About us

The owner of Irinis Garden is the organic farmer Giorgos Doumos. For many years he has been growing organic vegetables, fruit and cereals on about 170 acers of land. This land is situated in Northern Greece, near the border to the former Yugoslavia, around the village of Xifiani.

From the very start Giorgos Doumos was concerned about the conservation of old plant varieties. He also tries to work mainly with rare local varieties, which would become lost otherwise.

He is also a member of Aigilopas and Peliti, two greek organisations, who are in engaged in conservation and multiplying of rare plant varieties.

In Irinis Garden the following are cultivated:

Cereals
wheat (variety Skleropetra)

Hard wheat (variety Maurogani)

Einkorn (variety Kaploutzas)

Zweikorn (variety Farro from Italy)

Spelt

Rye

Oats

Barley

Corn

Wheat  

The variety Skleropetra is cultivated in Greece for about 3000 years as archeological finds prove. It is used for many purposes, mainly for making bread.

Hard Wheat 

This wheat is mainly used for making noodles and biskuits. The Maurogani variety is cultivated only by vey few farmers and is extremely rare.

 Einkorn Tricitum monococcum

The seeds of this special variety of wheat were found at excavations in northern greek houses and is about 7000 years old.

The Einkorn has some advantages for the health compared to other newer wheat sorts. It contains more vitamin A, riboflavine, betacarotine, luteine.

Another advantage is the low content of gluten.

Spices 

smoked Paprika powder

this red pepper powder is made from a variety of pepper, which is only found in our region of Greece. It is called Bachovitiki Piperia , named after the village where the last existing seeds were found. now it is again cultivated in all of the area. It is a small, very tasty variety, which carries sweet and hot spicy fruit. this pepper powder is made from the sweet variety. The fruit are dried for 10 days over a smoking wood fire, which gives it its special taste.

Bukovo

Bukovo is made from the spicy hot variety of the Bachovitiki Piperia. after the drying process it is not ground as fine as the powder, but broken into small pieces. It is used for souvlaki and other meat dishes.

Oregano

This oregano is different from the normal oregano and it is only cultivated in this area.The taste lies somewhere in between the normal oregano and thyme.