homestead, permaculture farm, off-grid retreat center and permaculture education centre. Keela was founded in 2016 and first and foremost, it is our home where we live off the grid and in harmony with nature.

At Keela, we have a reforestation program, market vegetable gardens, agroforests, food forests, yoga room, many natural buildings, a cold plunge pool, lakes and many established permaculture systems. We also have a reforestation program and a community centre for permaculture education.

Laurence Manchee lives onsite and is a certified permaculture educator with the Permaculture Association UK. Apart from being a farmer and educator, he speaks at permaculture events, writes for permaculture magazine UK and provides consultancy services locally.

We have Permaculture Design Coursesyoga retreats, natural building courses and volunteers starting every month.

We are located in the centre of Portugal near Fundao

Our Projects

Food Forest Program 

Click for our food forest updates

We have five food forest areas, one planted each year since 2017 (artificial edible forest of trees, shrubs, ground covers and climbers) covering 1 hectare of land, which will keep expanding until 18 hectares of land is full of food forests or similar concepts (e.g. restoration agriculture).

Daily Yoga

Yoga Portugal
The yoga deck with a sunrise view

Kimberly Manchee (resident yoga teacher) and guest yoga teachers provide optional free daily classes to volunteers and students on the Natural Building and Permaculture courses. Kimberly also teaches drop-in classes at Keela Yoga Farm.

Natural Building

Straw Bale House
6 of the 30 people working on our strawbale building over one month. This house was completed in March 2019, and we now live in it

We try to use materials from our land as much as possible. So far, we have built two large straw bale houses, a wattle and daub chicken house, a long drop compost vermiculture dry toilet, a non-flush pee station, two compost toilets, a straw bale greenhouse, a natural sheep barn and a vermiculture flushing toilet.

Permaculture Vegetable Gardens

Food ForestOne of our many growing areas

A big focus of the farm is gardening and growing food for ourselves and our guests. We work in the gardens every day of the year. We are growing perennial vegetables and fruits in the food forests; we grow annual vegetables in the growing gardens; we have sunken beds, raised beds, wood chip beds, hugelkultur beds, herb gardens, a herb spiral, traditional beds, a kitchen garden and we are working on reviving some springs and systems built on our land by the Moors.

Where we do not grow food, we buy organic from a local organic permaculture farm or the local market bio stalls. Our dry food is bought in bulk from an organic distributor of food and other products such as washing up liquid and floor cleaner (we purchase this with a local bulk buying co-op that we coordinate).

Permaculture system research and experimentation

Compost water heater
Drawing of the compost pile that we built that is currently heating water. We have many experiments on the go, including a long drop compost vermiculture toilet, different styles of food forests, ways to do cover crops, vermiculture flushing toilets, and restoration agriculture.

Daily Harvest of Food

Daily Harvest of Food
Every day, all year, we harvest food from the garden, which is served to retreat and course guests and volunteers.

Wine Making

Wine Making

We make wine and other fermented, healthy drinks such as kombucha and kefir. Next year we would like to try making cider.

Natural Products

Home Soap with ingredients from the land
Homemade soaps

We make soaps, moisturisers and cleaning products. We usually do free workshops on these for guests.

Preserving Food

Preserving food

We make jam, chilli sauces, and fermented foods from our products every week. We also dry herbs for cooking and making tea blends.

Reforestation

Reforestation
Planting trees in 2019

We commit time, money and space to reforestation. We like offering people a cheap option to offset their carbon footprint.

Offgrid and sustainable

Our PV panels create electricity for the farm.

We have our drinking water from the land, our electricity, and a lot of our food, and we make our income to live and expand the farm.

Fun

Outside chillout area in the courtyard
Outside chillout area in the courtyard

We have pizza parties with our stone-built pizza oven, BBQs, fires around the stone circle, film nights, visits to the cafe and fun during all courses and work. ‘Smile, it’s your birthright’ – Sudhir Rishi.

Glamping and Caravans

Glamping in one of the tipis

Enjoy sleeping in nature, with stars, birds and views. We have tipis, various caravans and eco huts, or you can bring your tent.

Animals

Chickens
Feeding the chickens

We have thirty chickens, twenty sheep, pigs, bee hives, cats and dogs.

Facilities

Straw Bale Community Kitchen

straw bale house portugal
It is an eco house made of straw bales and clay. Guests enjoy a large communal room and many outside areas to eat and socialise. Click here
for info on the build of this house.

Long Drop Vermiculture Compost Toilet

Long Drop Vermiculture Compost Toilet
As featured in Permaculture Magazine, this Long Drop Vermiculture Compost Toilet is unique as it uses worms to eat through the humanure creating lots of composting worms and worm castings. Read more about it here.

Tropical Strawbale Greenhouse Shower Room

Greenhouse Shower room

In addition to our outside shower, we have an inside wood-powered shower in our greenhouse. The water heater heats the greenhouse, and guests stay nice and warm. This gives the beautiful feeling of showering outside in nature but inside in the warmth of the greenhouse. Read more about it.

Indoor yoga room and classroom

Indoor yoga room and classroom made of natural materials. Check out our video of the natural building course that built this room.

Outdoor Yoga Deck

Yoga on the yoga deck on pleasant mornings; if it is too cold or hot, we use the inside yoga room. You can attend yoga classes for free during Permaculture and Natural Building courses.

Healthy food and chefs

Our chefs provide healthy organic food during all Permaculture courses and Yoga Retreats. You will eat well!

Silence and Tranquillity

18 Hectares of land surrounded by abandoned land gives you the feel of tranquillity and escape from busy towns and cities. The only notice comes from birds and wildlife.

Food Forests and vegetable gardens

Food forests, vegetable gardens and agroforests provide us with a supplement of healthy organic food. Read more about our food forests.

Contact Us

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    Email: info@ keelayogafarm.com