Konstantinos Karoubas

Today we’re doing something a little different.

We’re at our farm, about half an hour south of Thessaloniki. This is a natural farm, and the land has not been plowed for about 25 years.

Our goal is to introduce what is called biology into the soil. Ideally, we would do this with animals — for example, a herd of 25, 30, or even 50 sheep. The sheep would graze lightly on the land, eating about half of the plants above ground. The rest would be trampled, and the animals would also urinate and deposit manure. This process would introduce biology into the soil and help improve soil health in an accelerated way.

Since we don’t currently have access to sheep, I’m trying a different approach. I’m taking fresh compost and placing it directly on the soil surface. We’re not digging and we’re not burying anything. After placing the compost, we cover it with dry or green leaves.

We’ve done this in about 20 to 30 different spots across the farm. I honestly don’t know how this will behave, and I don’t have a way to monitor it closely. This is the first time I’m doing this.

The best-case scenario is that it’s wildly successful: the biology in the compost thrives in the soil and gradually spreads throughout the farm. The worst-case scenario is that it does very little — the quantity may simply be too small to have a major impact.

I don’t have a way to measure the results yet, and as I said, I’m at the very beginning of this process. Still, I don’t think this can do any harm. Even if the impact is small, it doesn’t damage the land. And personally, it has already been beneficial for me — spending time with the land and the soil matters.

If anyone knows more about this than I do, I’d really appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks.

Kostas

Greetings, and all the best for the new year to all !!!



This is at the community food forest project, at its northern end, where this section of land is currently bare. The soil here is extremely light-colored, calcareous (lime-rich), and has a high clay content.

Our immediate objective is to establish cover crops to protect the land from direct sun exposure, prevent further degradation, and begin rebuilding soil health. By doing so, we aim to increase organic matter, improve soil structure, and gradually restore fertility to this area.

Cover crops such as vetch and field peas produce large amounts of organic matter while also fixing nitrogen in the soil.

As mentioned earlier, all seeding is done by hand broadcasting; we do not plow the land. We use a limited number of clay seed balls, mainly because they are difficult to transport—the site is not accessible by car.

If vetch and field peas are scattered directly onto bare soil, they are unlikely to establish successfully. They require some existing ground cover to protect the young seedlings from wind and the sun.

To create suitable conditions for these plants, we broadcast barley in early December at close spacing. The barley was sown just ahead of significant rainfall, giving it the opportunity to germinate and establish, providing shelter and microclimate protection for the legumes that will follow.

The approach of first establishing barley—or other grains such as rye—to cover the land, followed by broadcasting vetch and field peas, appears to be working. When conditions are favorable, vetch is able to reseed itself, gradually creating a system in which soil fertility improves year after year with minimal human input.

At the same time, we are attempting to establish additional species such as alfalfa. Although we have not yet been successful, we will continue experimenting and adapting our methods until it becomes established.

Plants such as arugula also perform very well in this area. Arugula is often the first plant to emerge in the fall, and it thrives under local conditions, contributing significantly to our efforts.

Other species, including Mediterranean heartwort, oregano, and mustard, also establish successfully. Together, these plants are helping us build ground cover, increase organic matter, and gradually improve soil fertility at the site.

The challenges presented by this bare piece of land have turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I am grateful that this problem arose.

Kostas

Greetings to all,

And  I hope happy holidays for all,

Peace on earth !!!

The 1st one is about the ponderosa pines in the western US states. Unfortunately they are on the way out  (and not coming back).

If Franklin Roosevelt was alive and in charge, he would send thousands of well paid workers to plant million of broad leaf trees in their place (and he would have started 10 years ago).

The 2nd story is about the 2025 drought in Vermont and the northeast US. We associate droughts with Mediterranean climate regions like the west US or Europe where there are few trees and long hot summers. A lack of dense tree cover and especially broadleaf trees plays a big part in these droughts. But Vermont is heavily forested; it's not like the Mediterranean regions.

The drought is the results of the global climate conditions not the local conditions, so I guess the conclusion might be we need to look after the whole planet not just our corner of the world. We cannot escape the destruction of the forest in Africa or the Amazon we need to repair the whole earth.

Kostas


https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-american-wests-most-iconic-tree-is-disappearing/


https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-edition/2025-10-07/drought-conditions-hit-vermonts-farms-and-forests

(This was a big surprise for me)

Just a brief update

In this location we've been planting acorns in the past 2 or 3 years, and for whatever reasons very few have survived,

And it's not a reason to be discouraged.

Sometimes, and  we don't know why they happen but we move on forward.

That's what this vid is all about.

Kostas

We are  in the process of collecting acorns from the holm oak trees nearby, which are beginning to mature right now and it's a good time to discuss this very important type of an oak tree.

Kostas

Greetings to all,

We are refining our method of planting  acorns.

In the way we're preparing to learn how to plant acorns in more dry climates than northern Greece by adding vermiculite and maybe hydrogels later on.

We will see how these acorns do in the spring, and whether they sprout or not,  and then how they survive the summers, which are getting hotter and dryer unfortunately.

Kostas

Correction,

It's not kermes oak, which is a shrub .

It's an evergreen oak tree, but not a holm oak tree, which is also evergreen.

Similar to Palestine oak or the Cyprus Oak tree

Kostas

Greetings everyone,

This is a short video showing how we’re storing acorns this year. Our goal is to improve our storage method year after year.


Last year, we tried storing some acorns in damp sand, but the results were not good—most of them sprouted prematurely and became unusable for our project.

In this video, we outline our new storage approach, and we’re hopeful it will work better. We’ve also noticed that acorns behave differently depending on the species: the common oak acorns tend to sprout more easily, while the evergreen varieties—mainly the kermes oak, sprout more slowly and in a different manner.

This year, the common oak trees in our area didn’t produce any acorns. We even traveled to Central Greece, where common oaks are abundant, but found none there either.

As a result, about 90% of the acorns we’ll plant this season will come from evergreen oaks.

It will be a good opportunity to observe how these species perform and to compare their survival rates with those of the common oak.

Kostas

Greetings,

The city of Thessaloniki is bordered on one side by the Mediterranean Sea and on the other by a man-made pine forest, about 3,000 hectares (30 million square meters) in size. This forest is now in serious danger. Lack of rain, high summer temperatures, disease, and the constant threat of fire are weakening it, and its future is uncertain.

But this isn’t just a local issue. Across the Mediterranean, the original broadleaf forests were destroyed centuries ago. In their place, pines spread quickly, almost like weeds, covering the land. Now those same pine forests are collapsing, and with them, so are the ecological benefits they provide: cooling the land, attracting rainfall, and cleaning the air. If we lose them and have nothing to replace them, the climate in our region will become hotter, drier, and harsher.

Conventional reforestation has serious limitations. Planting saplings in holes may work along roadsides where they can be watered and cared for, but in remote areas it is prohibitively expensive. To do nothing and hope that pine forests regenerate naturally is also unrealistic. Even if pine seedlings appear, they are unlikely to survive the heat, drought, and fires. And the acorns and seeds of native broadleaf trees have long since disappeared from the soil.

We humans created these problems, and we now have a responsibility to help repair them. Historically, the Mediterranean basin—stretching from Southern Russia to North Africa—was covered with rich forests, dominated by oak trees. In ancient Greece, oaks were everywhere; they are even considered our national tree.

For the past few years, we have been experimenting with planting oak trees among the pines of Thessaloniki. The hope is that if the pines die, the oaks will be ready to take their place and restore the balance of the forest.

This summer, for the first time, I forced myself to check on the young oaks during the hardest months of the year. Most of them have turned yellow or brown. They are still alive below the surface, but I don’t know how many will survive the next two months until the winter rains arrive. If rain comes, they may recover. If the heat continues without water, many may perish. Still, we must continue.

Looking ahead, we can improve our methods while keeping costs low. For example:

Adding a spoonful of biochar to each planting hole may help young acorns survive the summer by holding moisture.

Biochar can be “pre-charged” with compost tea or liquid nutrients, so it provides both water retention and food.

We can run small experiments: planting some acorns with biochar or hydrogel and others without, side by side, to see the difference over time.

These ideas are not theoretical—they need to be tested widely. Already, we have seen how government or volunteer plantings fail when young trees are left unsupported through the summer; most do not survive.

The crisis is clear: lack of rain, rising temperatures, and the decline of tree cover threaten not only Thessaloniki’s pine forest but the entire Mediterranean region. If we don’t act now, we will lose both our pines and the opportunity to restore the resilient oak forests that once thrived here.

Thank you,

Kostas

Greetings,

We revisited the site that burned down five years ago near Thessaloniki.

See the previous vids in this playlist.

We checked on the older holly oaks we had planted in previous years, as well as the new ones planted this year. The young trees planted this season have leaves that have turned brown and yellow. However, their root systems appear strong—no matter how hard you pull, the trees don’t come out, which means the roots are still alive.

From now until December, when the rains usually arrive, survival will depend on the weather. If the drought continues and temperatures stay high, many of these young trees may not make it. We will have to wait and see. In the future, if such hot and unusually dry conditions persist, we may need to use hydrogels or biochar to help retain water in the soil and give the young plants a better chance. We also need to be more selective with the types of acorns we plant—some oak species may be more suitable than others for specific sites, and we will only learn this through experience.

As for shrubs and other tree plantings, the reality is difficult. In such harsh conditions, survival requires watering throughout the entire summer. While it was encouraging to see shrubs planted along the roadside in this area, the cost and labor involved are prohibitive. Planting in more remote areas—one, two, or three kilometers away from roads—is simply not practical if it depends on constant watering and maintenance.

That is why direct seeding remains an alternative. It is not a perfect solution and does not guarantee 100% success, but it is more realistic for large-scale restoration than digging holes, planting seedlings, and watering them all summer long.

Kostas