Restore Europe.
How to heal our land and help turn it into an edible forest and some general reflections on how to do it on your property.
If you have a property that used to be agricultural land, the soil is probably terribly depleted and ruined, especially if it was regularly ploughed. Modern agriculture uses the plough a lot. And this completely destroys the fungi, the earthworms, as well as mice and such, creating cavities that are necessary to keep moisture in the ground. In the Middle Ages they didn't use the plough, they used the ard, which is a much better thing, but even that is a bad thing.
Anyway, the first thing you need to do is to take some wood, rotten wood ideally, from the forest. You can just find rotten wood lying about. You take it, put it on the property. What you get then is probably some good insects, but also fungi. Fungi helps spread the nutrients through the soil and also helps keep moisture. So it's very important and very good for the soil. The second thing I would do was to take nuts and just throw it all over the property.[1]Many of them will be eaten by things that live nearby, like squirrels, but many will not. Here for example I have four small, or three maybe, can't find the fourth. I have three chestnut trees growing. And although you can plant trees, it's much better to sow. They grow faster and they are more healthy than things you just plant.
As you can see here, there is plenty of fungi growing. And it's spreading through the soil and this will help heal the soil a lot. We also spent 10 euro to buy a pile of stones that we just dumped on the ground. Again, excellent hiding place for different animals that are useful. Here we have taken some wool that we got for free from a local peasant who had just too much wool.[2]And we put it on some of the middens, because there is a lot of nitrogen in the wool.
Am I an expert? No. And I learn by trial and error. And I think one of the most important things I have learned here is that some things work, others don't. And it all depends on your property, on micro-climates and on the weather really. I think you really need to experiment a little bit to find out. And thankfully, shit hasn't hit the fan yet, so we still can. And that is definitely a good thing. Because all the things that are good on paper, they don't necessarily work in reality, in practice. And certainly, maybe not on your property. Things that work well on my property might well not work on your property. And vice versa. Use the opportunity that you have now, when you can buy new seeds all the time. Heritage seeds you should buy, of course, from Kokopelli. Use it, use the opportunity, experiment, plant a lot, see what works, find out what doesn't work. And yeah, plan based on that.
We, Europeans, are adapted to live in forests. The forest is our home. We should therefore try to restore our habitat, and turn Europe into a dark, wild and vast forest again. We are a part of nature. Not above it. Not better that it. Embrace Mother Nature, and she will embrace you. She knows best.
How to heal our land and help turn it into an edible forest and some general reflections on how to do it on your property.
If you have a property that used to be agricultural land, the soil is probably terribly depleted and ruined, especially if it was regularly ploughed. Modern agriculture uses the plough a lot. And this completely destroys the fungi, the earthworms, as well as mice and such, creating cavities that are necessary to keep moisture in the ground. In the Middle Ages they didn't use the plough, they used the ard, which is a much better thing, but even that is a bad thing.
Anyway, the first thing you need to do is to take some wood, rotten wood ideally, from the forest. You can just find rotten wood lying about. You take it, put it on the property. What you get then is probably some good insects, but also fungi. Fungi helps spread the nutrients through the soil and also helps keep moisture. So it's very important and very good for the soil. The second thing I would do was to take nuts and just throw it all over the property.[1]Many of them will be eaten by things that live nearby, like squirrels, but many will not. Here for example I have four small, or three maybe, can't find the fourth. I have three chestnut trees growing. And although you can plant trees, it's much better to sow. They grow faster and they are more healthy than things you just plant.
As you can see here, there is plenty of fungi growing. And it's spreading through the soil and this will help heal the soil a lot. We also spent 10 euro to buy a pile of stones that we just dumped on the ground. Again, excellent hiding place for different animals that are useful. Here we have taken some wool that we got for free from a local peasant who had just too much wool.[2]And we put it on some of the middens, because there is a lot of nitrogen in the wool.
Am I an expert? No. And I learn by trial and error. And I think one of the most important things I have learned here is that some things work, others don't. And it all depends on your property, on micro-climates and on the weather really. I think you really need to experiment a little bit to find out. And thankfully, shit hasn't hit the fan yet, so we still can. And that is definitely a good thing. Because all the things that are good on paper, they don't necessarily work in reality, in practice. And certainly, maybe not on your property. Things that work well on my property might well not work on your property. And vice versa. Use the opportunity that you have now, when you can buy new seeds all the time. Heritage seeds you should buy, of course, from Kokopelli. Use it, use the opportunity, experiment, plant a lot, see what works, find out what doesn't work. And yeah, plan based on that.
We, Europeans, are adapted to live in forests. The forest is our home. We should therefore try to restore our habitat, and turn Europe into a dark, wild and vast forest again. We are a part of nature. Not above it. Not better that it. Embrace Mother Nature, and she will embrace you. She knows best.
- Nuts can be found in the forest. I paid my kids for the nuts they collected. In the end, we spread thousands of oak, chestnut, hazel and other nuts on our property. I will find out when Spring comes, how many of them made it and turn into trees.
- Sorry. I always say "peasant" when i mean "farmer".
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