Love how knowledgeable you are of nature and the thought process that goes into every decision you make regarding the land~if you gather acorns soon after they fall from the tree the little grubs won’t have time to find them. If you place the acorns in a bucket of water the ones that float have been eaten by grubs and are not viable, hence the ones that sink are good for stratification (in the refrigerator over winter wrapped in a damp paper towel and sand or moss in a plastic container).
Don’t forget oak cork tree is protected in Portugal and you need special permit to cut them….just don’t show you cutting or burning them 😎 Oak cork tree offers some resistance to fires as well and I see you have eucalyptus there which I would definitely cut them down. I was always curious to find out if Douglas fir could be planted in Portugal since is a tree that grows fast. Trim the pine trees up to 3-4 feet from the ground up because fires always start from bushes and the lower branches will catch the fire. Enjoy your homestead in this crazy world where they want to ban gas and wood stoves (US).
Great idea with the pollarding, I don't know why but I'd never considered that it would be a great way to protect regrowth from grazing animals. It's always interesting to see eucalypts in other environments, good luck dealing with them! The 5 metre clearings either side of the road won't help in a bad fire, so don't make bushfire plans thinking your escape routes will be safe. There are some documentaries on the Canberra 2003 fires here in Australia worth checking out to get an idea. I guess if you've had plantations there for many years you will have had some bad fires in them already!
Yes in 2017 there was a terrible fire that killed over 60 people... Many of them died in their cars as they tried to escape. In some places the trees grow right up to the edge of the road. At the end of the day, we plan to get out of here before a fire gets here or goes out of control. Still it's always possible to be caught off guard, in that case we have two general directions to flee, so as long as we're not surrounded it should be possible to escape. The fire fighters have gotten very good at reacting and using technology to coordinate; satellite communications, drones etc... They saved several properties around here in the past. Thanks for the context on five meter clear cuts though, we'll be even more vigilant and prepared to get out come fire season.
@@oakolive I've done some reading based on your comment and those fires were terrible, a tragic thing to happen to those people. It sounds like fires there and in neighbouring countries are getting worse each year 😔 If you have a volunteer brigade nearby it's good to join, you can learn a lot about fire as well as helping the community. Stay safe, and good luck with planting the new forests!
Most small trees or young trees you need to do things to protect them depending on the kind of tree you are talking about can be different. Also it is important to know what your soil will grow and plant that and not some plants or trees that are not good for the area in the first place.
These kinds of oak grow very well in this soil. Even in plantation forest that was transformed a century ago there are oak saplings trying to recolonize the area, loggers remove them.
Absolutely loved this content…. So many homesteaders are not thinking this far ahead. I would love you to keep is updated on planted saplings, are you doing anything to protect them from deer?
Right now we are just planting the saplings out. I know it's reckless but it's also experimental. Ever heard of the STUN method of forest management? Sheer Total Utter Neglect, stun. The idea is to plant the trees as densely as possible at the sapling stage and expect that the vast majority will die, and if most survive they can be thinned later. The survivors should prove more versatile. Though I only got ten in there, I've been sourcing more saplings from the road side clear cuts and I'll continue to transplant. If I lose them all to deer it would be a shame but still a valuable lesson. I'm considering planting another patch using the same density but give each sapling a personal fence. The problem though is that considering the scale of the ultimate project it would be really expensive to do the whole thing like that. I think the best thing to do would be to make as big of a perimeter fence as possible to give the area blanket protection. We can use the pigs and in the future sheep or goats to offer targeted grazing in stead of the out of control deer population. We need to make way more money before we can think about that though... For now it's guerilla forestry by liberating doomed saplings from the road side and see if they can hack it in the wild. I hope this wasn't too convoluted of an answer. More info available in the weekly newsletter: oakandolive.substack.com
Love how knowledgeable you are of nature and the thought process that goes into every decision you make regarding the land~if you gather acorns soon after they fall from the tree the little grubs won’t have time to find them. If you place the acorns in a bucket of water the ones that float have been eaten by grubs and are not viable, hence the ones that sink are good for stratification (in the refrigerator over winter wrapped in a damp paper towel and sand or moss in a plastic container).
Did you know truffles like to grow under oak trees?
They are lovely to eat and a source of income.
Great video kids
We are definitely interested in truffles. If we can't find any here it costs 50,000 euro to get impregnated trees though...
i love your life it's soo peaceful.
please give me more video about every thing in your life, love you from Vietnam
Thanks 🙂 we upload a video every week on Saturdays, lots of interesting things happening but it's all quite slow unfortunately.
a small tip... don't try to cut with the tip of the chainsaw, move further in on the blade then it won't pull you around as it did in this video
Very true, with practice I'm learning how to use it better and safer 🙂
Don’t forget oak cork tree is protected in Portugal and you need special permit to cut them….just don’t show you cutting or burning them 😎 Oak cork tree offers some resistance to fires as well and I see you have eucalyptus there which I would definitely cut them down. I was always curious to find out if Douglas fir could be planted in Portugal since is a tree that grows fast. Trim the pine trees up to 3-4 feet from the ground up because fires always start from bushes and the lower branches will catch the fire. Enjoy your homestead in this crazy world where they want to ban gas and wood stoves (US).
Thanks for the advice... The cork oaks have there own area and we pretty much leave that be.
Great idea with the pollarding, I don't know why but I'd never considered that it would be a great way to protect regrowth from grazing animals. It's always interesting to see eucalypts in other environments, good luck dealing with them! The 5 metre clearings either side of the road won't help in a bad fire, so don't make bushfire plans thinking your escape routes will be safe. There are some documentaries on the Canberra 2003 fires here in Australia worth checking out to get an idea. I guess if you've had plantations there for many years you will have had some bad fires in them already!
Yes in 2017 there was a terrible fire that killed over 60 people... Many of them died in their cars as they tried to escape. In some places the trees grow right up to the edge of the road. At the end of the day, we plan to get out of here before a fire gets here or goes out of control. Still it's always possible to be caught off guard, in that case we have two general directions to flee, so as long as we're not surrounded it should be possible to escape.
The fire fighters have gotten very good at reacting and using technology to coordinate; satellite communications, drones etc... They saved several properties around here in the past. Thanks for the context on five meter clear cuts though, we'll be even more vigilant and prepared to get out come fire season.
@@oakolive I've done some reading based on your comment and those fires were terrible, a tragic thing to happen to those people. It sounds like fires there and in neighbouring countries are getting worse each year 😔 If you have a volunteer brigade nearby it's good to join, you can learn a lot about fire as well as helping the community. Stay safe, and good luck with planting the new forests!
Most small trees or young trees you need to do things to protect them depending on the kind of tree you are talking about can be different. Also it is important to know what your soil will grow and plant that and not some plants or trees that are not good for the area in the first place.
These kinds of oak grow very well in this soil. Even in plantation forest that was transformed a century ago there are oak saplings trying to recolonize the area, loggers remove them.
Absolutely loved this content…. So many homesteaders are not thinking this far ahead. I would love you to keep is updated on planted saplings, are you doing anything to protect them from deer?
Right now we are just planting the saplings out. I know it's reckless but it's also experimental. Ever heard of the STUN method of forest management? Sheer Total Utter Neglect, stun. The idea is to plant the trees as densely as possible at the sapling stage and expect that the vast majority will die, and if most survive they can be thinned later. The survivors should prove more versatile. Though I only got ten in there, I've been sourcing more saplings from the road side clear cuts and I'll continue to transplant. If I lose them all to deer it would be a shame but still a valuable lesson. I'm considering planting another patch using the same density but give each sapling a personal fence. The problem though is that considering the scale of the ultimate project it would be really expensive to do the whole thing like that.
I think the best thing to do would be to make as big of a perimeter fence as possible to give the area blanket protection. We can use the pigs and in the future sheep or goats to offer targeted grazing in stead of the out of control deer population. We need to make way more money before we can think about that though... For now it's guerilla forestry by liberating doomed saplings from the road side and see if they can hack it in the wild.
I hope this wasn't too convoluted of an answer. More info available in the weekly newsletter: oakandolive.substack.com
@@oakolive love it!!! Gorilla forestry sounds as ballsy as it is. I will be following this story very closely as i am super interested!
Love to send you how we plant our oak forrest but cannot find any email. After 4 month they are 20 cm of height.
hey, our email is in the description box :) It's oakandolive3@gmail.com
@@oakolive Thank you. I will write to you soon with all the photos we took