Curly Creek Ranch

23/10/2025

Though not as "exciting" as summer with tomatoes and cucumbers, the gardens in autumn are full of abundance, diversity and colour. A potential new restaurant client came to visit us the other day and I put together this little taster box with a bit of everything for her to try (including nasturtiums for her nasturtium butter!). It was so beautiful, I just had to share it with you all.

17/10/2025

After 10 years of dreaming about a sand arena for our horses, we finally have one! But it's not sand, it's eggshells! What is waste for an industrial processor an hour away is a great footing for our arena, and being so aligned with our no-waste philosophy at the ranch, we couldn't be happier. And the shells will be integrated into our compost, giving that extra boost of slow release calcium to our gardens.

We built it in our "sacrifice" area that we could use during certain times of the year so the horses could give our pastures the recovery time they need while reducing the time they were inside in their stalls. But it became a mud pit so its use was limited.

Now they can be outside all year, except during extreme heat, cold or rain, blending their needs with those of the pastures and the people who care for them.

Thank you to our new friend Sandra near Puente de la Reina who uses the same material in her arena too, such a great idea!

12/10/2025

I'm just blown away by the nasturtiums in the gardens this year, they're huge and still going! Must be all that good soil working its magic. We've even been incorporating the yummy leaves in salads because there's so much of it. Abundance total.

19/09/2025

It's canning season! Tomatoes, peppers, chilis, tomato sauce, hot salsa, you name it! This is a lot of what will support us through the winter with the abundant harvest we have this fall, since our freezers are full and these are shelf stable for well over a year.

If you've never canned before, give it a try (but with someone with experience or following official guidelines you can find online! No need to die from botulism because you can't eat all of your tomatoes fast enough).

We do well over 500 jars in all per session, depending on the harvest, so we're well on our way (and this wasn't the first batch either, just the largest).

What's your favourite thing to can?

13/09/2025

Ya está aquí! Los días están más cortos, las temperaturas más bajas, pues ya está acercando Halloween!

Por el cuarto año, nos alegramos mucho de abrir el rancho para un día muy especial en familia, en la naturaleza, donde poder crear las linternas de calabaza 🎃 Cómo siempre, después hay oportunidad de visitar a los animales y por supuesto hay txokolatada!

Aunque hemos intentado doblar la producción de calabazas otra vez, han salido aún menos este año por lo cual sólo hay 60 calabazas disponibles. Por eso sólo hay cuatro sesiones para 15 niñ@s cada sesión. Se puede elegir entre:

🎃 18 de octubre @ las 11h
👻 18 de octubre @ las 16h
🧹 19 de octubre @ las 11h
⏳ 19 de octubre @ las 16h

Pues ya es el momento de organizar los grupos de amiguetes, padres y familia para asegurar la sesión que quieres antes de que se agoten!

Otra vez utilizamos Eventbrite para gestionar las entradas y no hay otra manera de conseguirlas, pues cogelas aquí:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/entradas-halloween-taller-infantil-1695462436789

Nos vemos en un mes!

08/09/2025

It is tomato season! The garden is pumping out a beautiful rainbow of these tasty jewels (around 100kg so far and we're just getting started!) thanks to the 300 plants of 15+ varieties we've got this year.

We managed to stay mostly on top of pruning and have beds with a large variety of companion plants such as basil, oregano, nasturtium, marigolds and different kinds of lettuce, all of which I attribute to the super healthy plants, high productivity and overall well being of the beds.

Our season is short, but sweet, and with any luck we'll have them for another month. If you're in the area and would like to buy some, please reach out.

24/08/2025

Yesterday, we held our first ever tomato tasting event and it was a hit! We are obsessed with genetic diversity and tomatoes are one of the tastiest ways to understand that. We put around 15 tomato varieties in the garden every year, literally providing a rainbow of delight during the short but long awaited tomato season!

But such an event wouldn't be complete without a tour of the ranch, explaining what we do, how and why, and then we finished up with a tasty BBQ with our chicken and turkey on the grill (and more tomatoes!).

Tomato season started late this year due to the wet cold and spring (in fact, we had to delay this event by 3 weeks to ensure there were ripe tomatoes!) but it went so well that I'm sure we'll organise a couple of more tomato tastings next year.

19/08/2025

That's a wrap! With that last 80kg log, thanks to a bunch of friends over the weekend, we managed to split three years of firewood! It's what most houses around here consume in a year, but hey, we're super energy efficient like that...Most of it is stacked but we ran out of pallets so that'll get finished sometime this week.

25/05/2025

Thanks to .vreugdenhil and Dasha, their lovely friends Joelle and Max, together with the fantastic Dutch WWOOOFing family we have with us at the moment (it was quite the Dutch invasion hahaha), we managed to get 80% of the summer garden planted in one day om Friday!

With our new seed germination set up, about half the plants in the garden are ours, which is so exciting. We've learned a lot this year, and hopefully, for next year, we'll get to 80%!

Having a resource base to be able to lean into for group activities such as this is key to making smaller-scale production work. We had a yummy lunch in between with our own chicken, pancetta from and beef from as well as vegetables from the gardens and eggs from our chickens. But the feast wenr too fast to take photos, hahah.

Thank you to everyone for your help!

21/05/2025

It's Wednesday, so it must be delivery day! We're in that tricky in-between season where the winter brassicas are finished, and we've yet to put in the summer garden (on Friday!) so it's just fava beans, little gem lettuces, chard, and of course, !

11/04/2025

Come join us at the ranch this summer for this course in English! This only one all year!

🌱 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲? 🌱⁣
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Join us this summer at in 𝗡𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮, 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻 for an immersive 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 training! Learn how to manage your farm or agribusiness with a holistic approach--whether you currently manage natural resources or not. We'll dig deep into, ecological literacy, learning how to read the land, using livestock as an ecosystem management tool and financial planning. 🌾🌍⁣
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🗓️ 1𝟲 𝗝𝘂𝗹𝘆 - 𝟮𝟲 𝗝𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 > 10 days (with a one-day break on 21 July to rest our brains)⁣
📍 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Curly Creek Ranch, Navarra, Spain (30 min from Pamplona)⁣
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👉 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: https://www.hubdelnorte.com/producto/holistic-management-comprehensive-training-2025/
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✅ What you’ll learn:⁣
· Holistic Management fundamentals
· Land & financial planning
· Ecological monitoring and grazing planning
· Practical tools for your farm or new business⁣
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🌿 Live off-grid, eat local, and connect with a global community of learners. Plus, explore Pamplona & San Sebastián!⁣
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🎓 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗲⁣ and counts towards achieving accredited professional status, if you choose.
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✂️ 𝟱𝟬% 𝗼𝗳𝗳 if attending only the first half of the course!⁣
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Limited spots available, secure yours now! 😉

05/04/2025

Hoth is growing so fast! He's such a sweetheart but also very brave, learning the boundaries of the ranch so he can protect it. He's going to be huge, so we're soaking up all these puppy cuddles while we can!