I like the fenced area for the baby oaks. I do this and call them deep root zones. It allows grass roots to grow deeper, it allows grass to go to seed, it also allows you to compare grass height with and without animals on them.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Right. It's going to be interesting to observe.

The corn protected the sunhemp from wind and frost. I think that's why it's alive.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

That might also be

I saw something and checked it with previous vids; your trees are really having more leaves. Also soil colour is really different from your first vids.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Something must be changing - for the better 😁

@wimpie031

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito It’s almost as if your crazy way (as some locals would see it) IS working! 🤯😆 This is the only channel I willingly watch to see grass grow and rooting 🤭 for it. Definitely a long term project but amazing to see what results you got already in these few years!

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

@@wimpie031 Thank you so much

😁

Love the channel, always a joy to watch. I am enjoying the paulowina trees, have not always been a fan but here is a little tip for rapid healthy forest growth in your climate specific area. Plant a succulent vine 2 feet away from the base of your paulowina trees on the swales. Instead of isolated paulowina trees, a succulent vine will create a forest system quickly. Benefits are:- Soil insulation both from hot and cold, Dust collection from atmosphere Plant biodiversity Insect habitat Non invasive Climate specific to hot mediterranean Many others. Succulents have a gel inside their leaves, the boiling point of that gel is way beyond 100 degrees like it is for water,,,, these plants can cope with, and are purpose created for hot mediterranean summers. Where do you get them??? Some nurseries have them, but they grow easily from cuttings, used widely in municiple gardens in front of libraries, shopping centres, council chambers etc,,, when it starts growing across the footpath it means cut me and take me home.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Your thought isn't far from what I've been thinking lately myself. But the idea with the vine is new. A friend talks to me a lot about Nopal. I also believe I've seen quite a few along the roads here. Quick search revealed: succulentplantcare.com/12-eye-catching-cacti-and-succulents-that-hang-or-trail/ That's what you mean?

@adammac4381

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito yes exactly, but I'm thinking the larger types that can grow as a ground cover vine,,, cover the ground around the base of your trees, 2 meter radius when mature.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

@@adammac4381 One longish term plan is to grow all kinds of Capsicum annuum (chilis) on these berms. Seems to be a good thing to take advantage of the sun we have here in Andalusia. Now I'm wondering how that would fit together. Any thoughts on that?

@adammac4381

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I like the idea of succulent vines around the base of trees for many reasons, the fertility they catch and drop is amazing, in your climate worms live under them. What would it hurt to have 6 or 8 vines and put a few in the wann-be food forest, and a few under the paulowina trees on the slope facing downhill. If you decided to plant heavy and let them spread over the whole area of the top of the swale berm. It then presents a gardening management task for your peppers and chillies. Most succulents are non invasive and wont survive a mulcher running over them. They can be picked up and physically moved to present a gardening area, as they grow like a carpet. So its an option. My choice would be to find some (say 10 plants) succulent vines, plant them in the food forrest, and some on the downhill slope of the swale as an experimental test. Next time your in the village or córdoba I'd be looking at the municipal gardens for a few cuttings. You need some plant cover bro, in the areas of the swale where you wont be planting long term market gardens, definitely plant succulent ground cover vines. As its a living mulch, can easily be spread apart to plant a mulberry or fig tree for example.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

@@adammac4381 Let's see where I can find them. So far I have seen 2 (!) types of cacti but nothing of that sort. www.rarepalmseeds.com certainly has them as seeds. (As always, I am the one who would be doing that and my time is limited due to IT work for clients)

Those pigs have really ballooned up... acorn hoovers.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Glad you notice. They will be pretty round by March

@wimpie031

Жыл бұрын

The only hoovers I don’t mind having on my bread :)

Nice

@tottycrypt9006

Жыл бұрын

Second 😭

@wimpie031

Жыл бұрын

There goes my chance on the fridge again 😊

Greetings from the LooseNatural farm in Andalusia

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Greetings back to Huelva. Nice to see we are not alone around here :-) I've learned there are quite a few already

I like what you said about Stage it. Sounds like you are heading towards separate food plots in each section, corns into plot in a with same growth patterns then let them forage it sooner around 6 to 8 inches. Heathiest at first 6 to 8 inches. Find what will grow every month in each condition you have. 12 crops and grasses1 reaching 6-8 inches and then foraged every month. plant some in every field/patock possible each month. Do same with trees as many as possible that can be foraged and biomass and can live in conditions.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Right. More or less that way

Nice 🖤

Howdy all

@tottycrypt9006

Жыл бұрын

Hi

@jankrijnen7374

Жыл бұрын

And the fridge is gone again …

Hallo Stefan, du hörst dich wieder viel besser an, und ich hoffe dass du wieder gesund bist 👍. Die Leitung für die Tröpfchen - Bewässerung würde ich nicht durchschneiden. Ich würde den Palowniabaum auf einen Stamm zurückschneiden. Diese Bäume verzeihen einen starken Rückschnitt. Ich schneide meinen Baum jedes Jahr um mehrere Meter und er wächst im nächsten Jahr umso besser. 👍Euch allen einen schönen 3. Advent und alles Gute. Beste Grüße Eddi

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Danke. Alles wieder gut :-) Bei näherer Betrachtung habe ich bemerkt, daß man den Schlauch einfach rausziehen kann. Ist sehr nahe am Ende. Kein Problem. Aber ja, diese Bäume kann man offenbar wirklich bis zum Stumpf runterschneiden. Deswegen sehe ich die auch und gerade als Lieferant für Biomasse.

Tip for you to prevent cutting your palovnia trees by incident: Mark them with a red ribon or with red colour. Another tip : The higher your trees, the more water they need. Limit the hight growth and you will have shade without loosing too much water.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, we should have done that at the time of planting. Smart idea ;-) One function of the Paulownia trees is to become biomass at some point.

Can you give us a close up shot of the rhyzosheath around the roots of one plant there at the corn patch. Take a plant like one of the corn or sunhemps, and pull it up with the roots intact. Don't shake it off. And then zoom in on the roots. It could also be one of the plants that you have already cut which would be my preference. I want to see what the soil aggregation looks like around the root system on one of the plants. Are the roots bare indicating a not so healthy soil structure or are the roots wide and extensive covered with lots of clods and dirt particles and harry looking indicating a healthy soil well fed with plant exudates from the adult plant above ground. The clods and dirt particles adhering to the root are caused by glues secreted by bacteria and fungi feeding the plant roots with nutrients in exchange for sugars secreted by the adult plant above ground. Also the water holding capacity of the corn patch should be a lot higher than the bare ground right next to it due to better soil structure. In general monocultures don't like to share nutrients below the ground. So leaving corn in the mix should give you a better result because sunhemp will share nutrients with neighboring corn and then corn will share nutrients with the other neighbor sunhemp. But corn roots don't like to share nutrients with corn and sunhemp won't like to share with sunhemp.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

That is an interesting idea. Right now it is cloudy and rainy every day as far as the forecast reaches. I hope I find a moment with more or less good light to be able to film what you are asking for. Let's see. In case I forget ... please come back with the idea. I do like it.

A second pond would definitely be a great second water storage facility for irrigation. If I remember correctly you have a “big” water tank higher up the hill connected to a well. Would it be an idea to fill that up and then gravity feed the lower Swales and pond(s) through that to store up water for the summer? A buffer incase you have less rainfall in the spring, like this year? You might even be able to start that this year already to get a bit of a head start. The pump doesn’t need to run all the time, but every saved up drop counts.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

That tank is just 3000 liters. It's not a lot. Easily used up quickly.

@wimpie031

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I understand. The tank can’t be used as a permanent water supply, gotcha 😉 I was thinking more of using that tank as a way to supply Swales higher up and then move the water downwards with hoses/pipes. So: well > tank > swale/pond > lower swale/pond > even lower swale/pond, all the way back to the waterreservoir outflow. A continuous flow if you understand what I mean. Maybe you can have a way of only feeding to a lower water retention only after a higher water retention is filled up to a minimum water level. Of course water will flow down through the soil as well, in a natural way. So I was thinking of using the hoses/pipes as a way to “kick in” only after a certain minimum water level has been reached in a swale/pond.

Also, I am a part of a community guided fund of sorts. We fund any idea that we feel is intresting. Maybe some time in the future, we could collaborate. Perhaps we can assist in the aquisition of the saplings.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Sounds pretty interesting. Please write to info@caimito.net

Yes, paulownia all around the place.... Shade in dry summer, biomass, and plural radicular system in the soil.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

So is the plan. We will see how much irrigation for the first two years we can install and maintain wet.

@rafacorrea01

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito have you tried the waterboxx? Maybe it might be cheaper. Get a research.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

@@rafacorrea01 Way too expensive. One box costs like 200 m DN40 pipe Material is not the issue. The water itself is but we have plans for that: another big pond.

@rafacorrea01

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito kzread.info/dash/bejne/fWWp2NOqlsXMibQ.html. that one? It can't be, and about the water, you just have to full it once and it's all.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

@@rafacorrea01 It's a bit cheaper but still pricey: www.groasis.com/webshop/product/1-waterboxx®-plant-cocoon-3-pack?lang=en It IS a great idea and even more so for places where you cannot have irrigation. However, price is only one dimension of the issue. We'll see. Thanks for bringing it up!

Can you transplant some of those young oaks into some bare patches? I wonder if they'd survive the transplant shock.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

As the "soil" is sand, stones and very little biomass and therefore like concrete - even now - we will use plants and the bacteria that come with plant life first to loosen it up. You have seen what we did in A07. Next zone to work on will be inside CT01 when spring comes around. Until then we hope to build the animal lane that is supposed to divide the 4ha into sectors.

@peperillon

Жыл бұрын

Go for blackberries before the oaks. Blackberry - fast growing tree - slow growing tree. ... ... Wait for 50 years

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

@@peperillon Interesting thought

Hello Stefan, I red articles about Tony Rinaudo en his efforts and succes tot reforest Niger. Maybe you know this man already but otherwise he may have information to turn the young oak trees on your property in proper trees. With regards Ton

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

I have not heard of him. Thanks. Google will certainly lead me ;-) Juan also knows a lot about these oak trees and has already made a lot of suggestions. The issue - as always - is time. So many competing needs.

How about something like casuarina? I bet there are plenty of nitrogenfixing trees that would thrive there. Also, trying to root some twigs of the best producing trees might hasten the overall regrowth/ additional ground cover.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Certainly. We are planning to get saplings from a nursery in Extremadura. They have a very long list of inventory and can deliver quantity.

Since you already have established Pauwlonia trees here and there and since the corn patch looks so successful but the pauwlonia's got outcompeted, how about repeating the experiment around some of the taller already established pauwlonia trees? Try it on a pauwlonia tree out in the field in zone A by the dog compound as well as up on the swale berm. But on the berm, I think you would need to cover the seeds with some of the old straw to shade the seeds and also give them a shot or 2 of water. Also don't forget rye in the ditch worked out really well. Maybe rye in the field will work as equally well? Rye gets about 6 feet tall I see over here in Ohio. There is a plant farmers say they like and dislike called "buckwheat". It seems to grow easily so they like it for covercrops and makes its own seeds which they hate so they roller crimp it before they plant crops. I think cows can probably forage on it too but better check on that. White clover also makes its own seeds. Horses love it.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Going forward we will bring out a lot of seed mixes. Never one species only. What exactly depends on what is available. Our main source is www.fitoagricola.net/tienda-online There will also be more Paulownias next year and they will be surrounded by a mix of all those other species. That's all part of the plan based on recent learnings. How much depends on how much protective fencing and water supply we can have.

Saw your previous reaction. Is it my imagination or are the roads slowly a little less hard. Or maybe it is just my imagination.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Not sure which roads you mean. Can you please clarify?

@tottycrypt9006

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito this vid at 19 seconds. Compared to last year, and older videos I think I can see a difference. And do you have a plan for the wet spot under you swale? (An older vid) Nvm: Found the answer. I think that's a good idea.

How about adding additional pauwlonia trees between the already established pauwlonia trees on the bern? This would giv emore shade to the berm and help prevent evaporation during the heat of summer on the berm.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Actually I want to plant all kinds of chili varieties in the sun. There is an idea to have some specialty produce that is associated with the strong sun we have here. The big leaves are for biomass and I want to have vetiver at the bottom of the berms for the same reason.

A good load of sawdust is needed to hold water as it appears

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

You mean wood chips?

@rigelkent8401

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito sawdust it is like a sponge it takes up water when it rains and holds it

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

@@rigelkent8401 I see. As most organic matter: not available here as it is already booked for burning to make heat. I read that sawdust were sucking out nutrients from the soil?

@rigelkent8401

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito ye but then the nutrition is right at the plant and weeds grow from the surface If you want to protect the soil a layer of cardboard will do that

Hello Why don't you seed alfalfa? Some don't need to be reseeded every years, don't need fertilizer edible for bovine (some say that it reduces ch4 emission from farts) Corn is c4 plant, so it's efficient to produce biomass, don't rule them out unless you don't have enough water. Do you destroy ungrazed plants to avoid proliferation ? Rain is good news, Cold+rain is harsh :(

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

We tried Alfalfa - very small amount - and it came back. Should go into the mixes that we are going to use. As we don't have a tool to destroy plants we don't do it. Grazing and foraging by the pigs would be the way but proliferation in our case is actually helpful.

What is the age of these trees?

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

Paulownias are now 2 years old. The oak trees about 300 years.

@desmomotodesmomoto2033

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito WOOOOW!!!!

you are just creating dessert, You need way more biomass the oak trees are dying due too lack of biomass. they can not take direct manure instead they need biodiversity in form of other trees n shrubs. I think you should talk with someone prof like me or others. You need to have almost no animals for min of two years so you can plant what is needed. I don't think you understand how fragile the soil is where you are, Spain is heading for desertification. Stop playing and get serious. Iberian ham is over / or need to change you and the spanish people need to understand this.

@ProjectGranjaCaimito

Жыл бұрын

I believe you should talk to our neighbors. While here it gets better and better over the fence it gets worse and most have no animals.

@SalambaShanti

Жыл бұрын

@@ProjectGranjaCaimito no iy does not I followed you for some years now, you just playing atound with no result

@TheEmbrio

Жыл бұрын

Do you have documented proof of your concept being superior to this planned grazing and greening efforts ? If you haven’t done it on that great scale, perhaps mellow down and learn some humility. And manners in which to talk to peole nicely if you wish to be heard.

@SalambaShanti

Жыл бұрын

@@TheEmbrio I studied invironmentalsience at the university and also I have vouluntered a lot in agroforestry and permaculture. So I belive yes on your question. Thank you kindly for asking.