On our land we also have a few young oak trees. They can be found in a smaller subarea we call "The island" because it has not been cultivated with barley by the prior landowner. There we also have a few almond trees growing from the cultivation before the barley, this land used to be an almond orchard before. The island does not show much more growth beyond that, I suspect that if I were to dig, I would hit rock soon. In any case, I planted almond seeds here which just one week later were mostly dug up by mice already.
Surrounding the island, where the barley had been cultivated, the soil is covered by a thick layer of White rocket (aka Mediterranean Wasabi, Diplotaxis erucoides). They usually grow Winter/Spring but this fall they shot up early due to the heavy rains. We live much further north of Valencia where tragedy occurred and luckily we were not hit by floods. The swales definitely filled and tucked the water into the soil. My hope is that the trees will grow their roots into the water plume underground. In-between the White rocket I planted primarily almond seeds but also lentisk and rose-hip.
Here I have not seen any dig ups by mice. I timed the planted right before the heavy rains.
Another plot is what might become our future chicken paddocks, which is why I planted here peach pits and apple seeds. Also here, no dig ups as I planted before the rains.
Thank you Kostas for your ongoing efforts and documenting every step. Your work is a great inspiration and I am grateful for all the information you have already gathered through failure but also success!
Not only will those trees that survive be planted on less cost, those trees will also grow much stronger! They'll have the survivor genes!
All the best,
Eric
