{"id":8518,"date":"2025-10-17T09:49:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T07:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/?p=8518"},"modified":"2025-10-17T09:59:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T07:59:36","slug":"catalina-vaquer-sorell-de-ca-na-justa-porreres-1968-the-key-to-continuing-after-four-generations-is-that-we-maintain-local-varieties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/catalina-vaquer-sorell-de-ca-na-justa-porreres-1968-la-clau-de-lexit-de-continuar-despres-de-quatre-generacions-es-que-mantenim-les-varietats-locals\/","title":{"rendered":"Catalina Vaquer Sorell, from ca na Justa (Porreres, 1968): \u201cThe key to the success of continuing after four generations is that we maintain local varieties\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do you live this family tradition of planters? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very proud to be one. It all started with my father's godfather who had six daughters, one of whom was my godmother. He saw that this worked and kept going and moving forward. My godmother had a daughter and my father who is the one who continued with the family business a little in spite of himself because he wanted to be a mechanic. Then I came along and went to work at another construction material company in Porreres that I really liked. But later when it was time for my father and mother to retire I found that after four generations Ca na Justa could not be closed because I had been born here. In fact, I have always said that I was born in a nursery because I have photos of when I was little around here while my mother gave me my snack while walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You should have understood that very clearly\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is that my mother didn't advise me that much because she said that it was getting worse and worse that only the elderly were sowing, that the day the elderly retired people would stop sowing, but, even so, I thought I wanted to do some work at home and that I wanted to try it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did what your mother said go?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's true that there was a generational leap. The old people and the retirees died, but then the children realized that they no longer ate good tomatoes or good vegetables and started planting them themselves. Of course, that meant doing double the work for us -he laughs- because you had to explain a little bit to them how to plant a cabbage or how to plant a tomato plant. And well, in the end people have realized that if you eat your own food, you eat healthy and you know what you're eating. They've also discovered that it's stress-relieving because even though the work outside the village is hard, they get tired, and then they're proud to eat their own fruits and vegetables. And that's why we can't complain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What year was it when you got it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 2001 or 2002. Since then there have been headwinds, storms, everything. I don't remember it being so windy in my father's time, but there has been a change in the weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four generations have dedicated themselves to vegetable and flower planting...?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vegetable garden above all, seasonal seedlings, local variety. In my father's time he had to start introducing hybrids because they produced more, they made the tomatoes more beautiful, more uniform. They asked you to do it and you had to do it. But little by little they have realized that they are not as tasty as the Mallorcan varieties and I always say that the key to the success of continuing in four generations is because we maintained the local varieties. They come from all over Mallorca to buy them. They come from Andratx, Esporles and I ask them if they haven't found anything closer - he laughs - but they are very proud and happy that they sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You are now collaborating with the Local Varieties Association with the study on different flower varieties. What do you think?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of flowers, apart from being a horticultural plant, flowers have always been grown in smaller quantities. In my godmother's time they were planted to make gardens look pretty, to harvest their bouquets, to put inside the house when they had a Saturday... And now, more than for the garden, these Mallorcan varieties are used as auxiliary plants in the garden and are requested. I have always had doubts about whether my godmother knew that they were beneficial in the garden or only sowed them to make them look pretty, but she is no longer here to ask. But yes, all flowers, if they do not serve one purpose, serve another and are quite beneficial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as you said your godmother had them, you have always seen them planted in the nurseries...<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. Many have been lost even though in recent years we have tried to recover them, but people don't know them and don't ask for them, however, perhaps little by little we will manage to introduce them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which ones have you planted?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have always had the red and lilac perennials. For three generations that I have lived with, I saw them when I was little and we have kept them. The pink and white ones, there were older people who asked me for them and I told them that we didn't have them and I thought they didn't exist because I had never seen them. This year, thanks to the Association of Local Varieties, we got them from Ibiza, and they are beautiful. They are just as resistant as the others. I think that if they were lost it is because the colors are richer and perhaps the others were more popular because they were more showy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What function do they have?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the garden they are sown as pollinators, I don't know of any other function than this because it doesn't smell, but as a pollinator it does attract quite a few insects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What other varieties of flowers do you plant?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mystic rose and the Moorish carnation have always continued and have continued to be requested and are the most popular, the ones that people know the most. The flower of the mystic rose is larger, more double, has more color and perhaps that is why they have been maintained and it is a Moorish carnation for all the properties it has: it makes the flower in yellow and pumpkin tones that attract pollinators, it has a slightly peculiar smell that depending on which insects they do not like and scares them and it has a root that is also toxic for depending on which predators there are in the earth that go crazy for that root, but they eat it and stay there, with which it also acts as a disinfectant. It has these three characteristics, and that is why when people come, they always ask for a couple of mystic roses and a couple of Moorish carnations. There is a small flower that is the one they ask for the most and then the one with a more double flower, taller, but the shorter one is more liked. Later, there are also the Cresta de Gall, which we had never lost, but it is also something that is not sold very often. At one time it was used quite a lot for All Saints' Day, to carry bouquets to the cemetery, but now they are more popular to buy a cossiol even though it makes a very spectacular flower. I would sell some, even so when they see them in bloom with this big, velvety, very red pom-pom they say to me "don't you have any of that?" and I tell them no, that this has to be sown three months ago. We also have the snuffbox which is very beneficial in the garden as a host plant because there are many insects that like to live there, but for me it Nesidiocorus tenuis<\/em> It is the most beneficial because it lives on the tobacco plant and feeds on the larvae of the tuta, whitefly, etc. I don't remember that in my godmother's time I had tobacco, it is something that we have incorporated as well as the okra (Abelmoschus esculentus<\/em>) which we also learned was a host plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as you have talked about, for example, the loss of the cockscomb, the loss of oral tradition between generations may also have influenced the devaluation of which flowers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. And I also think that people were so used to seeing it that it has become outdated and now they find it more beautiful to make a garden with petunias or more modern flowers. There may also be the disadvantage that these are plants that grow a lot because they can reach eighty centimeters or a meter in height and making a garden with this height is not as easy as doing it with shorter plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think the future of these flowers will continue thanks to the work of Varietats Locals or will people continue with the more modern ones?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is that this year I was a little disappointed because last year we did a course on old-fashioned flowers, I was super excited and I looked everywhere I could for many varieties that I knew we had lost due to lack of sales because of course, you can't continue to carry something that doesn't sell and takes up space and you have to water it and end up throwing it away, and that's why we had let it go. But, as I was saying, I recovered them again with great enthusiasm, we did the course and informed people and in the spring season I didn't notice anything. No one has come saying that they knew that I had recovered this or that. We have continued as usual, but well, it doesn't mean anything. Maybe if they realize next year that there is all this good stuff, maybe word of mouth will do its job. Well, I think that this year, because we have that circle there with the lilac perpetual project, maybe next year they will come and ask for it. Let's hope so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Com viviu aquesta tradici\u00f3 familiar de planteristes?  Molt orgullosa de ser-ho. Tot ho va comen\u00e7ar el padr\u00ed de mon pare que va tenir sis filles, una de les quals era la meva padrina. Va veure que aix\u00f2 funcionava i va anar fent i avan\u00e7ant. La meva padrina va tenir una filla i mon pare que […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":8519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_joinchat":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualitat-recerca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varietatslocals.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}