Food forest log
Summer 2025
As it seems like the future of this project is in my hands and my hands alone, it is necessary to scale up new help from outside to turn this into a success. Some plants work - especially chestnut, all kinds of berries, and some apple trees seem to be doing alright. But for this to become a more self-sustaining food forest, some interventions will be necessary. I’ve mostly been cleaning up, and have been removing blackberry vines.
Summer 2024
Especially the lower layers of the food forest are struggling. It’s hard to find a ground cover that works. Nitrogen deposits dominate the land. Apple trees are not fruiting. We need to be sure that this will not just turn into an orchard now that we have our first child.
April 2023
The estate now knows 2 apricots, 2 cherries and 2 plum trees.
February / March 2023
200 native species planted through Stichting Heg en Landschap.
January 2023
Replanted about 5 trees and 5 shrubs that were wrong. Helped some plants through the winter.
August 2022
Small apples do particularly well. Figs are doing well. Apples disappear from the trees. Ton overturned. Walnuts, chestnuts and sequoia do particularly well. Path made on the left halfway. Water filled with pool water.
July 2022
Blackberries pruned back. Apples saved from wasps by putting down a sweet bowl. Helped many plants with pieces of wood during the drought. Hedge broken by neighbours.
June 2022
Many plants freed from competition. The ones that didn't survive aside. Everything looks a bit dry, but some plants that seemed dead now seem to have been given a life.
The leaves do look a bit yellow. Passed a bag of lime around the woods, maybe that helps in any way. The drought isn't helping.
More clear about the spot in the back left – it's a bit higher, and seems poorer and drier. Some things on the left seem to be doing well anyway.
May 2022
Vacation USA
April 2022
Vacation USA
March 2022
February 2022
December 2020
Planted a first large batch of native species, including walnut, chestnut, European oak, hawthorn, and protected species.
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
Trees downed.
August 2020
Got a wood chipper to get rid of some of the side branches from all the downed trees.
July 2020
Cleared trees.
June 2020
Cleared trees.
May 2020
Cleared trees.
April 2020
Apple trees planted. More trees felled, first clearing visible.
March 2020
Forest purchased. First trees in front felled.
March 2020
The orange raspberries from Huub are planted.
February 2020
Hazelnuts and mountain ash placed against the edge of the forest. At that time no idea that 50 meters away mountain ash was spreading almost invasively.
The reason was that I initially went to see: what used to grow here? And that turned out to be a difficult question. Because: when before? 100 years ago? 400 years ago? When the Romans were here? Before the last ice age?
The correct answer? That doesn't exist, but in the end I started from the principle: everything that has ever come here on its own is indigenous. That means that it was not originally brought here by man, like almost all our food.
January 2020
Planted a Christmas tree that will not survive.
April 2019
I see the dead forest in the back for the first time. I see a piece of ivy creeping towards the forest and know: dead wood gives life. More sunlight will mean more green. The view from our house will definitely change.
2018
Second drought.
2017
First drought.
