Lameira De Cima “Hortas”, An Example Of An Ancentral Sustainable Community Agricultural Use.

Lameiras de Cima is a typical small village, with 60 inhabitants, located in the mountainous province of Beira Alta (Portugal). In this place the medieval methods of cultivation still remain. With this study we pretend to show how a small agricultural area, with less than a quarter of an hectare, denominated “horta” (kitchen garden), belonging to 8 families, is divided into 15 different acres, can be used in educational, geotouristic and socioeconomic development perspective. The “horta” is stocked by two centennial small dikes that hold a combined capacity of 30 m3 of water per day. The community water division allows, in this platform only accessible on foot, the growth of various species in the 4 seasons. That species have varied uses, such us: food and feed, medicinal purposes, yeast for bread and cheese, clothing due to the cultivation of flax.

It will be demonstrate, using three-dimensional maps, the “horta” seasonal used, as well as the importance of these inherited knowledge in the household economy, the rules of the water utilization, the use of ancestral indigenous seeds and the ancestral techniques of irrigation and cultivation.