Half a century ago, long before Isabel Díaz Ayuso suggested installing a plant on every balcony in Madrid to fight climate change, a farmer began tending the first urban garden in Barcelona. Joan Carulla has planted a tree – more than 40 fruit trees on his property in the Guinardó district – he has had a son and now he has just published a book. “My green century, 100 life lessons” by Joan Carulla (Icaria) summarizes the memoirs written by this farmer from Juneda (Lleida) on his Olivetti machine, which will be 100 years old next week.
Journalist Carlos Fresneda signs this title, summarizing his notes and conversations with him since he met him a few years ago. He boasts of having found the “grandfather of green roofs in Barcelona and Europe”! He admits that he could not imagine that “a farmer would replant a 150 square meter plot in Guinardó in the 1970s”. Its history goes back to the post-war period: “I was one of thousands of emigrants in the 50s with a suitcase tied to ropes,” Carulla recalls from his roof. “With an acre in the city, we couldn’t live for a family of four.” By selling oil, eggs and other produce from his town in the Catalan capital, he managed to save money and set up one of the city’s first supermarkets . The same lot that now houses a Caprabo supermarket at street level has been extended into the five storey residential building that currently stands on Navas de Tolosa Street.
Dressed in jeans, shirt, vest and sandals, Carulla poses in front of the press this Friday as if he were working in his hometown 150 kilometers from Barcelona. He defines himself as the son of a “town gentleman”, although he might look rock star like George Harrison – another gardening lover – on the cover of his legendary album All Things Must Pass.
After calculating the resistance of his roof with a double layer of ceramic to prevent leaks, Carulla faced another obstacle: that of fertility. “It was a land as sterile as a collapsed wall”, but by using all kinds of organic waste such as fruit crates, plywood and even “blinds” he managed to revitalize the land spread over his three terraces. In addition, only with the rainwater harvesting system is it possible to irrigate it 10 months a year. Its yellowish looking casks surround most of the orchard but can hold up to 9,500 litres.
In addition to garlic, potatoes or peppers, Carulla proudly presents one of its crown jewels: the giant vine that produces up to 100 kilos of grapes and whose roots coexist with other fruit trees such as loquat, lemon and peach trees. For him, these trees are “a blessing and should fill the streets of our cities.” However, he warns that even this small urban oasis is not spared from climate change: “Last year, eight fruit trees died,” laments Carulla, adding that “there are hardly any worms left”, important insects that provide more strength and size to their plantations.
Fresneda boasts that his colleague was a pioneer of environmentalism in Spain “long before the word was coined,” not only because of this garden from which he gets almost all of his diet, but also because of his vegetarianism “by conviction and later Need”. the war”. Carulla himself points out that one of the secrets to his longevity — which has seen him through a war, colon cancer and the coronavirus — lies in that diet. “I want to encourage anyone who has minimal space in the city to develop that love affair with the countryside: your stomach, your lungs and your mental state will thank you,” concludes the farmer in his memoirs.
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