sebastiaan roels

hey guys

already thanks for the replies.
well cutting the posts in halves might not be ideal, but having fence posts of 18 to 30 cm diameter seems like a bit of overkill, it s to keep sheep in not tyranausaurus rexes
and roundwood might be stronger structurally but if you half the posts you expose the hardwood which is much more rot resistant than the outer sapwood. so I m not sure if I agree on this one. and If wood like that is only gonna last 5 to 8 years I m gonna be pretty disappointed!!!
then I also heard many good things about acacia but that doesn`t really grow in the Danish forests so I think oak was my best choice.

hey guys

does anybody know something about wood ??
well I am able to buy some trees which I will cut down and turn into posts but do these oak posts need to dry before I put them in the ground ??
I live in denmark and the ground is wet most of the year.
I somehow remember that once wood has dried beyond a certain degree it will not open up the pores to absorb moist as easy anymore thereafter.
can someone confirm this?? because I kinda wanna use the posts within half a year of me cutting down the trees
we re talking about white oak around 18cm diameter cut into halves and debarked.

thank you very much

hey rose

glad you like the pictures
what would I like to do with it ??
well we have bought this property almost two years ago and this year we were able to buy one hectare of adjacent land.
I really like the id of providing food for my own family and once in a while I m playing with the id of starting a market garden
but for now I really like to experiment with different things as long as it does not involve chemical herbicides pesticides fungicides or fertilizer.
so the clover patch was part of an experiment with green manure whilst trying to get the soil relatively weedfree
in the background of the picture you can see some vegetation that is highere those are the other experiment areas
all the other patches had not been cut since I thought that those types of plant would not deal good with that. they have almost as much weeds plus loads of weedseeds after this years growing season.
I feel that the white clover is the big winner in this experiment although the other things where also a pretty sight when they where blooming and attracted loads of insects.
the clover got cut down before it could flower.
I m now thinking of sowing clover where I had this years potatoes and grow potatoes in a part of the cloverpatch.
then use all excess clover cuttings as mulch on my vegetable beds.
here is a picture of the property

hy there

I kinda had the same situation with the rhizome grass , i did plough the field and then rotortilled it which ended up just cutting the rhizomes in smaller pieces
very soon after the land had been ploughed and tilled the grass just popped straight up, so I planted white clover instead.
whenever the initial grass or other weeds where growing higher then my clover stand I would trim the top layer as in to minimalize the damage to the clover stand
also when the clover got so tall that it started to kinda fall over and let light penetrate through I would cut it with a scythe and use it as mulch on y veggybeds

so now at the end of the first year I endd up with a pretty nice stand of clover and most of the rhIzoMe grass has been smothered by the clover.
in hindsight I should not have ploughed or rotortilled the field just harrowed it to open the soil slightly for soil contact with the clover seed.
here is a pic of the clover stand now a couple of months after that same field was totally matted with rhizomes.

have a nice day!

and a couple more

hey benji and other potential readers

so after your advice I planted several plots with crimson clover, white clover, mustard, Phacelia tanacetifolia and one where I mixed em all,
the plot with white clover was the biggest, as crimson clover apparently is a little vulnerable to being cut I left it to its own devices as I did with the other plots except for the white clover. the whole plot was infested with a kind of grass that spreads by roots so I had the land ploughed ad then rotortilled. (I should not have rotortilled cuz I just endd up braking up all the rhizomes and mulitiplying the grass i wanted to get rid off) nevertheless the plot with the white clover whenerver the grass ended up peeking over the clover I went around with my strimmer and cut around the level where the grass would peek out as in not to disturb or destroy my new clover stand, as the clover grew more mature I started to cut it with a scythe about twice this season and in the end I believe I ended up with a pretty nice clover stand even though there is still a bit of grass left in it. so Ive been using the cut material to throw in between my raised beds the first time and this time after I have harvested the beds and gave it a last weeding for the season (mainly digging up that nasty grass ) I piled about 30 cm of fresh cut quite compacted clover on top of the beds. the first time I piled a little less in the paths and the grass seamed to just grow through it in no time, so I hope I can smother that grass this time and add nutrition and organic matter to my beds. lets see
I wonder also as in how much sqm of clover stand would be sufficient to feed one sqm of veggy patch
and how do you best hold that nitrogen until when it s needed as I fear the nitrogen will get lost as the clover brakes down over winter.
my id for next year is also to plant clover where I had this years potatoes and plough under some clover I planted this year and grow my potatoes in that,
any ideas
here are some pics of this years endeavours

hey briant

I have seen many trees in my days with rotten heartwood which are still standing for many many years, of course it is not ideal but hey if you get another 10 or 15 years out of your tree then why not ?
and I think a trunk like that is not really going to sway to the point that the graft is going get damaged ? and as I see it bamboo does not have any interior but still has amazing strength, possibly due to the cylindrical shape hence the id of the bridge graft to recreate that shape ?? then again I have no practical experience with it, just wondering

hey there

I ve been wondering about the same problem,
recently I bought a book: "the grafters handbook" in which was described the technique of bridgegrafting which I found very interesting, f ex you could poissbly clean up the wound on the bottom and top of the wound and thus bypass the deceased bit with small pieces of wood from the same species, given the cambium layers are matched up to one another ( don t know how easy that is with such an established bark )
in time these bridges might swell and start to overlap and thus close the hole.
I like the id of it but I have never seen it in practise
so if you would sacrifice the tree you might as well give this a try
ok as I was writing this I thought why not have a look on youtube and then I found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f9u0gdxxLM

have a nice day

hi scott

well the guys you saw in the movie is martin Crawford.
I just bought and read his book " creating a forest garden" and I have to say I find it very interesting and complete
lots of concepts explained f ex how wind travels over or around different objects like fences or hedges, touches on the topic of nitrogen fixing plants ad trees
has e pretty good list with all different kinda trees and shrubs. and much much more
I find it a very iformative and beautifull book so I defenetely recommend it !

have a nice day

sebastiaan

hi Jeremy,

first of all congratulations with the step you took ! it takes great courage to break away from the shackles of society, so well done !!!
that said you are now in a position where you have to rely on your own ingenuity and resources.
in an ideal world you would indeed build things right from the first time but I guess that is not an option !
your main goal is to keep the spirit alive not only yours but also your families !
I have lived rough many times in my life and I find I can cope with a lot and live very basic but certain things you can t go without.
first priority in my opinion is get yourself and your family dry ! don t spend to much time or money on it, a tent is a good place to start from but not a place to stay in the winter months
some corrugated metal roofing is not hugely expensive but does the job ! ( with you intending to harvest the wood on your property for heating you really need a chainsaw !!! you can start by making a rudimentary construction with trees harvested from your property(building always takes more time and money then you had planned for !!!), and if I were you I d already fell some trees and cut them up for firewood in the coming winter !!! you need wood and preferably dry !! it takes time to dry out !!
that brings me to the second priority --> warmth, do not underestimate what it does to the spirit when you are cold !! or what warmth can do to lift up the spirit after a hard days labour in the rain !!
so prepare wood for winter months --> and some kind of wood oven, heat from wood makes the climate indoors dry a gas burner gives you heat but everything gets moist inside, moist clothes is a no go for comfortable living.
third priority is food. make sure the process of making food is not to cumbersome like it is now ie you can t cook when it s raining! you can sleep in a kitchen but you can t cook in a bedroom !
if the process of making food is to much of a hassle you ll tend to skip meals, further depleting the spirit !!!
fourth priority and especially with wife and children is toilet and personal hygiene, it can be very hard for woman to live like that so don t underestimate that "luxury "
you might want to check out some public pools or gyms where you can go and take a bath it really refreshes the souls to be able to take a nice long hot shower !!

so my overall advice would be make sure everybody stays in good spirit !!! that is very important
and accept to build things twice like that you ll make mistakes the first time and you ll know how to build it better the next time

take a very good care and I truly hope you ll succeed !!

sebastiaan