Reforestation - Growing trees in arid, barren lands - by Seeds and Clay cubes (no watering)

Thank you Hans,

Good points.

Also concerned about the young trees, as they get off the ground.

Will they be chocked by the wire?

The almond trees are generally the 1st ones out of the ground, so we will be looking into how
they do and what they do.

Also did a few almonds with simply putting a stone on top of the hole.

These stones are no match for a badger, but may be adequate for the mice.

Bottom line is that almond trees do so well here that it's worth investing the time.


Kostas

Imagine that !!!

Kostas

Article n Oak Trees

Hello Kostas and everybody who is participating in this great effort! It gives me hope that we can still steer into a better future.

We have here a collection of lots of great information, so I've been reading through this whole thread. I wanted to find out about your progress of the 12 past years. Hearing from you about how small action can lead to big effects got me really motivated to increase my own efforts in healing the land.

My partner and I find ourselves in Spain, in Catalonia, and we got hot and dry summers and cold and wettish winters. Our land is mostly a bare field with a few shrubs and some trees around the borders. Our neighbors almost solely grow either almonds, olives or barley. Our dream is to grow a food forest here and stir things up a little.

Establishing trees has been a tough experience so far. 5 years ago, at first we tried hardy and drought-tolerant trees from seed first such as Mimosa (Albizzia julibrisin), Honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), and Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa), Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum), European Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), Tipuana Tipu; and also transplanted many small Cypress. The results of our first efforts where that all Mesquite saplings got eaten (including by our own house cat), over 80% of the Mimosas, Tipas and Honey locust died due to drought, but many of the Hackberries and Judas trees are thriving. Of our 200 cypress, 160 did not succomb to drought and girdling by various animals around here, I consider this a success. Note that those trees, being our first, have been moderately watered but the pandemic made being there more difficult.

Last year we moved onto the land and since then I find more time to increase my efforts. Last year I collected many more seeds from the villages nearby. Cities and villages are a great source of hardy tree seeds! Especially leguminous trees. I still had put the seeds in pots and kept watering them, almost none of the seeds sprouted this time, despite scarifying those that needed scarification. Out of those that did sprout, rabbits and (I suspect) lizards as well ate many of those young trees. I also planted many acorns directly into the ground. It did not take long for the wild pigs to find them and dig up all! Not a great start but I am not getting discouraged.

This summer I discovered this thread and I got very excited to try again! I collected many seeds of Golden Rain Trees from a nearby village and hundreds and hundreds of almonds from abandoned almond trees that are scattered around the country side here. We also have Holm Oaks (Quercus Ilex) from which I collected acorns. During my walks. I love to identify plants I don't know yet and to my delight I discovered Lentisk (Pistacia lentiscus), hundreds of seeds have been collected as well.

I put all those seeds directly into the ground this year, including apple and peach seeds, and rose hip. I won't be watering them and see which ones the earth welcomes. I will keep you updated on my efforts.

My plan is to work my way outwards, starting on my land and expanding. We border directly to a pine forest and our worry is that one day forest fires could sweep through and threaten our livelihood. We are looking into fire resistant plants and the possibility of cypress is intriguing. Inside the pine forest there are Holm Oaks and Kermes Oaks (Quercus coccifera), I think they are on their way to slowly overtake the pine trees, which are dying and blown over by strong winds. The coming years I want to plant many acorns to further assist this succession.

Konstantinos Karoubas wrote: The golden rain tree has many strengths that can be useful to us here.
1. is a nitrogen fixer

Kostas, I have one question regarding the Golden Rain Tree. You mentioned it has the ability to fix nitrogen, I could not find any information on that, where did you hear about it?

Eric thank you for your input,

I especially appreciate the correction about the nitrogen fixing abilities of the Golden rain tree. I was mistaken. Some place I must have read that they were nitrogen fixing trees but they're not. Also the laburnum shrub is not a nitrogen fixing plant which I thought it was.

The Golden rain tree does very well on our farm and it's very helpful to us even though it's not nitrogen fixing. It produces plenty of biomass and its root system I assume is very deep so it helps me break up the subsoil and consequently store water deep in the soil. But it was a major mistake on my part to plant them next to my olive trees and other trees thinking that they were nitrogen fixers.

I know that gleditsia is a nitrogen fixer but it's thorns are huge and make it difficult to work with. I know there's a variety which does not have thorns on it and I'm working to see if I can reproduce it.

Like the golden rain tree the gleditsia tree does very well here.

Please send us some photographs of your place so we can see what it looks like and if you could take some photographs of the oak trees within the pine trees. Looking forward to hearing from you and your progress.

It takes years in this effort; you try something, and you must wait months or years to see the results.

I started doing this around 2000 and for the first 12 years I was not able to grow any trees. Now it feels like we can grow trees anywhere (lol).

Initially (the 1st 12 years), the seeds would sprout but then they would die off or wouldn't sprout at all.

From the beginning,   the objective was clear. I did not want to plant trees the conventional way.

I wanted to grow trees from seed because they're easier to plant and they don't cost much. And if successful, I could plant hundreds or thousands.

For each tree planted conventionally we can plant 100 or more seeds.

But the issue is what is the right seed for the land. What does the land want to grow? And this is the difficult part.

Thank you for your input and efforts. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Please send some photos of your land.

Kostas

Kostas,

I am attaching pictures to tell the story of the land around me. I am looking forward keep you updated the following seasons and years.

As you can see, many pine trees are on their way out. We have strong winds here and strong gusts take out the weak. In the clearings, oak trees welcome the sun. But even in the shade of pine trees, these oaks keep growing. In some areas, there's a strong thicket of Kermes oak. Even olive trees sprout there, I suspect that animals dropped them after coming from the olive orchards nearby.

The pines in the forest consists of Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis). So far, I have noted the following plants growing in our pine forest here. I find it interesting to know which plants can grow there. I hope this list can be helpful to some:

- Olive (Olea europaea)
- Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera)
- Holm oak (Quercus ilex)
- Mediterranean buckthorn (Rhamnus alaternus)
- Mediterranean Heath (Erica multiflora)
- Black hawthorn (Rhamnus lycioides)
- Lentisk (Pistacia lentiscus)
- Cade juniper (Juniperus oxycedrus)
- Phoenician juniper (Juniperus phoenicea)
- Lesser Asparagus (Asparagus acutifolius)
- White thyme (Thymus zygis)
- Bulbous bluegrass (Poa bulbosa)
- Alypo globe daisy (Globularia alypum)
- Somerset hair grass (Koeleria vallesiana)
- Helianthemum marifolium
- Themelaea tinctoria
- Stipa offneri

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

Hi Eric,
as you are in Spain and have holly oaks growing on their own, you might want to check out the following website:
http://balanotrees.org/sweet-acorns/
They sell grafted sweet oaks, which are edible and made up a substantial part of the diet in Iberia up to a few decades ago.

hans muster wrote:Hi Eric,
as you are in Spain and have holly oaks growing on their own, you might want to check out the following website:
http://balanotrees.org/sweet-acorns/
They sell grafted sweet oaks, which are edible and made up a substantial part of the diet in Iberia up to a few decades ago.

Thank you for the tip, Hans.  I might even be able to visit them directly as part of a stop to see family. Sweet acorn does not appear to be commonly eaten nowadays in Catalonia. But I did recently receive a bag of sweet acorns for consumption from an acquaintance. I seemed to be the only one in the family having an interest in eating them. It's surprising to me that around here chestnuts are very popular in October/November but sweet acorns are not. Culture is a very strong force when it comes what we consider to be food – or well, a good plant to grow.

Thank you for your response Eric.

It was good to see all the pictures from your farm.

Your observations about the olive trees and oak trees underneath the pines is interesting. You are blessed to get the opportunity to look after this piece of earth. I am sure you will do the best you can to nurture it. All the creatures above and below the land will benefit from your presence.

Looking forward to your updates on how the trees and land evolve. The changes in the land as time goes by, will also have a big impact on you.

One of the challenges we all face in this arid Mediterranean climate, is how to go about keeping our land covered with a green cover, all summer long, without watering. This will have a major impact in lowering the ground temperatures and make the earth livable.

The trees we plant obviously provide shade,but for many places green ground cover for the summertime and all year around is desirable; without using the precious water supply. It's also the fastest way to lower the earth's temperature.

If you can, experiment with this also it would be great;  keep us posted.

Kostas

Greetings to all and best wishes!!!

We started planting acorns.

The rains finally came and the temperatures dropped. We essentially went from summer to winter. Fall was deleted.

At the stone quarry, we planted four types of acorns. The majority are Holm oaks collected from nearby trees.

Usually we plant 2 or 3 acorns per hole, and we add small seeds like arugula, daikon radish and alfalfa. In addition it's a good idea to mark the location of some of the seeds that are planted and keep a record of the type of seed planted. In the future, we may try machines like the Garmin Gps map to plot new tree locations.

Acorns from an evergreen oak tree and acorns from 2 different common oak trees were planted for comparison. We want to know survival and growth rates of each.

It will be interesting to see how many will sprout in the spring and how many will survive next summer.

Some notes on Acorn Storage
Most of the white oak tree acorns mature in early October especially in southern Greece and at low elevations. At that time of the year the temperatures are usually above 15 degrees celcius and the ground is dry, so it's not possible to plant the acorns. If planted the acorns will dry out and die.

If these acorns are placed in damp sand, with these warm temperatures, they will sprout and will become unusable for planting.

We need to keep them viable for 2.5 months.

Refrigeration is the only solution that I see. Let the acorns dry,  put them in a paper bag, and store them in a refrigerator at 5 or 6 degrees Celsius.

When the outdoor temperatures drop to below 10C, the acorns can be stored in damp sand as we have been doing.

Fortunately the Holm oaks mature late, when the temperatures have dropped and planting has begun. (That's what we have learned on the subject this year).


I welcome the input of people who have experience in these matters.

Thanks

Kostas

Hi Kostas and all,

Kostas I read you are thinking of tracking the locations of your plantings and I had to think of farmOS.org.
I have been running farmOS for a couple of years now and am super happy with it.

FarmOS is a website/tool where you can track and manage all information about your farm or similar project.
In farmOS you add "assets" like "land" (you can import KML files which can usualy be downloaded from the official cadaster website of your government.), "plant", "seed" and have "logs" like "observation", "seeding" or "harvest" logs, most of these assets and logs can have gps coordinates and can show you everything on a map.
FarmOS is open source and free to run on any server, but if you don't feel like setting up your own server, take a look at farmier.com which is run by the farmOS maintainer.

Thanks for adding information about storing acorns !
My go-to method still is to harvest and immediately plant the acorns, some come out directly, others wait until winter passes.
I have not noticed the drying out you mention, but will keep an eye on that. My biggest hurdle is animals finding each and every acorn I planted.
This year however, there where almost no acorns to harvest because of the 2 years of drought we had.

Thanks for your continued effort and sharing all information
I learn a lot on this thread!

Greetings to all, and happy holidays
Peace on Earth !!!




The Katsika Mountain Project: An Introduction

Background 

This project focuses on Katsika Mountain, an area spanning approximately 10 million square meters south of Thessaloniki Greece. Understanding its history is important .

Local residents aged 75 to 85 recall thousands of goats—perhaps 10,000 to 15,000—grazing the mountain in their youth. Today, fewer than 1,000 goats remain, concentrated on the northern, southern, and eastern slopes. The western side and the mountain's central area are now largely ungrazed.

In the late '60s and early 70s I'm told that the oak shrubs that currently cover the mountain were so small that all you saw was stones. The vegetation did not have a chance to grow; it was promptly cut down by the goats.

In addition to grazing, widespread charcoal production further impacted the mountain's ecology. Locals harvested trees and large shrubs, burning them to produce charcoal for sale in nearby cities. One village reportedly had three to four crews of five people each engaged in this activity, suggesting that any substantial trees present in the early 1950s were likely felled for charcoal production.

Katsika Mountain historically provided numerous resources for the four surrounding villages. In addition to goat grazing, it served as a hunting ground and a source of firewood for heating and cooking. Until the mid-1970s, wood was the primary fuel for these purposes.

Finally, several springs once active at the mountain's base have mostly dried up, with only one or two still providing some water.

________________________________________________

Why Reforest

We're examining this mountain to identify inexpensive methods for reforestation. Reforesting this area would bring numerous benefits, including enhanced water retention and storage. If the rainwater that falls here is absorbed and stored underground, it would rejuvenate the underground water system, reviving old springs. Additionally, reforestation would alter the microclimate, attracting rain clouds, and providing food for bees and wildlife. There are countless advantages to reforesting this area. 

________________________________________________

How to plant

99% of the top soil has washed away. All we have is small pockets of soil in between stones. Conventional tree planting will not work; you simply need heavy equipment to dig the holes it cannot be done by hand tools. In addition this will be very expensive and practically impossible because of the slope of the hills and the mountain is not accessible by mechanical equipment.

Placing seeds on the ground is our only option right now. And planting acorns is perhaps a good starting point, though trees like cypress and others may also do well.

The placement of the seeds is crucial. Acorns should be planted on the northern side of oak shrubs, at a depth of 5 to 10 cm. Plant them after heavy rains when the soil is wet, as planting in dry soil will dry out the acorns. Planting on the northern side ensures that the shade keeps the soil moist. During the hot summer months, the temperature in the shade is significantly cooler than in soil exposed directly to the sun.

In addition small seeds like arugula are sprinkled on the disturbed soil to mark the location and to further shade the young trees.

________________________________________________

There are countless small mountains\hills like this throughout Greece and the world. Conventional reforesting  methods are not feasible for these areas, so planting seeds directly into the ground is likely the best approach. 

This method is simple and can be carried out by local volunteers and communities, helping to restore the earth.

It's success is not a given...what is given, that we need to try again and again.

Kostas

Hi Dalo,

The FarmOS tool looks promising and I might consider using it for our farm in the future. It's a good tool.

For our tree planting efforts on mountain slopes, a device like the Garmin GPS might be more suitable.

As individuals spend a day traversing the mountain to plant seeds, such a device can help them keep track of the locations where seeds have been planted.

Unfortunately, these devices have an accuracy of around 4 meters, so they should be used in conjunction with spray paint or other markers.

As this project progresses, each volunteer or worker can be equipped with such a device to monitor their work and have a record of our efforts.

Kostas

Greetings,




Barley

We are at the new community forest we are working on. The northern section of the land remains bare, with limey soil that stays largely uncovered year-round. We've been planting seeds and have several young trees, one to two years old. However, the soil lacks the organic matter needed to help these young trees grow quickly. Our goal is to cover the earth with a layer of organic matter.

The land is only accessible on foot, so mechanical equipment can't reach it, and we prefer not to plow and disturb the soil. Our plan for this winter and into spring is somewhat risky, as it could fail in many ways. We've begun broadcasting barley on the bare soil, scattering the seeds closely spaced on the ground.

We had some rain last night, and our concern is that heavy rain might wash the seeds away, or birds might collect them.

Besides the heavy rains and the birds, we are also concerned about the sun and wind. If the rain stops or it becomes very windy, the seeds may dry out and fail to take root and grow.

These are the conditions we're working with, and if this batch of barley fails to root, we'll try again when the weather is favorable. If rainy and cold weather is forecasted for one or two weeks, we'll give it another shot. We are committed and won't give up after just one try.

If, by some miracle, the barley starts to grow and reaches 5 to 10 cm in height, it will protect the ground from the sun and wind. We then plan to scatter vetch, field beans, and fava beans, hoping that the barley will provide a protective environment for these nitrogen-fixing plants to grow vigorously, covering the land and adding organic matter. We may also scatter small seeds like alfalfa or daikon to assist the process.

Whether this plan will work or not remains to be seen, but it's worth a try. The cost of the barley seeds is small as we bought them from an animal feed store and they're not certified seeds—just as long as they sprout, we don't mind. It will be interesting to see how this experiment goes, but we are hopeful that it will speed up the rehabilitation of this land. We are keeping our fingers crossed for the best outcome.

Kostas

Greetings,
Peace !!!



Blower

We've started using a battery-operated blower machine on our farm, powered by free energy from our solar panels. This powerful blower helps us plant seeds in areas with thick, tall grass. When scattering seeds like vetch or field peas, we worry they won't reach the soil to sprout and grow. Ideally, we want them to be as close to the soil as possible.

We could use a gasoline-powered weed trimmer to cut the grass down to the bare soil, then spread the seeds and cover them with the grass clippings. However, this requires gasoline, time, maintenance, and oil expenses. If successful, the blower could eliminate the need for the trimmer, making the process easier and faster.

Whether this method will work and how well the vetch and field peas will grow above the grass remains to be seen.

It's going to be interesting to see if the vetch and field peas can smother the grass and thrive.

Kostas

Greetings to all, and a happy new year.

We have three small vids with updates.

The first, is an update on the use of the battery operated blower to help plant green manure crops.



The second is on the use of surface scattered barley to help cover the bare soil of our community food forest.



And the third is about the nitrogen fixing shrub called anagyris foetida (stinking bean trefoil). For many years, I thought this was called laburnum.



Our reforestation efforts have moved to southern Greece, around the city of Sparta, and soon they will start at the island of Crete.

As we move south, the young trees will be further stressed by the lack of rain and high temperatures.

The first preliminary results from Sparta are encouraging, but it is too soon to reach conclusions.

Kostas

The new vid on the battery operated blower is



Kostas