The consumption of seasonal products, the support of the agricultural activity and our commitment to a healthy and varied diet, are some of the approaches that drove us to create an orchard inside Dehesa El Milagro. It is the perfect complement to our agricultural and stock-raising activities.

We prepared an area close to the main pond in the state to grow organic vegetables. We divided this area into five similarly sized plots in order to allow crop rotation keeping fallow periods to maintain the fertility of the soil.

This way, seasonal vegetables are key our shopping baskets and little by little we got in contact with other small vegetable gardens to secure and to add variety our offer. Obviously, these orchards are also committed to the principles of organic agriculture.

We follow traditional methods of planting and cropping, techniques that guarantee an organic and sustainable way of production. We team up with our partners for quality, diversity, security and traceability of the products. We offer safe, healthy and fresh vegetables and, given our proximity to Madrid, we can also control the environmental impact of their distribution to the markets.

We are strongly committed to the principles of organic agriculture that, in this area, can be specified in the following issues:

• We grow seasonal vegetables. We adapt to weather and we respect natural growth without forcing it.
• We do not use synthetic chemical products like fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides.
• We fight weeds with mechanical resources (ploughing or manually). The remains are usually utilised as compost.
• We produce closed-cycle compost by mixing manure and plant residues from the orchard. This mixture enriches the quality of the land.

• Pest control is based on:

1. close monitoring to remove any possible source of disease.
2. crop association, so certain plants help others to develop following their natural cycle of growth.
3. We promote biodiversity. Sowing appealing flowers to pest predatory insects and hedges in which lacewings, wasps and other insects that predate aphid and other pests can build their nests.
4. We also have other natural and organic pesticides that can be used to supplement the above mentioned methods.

Besides…

Thus, our vegetables, grown in an organic orchard:

• Assure a total guarantee in quality and food safety as they are 100% chemical-free products.
• Their slow and nature-friendly growth improves their taste, more concentrated and intense, and rising their nutrient content.
• Farming this way, we are also fostering biodiversity, increasing soil quality preventing erosion and averting land and water pollution with synthetic chemical products.
• We contribute to the capture of CO2 (with plant roofing, hedges…) and, indirectly, we reduce the release of carbon dioxide by the integrated use of waste (eluding their transportation to the landfill) and by the non-utilisation of synthetic chemical products whose production implies the release of greenhouse gases as it also does their transport.

And just one final note on varieties: In Dehesa El Milagro we emphasize our commitment with innovation in the variety of vegetables we grow. We are very proud to offer throughout the year new vegetables like kale, broccolini, white aubergine, etc.