To support their community and maintain the buildings, the nuns launched into the production and sale of monastic products.
At the abbey of Boulaur in the Gers, near Gimont, there is a time for prayer and another for work. Every morning at 5am, it is the prayer that opens the day in the abbey church bordered by wheat and sunflower fields. Immediately after, the sisters leave to work in their farm. The 25 nuns of the community produce cheese, pâté, jam and flour. A farm work on nearly 27 hectares that punctuates the hours at the abbey as much as the liturgy. «We are real farm women and like farmers we have the status of farmer». To make cheese with their cow’s milk or cut the pig into a terrine, the sisters were trained by the Gers Chamber of Agriculture.
They exchanged the thick monastic outfit for a shirt, jeans, boots, and a straw hat.
"Every day, week and Sunday, summer and winter, the nuns go about the work of their farm. After the morning liturgical services, the eight cows of the community are milked by machine. The sisters harvest an average of 60 liters of milk per day which is immediately transformed into cheese.
The nuns also fatten piglets. 'Once they are ready, they are taken to the slaughterhouse. We recover the meat that we transform into pâtés, galantines, rillettes. The abbey also has some chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats... A real farm!».
Located on a verdant hill overlooking fields of wheat, corn and sunflowers, at the edge of the village, the land is entirely worked by the nuns. «We do everything ourselves, we have no workers. We plow, we cut, we sow, we go through the crusher, we maintain the fences... We produce our grain, our hay.» For this, they have all the necessary equipment: tractor, mower, swather, harrow... «with the exception of the combine harvester and the press, there we arrange with neighbors».
The nuns of Boulaur live off their agricultural income from the annual sale of 2.5 tons of cheese, 800 kg of pâtés and 4 tons of jams. «We are a young community, it is our specificity. The average age is 41 years. Concretely, we need to work if we want to cover our expenses.
In addition to cheeses and pâtés, the sisters therefore produce jams. They own a hectare and a half of orchards and vegetable gardens where they grow all kinds of vegetables and fruits in permaculture: apricots, nectarines, quinces, apples, pears, peaches, plums, mirabels, kiwis, grapes, and also blackcurrants, gooseberries, not to mention citrus fruits in the greenhouse (lemons, oranges...) "We also have a lot of flowers, it’s to make the church bloom, it’s for the good Lord."
All their products are on sale in the monastery shop.
Free guided tours of the farm on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 4 PM.
Free guided tours of the church and cloister (historical monument) every day except Tuesday, at 11am and 4pm (except Wednesday and Saturday: visit of the farm).
Visit for groups on request.
