Amazing work and inspirational! We have a small 60 acre farm in Eastern Washington State, USA that experiences a similar climate in the summer. I appreciate your example, ideas and honesty about your many trials, achievements and things that didn't work out well. As Nelson Mandela once said, "I never lose... I either win or I LEARN". Thanks so much!
Loving the updates. Its so good to see people working with the Land & the Environment instead of against it. Well done & keep up the great work. Very inspiring. Cheers from Melbourne, Australia.
Wool does not spoil. Keep it. It can be spun or felted later, when you have time, or someone with a knitting hobby visits the farm. You can make someone happy with something you don't have a use for at the moment. That has value.
The drone is a great tool and such a wonderful visual aid . It is neat to see and learn the water movements through the property, it really does require time and study to be utilized properly. I Have been enjoying your humor mixed with information, the hungry cows were hilarious. Delaying the videos was smart, no need to add stress !
Your geography looks like my place in Central Texas. I enjoy watching your videos. We have a lot of similarities. On woodchips, I would lightly spread them on the pasture. My best Bermuda plot is full of them, but you have to reach in to find them. Only way I would put them in a swale is if the water stayed long enough to become a mosquito larvae nuisance.
Yes, wool as insulation makes sense. After all the yurt has wool insulation. I should have thought directly about that. So we are going to save that material somewhere.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito - You can also consider using the raw wool as a weed suppression mulch. In some garden application! As any other organic mulch it will eventually compost and help build soil. Something that area desperately need! By the general looks of it. The microbiology of that soil is in dire straits. I guess all help should be welcomed. ;-)
Amazing !!!! I am actually doing the same on my property with a little bit less rainfall . This only proves to me the drastic improvements that can be done by doing this . I don't understand how you don't have 1 Million subscribers just from your content and productivity alone. Keep up the great work !!!!!!!!
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Northern Arizona in the states i have about 210 acres. we get more rain then the low lying desert areas. At the moment i spend 4 months out of the year and I'm in Israel now. I've spent some time down in the Negev and it's amazing what they pull off with minimal water .
If you have access to large amounts of wood chips, laying them only 2-3 inches deep will not prevent the weeds/pioneers from popping through. As far as I've seen, that occurs more at 5-10 inches of chips. Thanks for the videos - its a great project and I'm glad you are documenting it.
Unfortunately the easy access here means >2000 EUR for a big truck load. That big truck load would quickly disappear here. It's not like elsewhere where landscaping companies deliver them for free to get rid of the material. So we need to find other ways.
Clean wool is excellent for comforters, bed rolls or tatami mats which are usually stuffed with silk. You would not have to spend time spinning threads. I love you videos by the way!
make inquiries about a spinning or weaving coop that might be interested in buying, combing, natural-dyeing your wool & weaving/ knitting it for sale ...
Great video. Waiting for January. Now quite green everything, it surprises that need feed with external for the bulls. Really Hope that rotary grazing is also profitable.
As always I enjoyed your update. I have some suggestions that may (or may not!!) be of use to you. (A) One possibility to help manage the water seeping from the pond in your main swale might be to install another swale that is not so deep about halfway down the slope from the main swale. This could intercept the seepage flow and redirect the water along that contour to better distribute the water laterally across the land further down the slope. I also think your plan to start planting vetiver grass in that area is a good idea. (B) I noticed that when Juan was trying to get the back hoe out of that mud hole the front wheels were having to drag their way through a huge amount of mud thus making the job that much more difficult. Whenever we get bogged in really soft and wet ground in a 4WD vehicle we use a ramp (such as a long narrow sheet of plywood) to wedge under each wheel in the direction we wish to go (forward or reverse) to help lift the vehicle up and out. If you were to do that with the front wheels the back hoe would have a much easier time pulling the machine out. Cheers! RF
Thanks for your suggestions. Yes. We'll put some vetiver there. I think it's ok for that structure to be leaky. It will probably become less leaky once there is more organic matter in the berm. At the moment it's all sandy dirt and rocks.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito - I believe you're correct it will eventually stop leaking with organic matter build up. Although you can boost the leak "repair" with a few ducks! When you're all set and done... Please check "Arroz de pato à Minhota". Recipe of duck with rice. So typical in the Minho region of Portugal! Delicious! ;-) With or without the leak I still advise checking the duck recipe. LOL 😂
your soil looks just like the soil we have here in the Hill Country of Texas.... rocky, rocky, rocky and NO topsoil, just rocks... great information to use... great video
Recently, i read chicory plants resist drought and a permanent prairie composed of grasses, clovers, chicory and others ( plantain, etc) have excellent soil retaining and upgrading, mineral and protein content for cows and beef. If interested, look up ’la vache heureuse’ in France.
The swales look great. You mentioned what to do with the rock problem. "Living Traditions Homestead" in Missouri US mentioned a tool attachment for the tractor that removes most of the rock in the soil. If you could use this maybe you could plant new native prairie grasses. You can do one section of land a year to remove rocks and place it at the bottom of the swales. Some could be used for gabions for gates and fence walls. putting rock in the bottom of the swales might make the water to run clean/clear through the land? Good luck with the farm...looks good so far!
Thanks for your suggestions. You've been watching a video from 2020. A lot has changed since then ;-) Removing rocks has been a topic for a while. This region here in Andalusia is full of rocks. There is hardly any topsoil left and what we have is basically exposed subsoil where the rocks belong to. The situation is a bit special and we need to build up instead of removing more.
Please check if you got area suitable for growing beets, you could feed animals with leaves when fresh and roots could be stored, beets are very productive and 50 tons from hectare it's not a problem.
That sounds like a very nice idea. We will begin with "plants" after we've covered "infrastructure". The farm has been an open area of 45 ha with no suitable fencing at all and that means the animals would eat whatever wants to grow.
Nice video. If you want to use the wool you can use it as mulch/ fertilizer. It would also help with keeping moisture in the soil. Keeping raw (unwashed) wool for a long time only invites pests, not a good idea. Speaking as someone that spins, knits and works raw wool regularly
Have you considered getting hair sheep? They would save you the trouble of shearing and you wouldn't need to figure out what to do with the wool. My brother raised them for years in Virginia. They can handle the heat and cold quite well.
Halfway into this video, I am amazed that I have yet to see a sapling oak! Maybe near the swales on the broken ground , when the acorns on the ground are dense, raking some of the acorns in such a way that they can germinate and replenish the oak component.
This land is part of the Spanish Dehesa system and that means ranching. During the 6 months long dry period of the year the animals will eat everything that is green unless kept off. We bought this property in 2017 and you are seeing the land after just 2 years of different management. Keep watching. There a lot more to see. It is getting better.
I wonder if you seeded some cold season grasses into your pastures, id it would improve the forage production in the cool and rainy months... some of them are pretty hardy and should just fall dormant when it's hot and grow when it is cool, so you would have a good growth year round
You could experiment with creating some kind of shelter for the animals perhaps, using the wool for insulation to see how it works. Good insulation could be good against the cold during winter (if it again becomes as cold as it was this winter). I'm uncertain whether it also would help keep the heat of summer out as well? Living in Norway, keeping heat out is not something I have much experience with. ;-p
Wool as insulation works for cold and heat. We have a Mongolian yurt and it has wool insulation. Works reasonably well. The good thing about our animals is that they are used to the climate and cope well without any shelter. Especially the Iberian pig is known for its ability to live without shelter year round.
Woodchips are great, I have used them to both suppress weeds and make a fungal based grow medium for everything. It acts like a sponge and keep the moisture where plants can access it. The best part is, it seems to improve the soil over the years. I have a limited amount of it, so I tried to make another patch with straw, the woodchipped area is far superior in water retention and fertility. Try to make a test, put some potatoes on top of the dead dirt and put on top 10cm woodchips, wait 3-4 months and then harvest the potatoes. Observe how it without any work or composting transform the dirt and make it into fertile soil. I had a similar very stoned area, my observations limited it down to wind removing the leaves and leaving the area without any organic matter. A single olive tree that drops very small leaves that is not easily blown away was like an island in the stoned area. Wool can be used for insulation, but getting hair sheep is maybe a better solution.
Thank you for this interesting idea with the potatoes. I was also thinking about using straw as alternative but as you say woodchips seem to be more effective. Why potatoes? Is there any special property they have over other plants? Or was it just what you available?
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I wanted to try no dig potatoes, this summer I will try with sweet potatoes, it was just a over the winter experiment for fun, and I had some old potatoes at hand. But if you have access to woodchips or getting a wood chipper for pruning's like I do , it is well worth the effort to improve the soil with no following work. Composting is a hassle here in Spain, Chip everything up and just lay it on the dirt is my experience so far and my former dead hillside is transforming to living soil with easy to pull weeds. It is the fungal dominated topsoil that seems to be the key. Hot compost kills the fungi and grow bacteria, cold composting mimicking nature is far superior.
What about using figs to produce very leafy growth, you would need to keep good control of them as they very bushy, maybe that is what you want. Please do not use the invasive Eucalyptus as they drain all the water with their amazing root systems.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito - Yep! Stay away from Eucalyptus. In Portugal it was a self inflicted plague! From the 50's vison of "land development"! A terrible monoculture that imposed a toll on nature to harsh to bare! Thankfully nowadays there's the political will to help contain it. Truth be told it's not easy since an enormous industry developed around the Eucalyptus and let's not forget pine trees! Both developed into monocultures' that occupy huge tracts of land... wildfires any one?! I guess we know the unfortunate answer! ;-)
Wouldn't it be an idea to get rid of some cows to allow the grasses to grow larger etc? And in a few years when your gras production is up to speed, then get those animals back?
We try to do holisticmanagement.org/land/mob-grazing/ and should actually have a larger herd. At the moment we can have them in a 5000m2 paddock for more than a day when there is moderate growth after some 4 weeks of rest. What we lack at the moment is the 70-80 paddocks we have planned. We only have 22 available for the main rotation and as we need to keep the bulls separate from the cows it gets a bit tight. Much more fence posts coming ...
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito With good exterior fences you should be able to train your cows to temporary single wire fences allowing you to have an infinite number of paddocks. One trick I found to keeping the bulls separate was to keep a few cows with them, as a seasonal grazing dairy I used old cows that hadn't bred back to fatten up before slaughter. Look up Spyder fence from New Zealand.
To anwser your question at 15:00, I do think putting wood chips or other types of mulch would deffinitely help, but should be helped by planting or seading some plants or crops. In africa it's a much used practice in combination with Nitrogen fixing plants to help build healthier soil quicker. The sooner the quality and diversity of micro-organisms and fungi in the soil goes up, so does the water retaining ability of the land and the soil starts to build. So the idea with the straw and the pigs is a good one since it helps make mulch, but maybe they should be helped a little more by planting trees or crops after they foraged the berms.
Good. Yes. The thing with the wood chips will probably be it. It's a question of sourcing them. I envy folks a bit who get them delivered free. Here they have to be trucked in from afar. Still working on that.
@@fab199105 We actually did just that. However, it does not create the amount of material we would need to cover those large berms. But something is better than nothing and so we applied it in our little food forest in the making.
To top off your swales I would suggest a chain flail muck spreader. Mix wood chips fifty fifty with farm yard manure and add seed, grass, beans etc you will then be able to drive along the swales and spread across both the swale and the berm, advise you do this just before the rain this will prevent soil damage by you tractor. The idea of mixing the wood chip with fym is to encourage its breaking down into soil, in that climate likely to take many years other wise. To mix your fym with the wood chip use a concrete pad if possible and your back hoe. I would also suggest hand spreading grass seed over areas damaged by the tractor to prevent a permanent open sore developing which will lead to soil damage and erosion. I don't think using the pigs to soften the swales necessary this will happen over time anyway, what is the rush? keep the pigs moving from paddock to paddock on a daily basis, pigs rooting is a great way to clear scrub bracken and brambles but probably counter productive on your sward.. Regular dressing with fym and basic slag likely to build soils more quickly. The damage being caused to your land with the current paddock system also concerning.
Thank you so much for your long comment. There are, however, a few things that we cannot do in our climate and situation. Here in Andalusia things like wood chips are used for heating and it's nearly impossible to buy them cheap before they are converted into fuel. We also don't have a farm yard where manure is being accumulated as our bovines walk around the land freely and deposit the manure there. We also try to not have a tractor which prevents us - sometimes sadly - from using the usual implements. Watch th-cam.com/video/pYM8a8ZZFAU/w-d-xo.html to see what the pigs can do. We intend to do more of that.
Hello Granja Caimito This is amazing. I had never heard of 'swales' until I heard the word from you. I went to agriculture college in south-west England some 45 years ago and I don't believe the word was ever used; but then, with us the problem used to be having too much rain in the winter and ditches were needed to help the water to run away or not come onto the land in the first place. With the climate changing a bit, maybe swales will be necessary here too. Do you practice a particular type of agriculture, such as Bio-dynamics or Permaculture? Many years ago, in Australia, Alex Podolinksy was able to reclaim what was called there 'bush' or 'scrub' land by using biodynamics. Best wishes, Luke (from England)
A swale is just a special form of a ditch. Wider and with plants on the berm. We lack those a bit but are working on it. Not even weeds wanted to germinate. You'll find in more recent videos. My thinking is that there is just agriculture. Being a consultant myself I can understand why people need to have their own method :-) We figure out what works here (!) and don't give it a name.
Love your channel! Thanks so much. I live in Gibraltar now but am moving to Portugal to do much the same thing as you. Where did you source your electrical netting from? I emailed premier 1 in the US and they do not seem to europe.
I would let the weeds do their work if you want to build soil considering you plan on grazing it. You can add wood chips around the new trees when you get to planting them.
In this climate with 6 months without rain that is a bit more challenging. You'll see in newer videos. There is also no wood chips as in Andalusia they are used for heating.
I am a former grazing dairy farmer in America. I love the work that you are doing. I have a couple of ideas for you. First on wool, I suggest trying to sell it online to people who want to spin their own yarn for craftwork, if that doesn't work, then you could offer it to local schools for crafts. You could also try felting it to make yurts for your workers by involving craftspeople. Once Covid is over, you could even offer the use of one of your spare buildings to local artisans or students to use for wool and leather crafts, free at first and for rent if it becomes popular. Worse comes to worst, then you could use the wool for mulch. For the swales, green manure crops are almost always profitable if you graze them. If I was doing it, the day I removed the pigs, I would spread a mix of the cheapest stuff you can find at the local coop or grain dealer. Coops almost always have some kinds of grain or other seed crops that have been sitting around for a year or more that they are eager to sell off just to get rid of them. A mix of oats, small grains, sorghum, maize, beans, buckwheat, vegetable seeds, clovers, forage turnips and radishes, rape[canola], hairy vetch, grass seeds, etc. a mix of any or all of them would be great. You could spread it on with one pass on a hand-cranked seeder or from an ATV then lightly rake it in or just lightly mulch it with old hay. For this kind of mulching, hay is best because it should have lots of free grass, clover, and weed seeds. Old because it is cheap, moldy is fine, [but avoid breathing in the mold by using a cloth mask or a bandana like an Old West bank robber.] When it has grown up, I would graze it lightly with the cows, rest it and let it go to seed then graze it with the pigs. The pigs will destroy it but "accidentally" replant it especially the grasses and clovers. The pigs manure and the roots they miss will build the soil. The longer you leave the pigs in the more manure but much less roots. I would take them out as soon as they finished the plants above ground and before they really got to rooting---the grass and clover could then come back from their roots as well as seeds. Message me if you like the idea and have questions.
Reading some of the other comments, I wanted to add that chicory is great in pastures, there are forage chicories available, at least in the US and New Zealand. I am sure that your climate is milder than mine, so sun hemp and some other semi-woody green manures may also be of use. Have you read Russel Smith's book Tree Crops? Permaculture draws a lot of ideas from it. A free PDF version is available on the internet. I don't know about German or Spanish versions. You might consider adding mulberries and persimmons to your wonderful oaks for the hogs.
Hi! Thanks so much for the effort you are putting into your comment. Good thoughts and suggestions. I do appreciate that a lot. I do take notes based on all the comments the videos get and over time you will see us trying them out. However, there is only so much we can do in a day :-) For the moment we need to finish up all the fencing as this was a completely open place with nothing to keep the animals away from anything we might want to plant or seed. We only have this 45ha and no other other place to keep the animals while plants grows. So we build paddocks and rotate as much as possible and here and there we use the concept of a sacrifice paddock where we feed them something else while the plants in the other areas grow. Eventually we will have those 70-80 paddocks I've been talking about and THEN the focus will shift towards planting and seeding. I wish setting all the fence posts were much faster but then what we do is pretty uncommon here. We are the only ones with that much fencing and the only ones with electric fencing too. Feels weird at times ;-)
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Thank you For your response. I saw that you had lots of rocks on the surface, if you have lots of rocks in the ground then it definitely makes setting fence posts much harder. Good luck in your magnificent endeavor.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I also thought of using it as mulch. It isoalates the ground really well against heat in the summer and cold in the winter. And keeps moist in the ground like all mulch. It usually takes 2 years for the wool to break down. So use it for your garden when suitable. This webpage is in swedish, but maybe google translate can help. But the pictures and video are very explanatory as it is. :) www.sarabackmo.se/tackodla-med-ull/
If it was me building the soil on the berms I think I would spread native grass seed first, then cover that seed with spent hay or straw so the grass seed stays. Do this before the rains. At least try it and see how it works. I think chickens could help too going behind the cows and spreading that manure. Just sprinkle food on the cow pies and the chickens will scratch eating the food, bugs and fly larva. Chickens are smarter than you think, it will take no time for them to know where the foods. Chicken will need a mobile coop to go to at night. Sell you wool on line after it’s been cleaned.
I would put woodchips with the idea that it helps to build up mycelium fast, that is gold for soil building and many more positive aspects such as deeper root growth when the weed eventually come.
Not wood chips, they eat up what nitrogen is in the soil. I know there are lots of eucalypt trees, do the utility people prune these. In Australia trees overgrowing roads or under power lines are pruned and the prunings are composted and sold as forest mulch. Seeds in this product don't germinate because of the composting process. The result is a wonderful looking mulch which breaks down over 12 months and most micro fungi love it.
Seeing sheep with undocked tails is sooo weird to me :) but also: gorgeous. (Living in a wet weather -area...it makes sense to cut them short when they are tiny babies because of hygiene-issues.)
I'm not 100% sure but here in Europe I believe more and more of these practices are not allowed anymore. There is another practice - one we should use in the future - to sheer the area around the tail for the very reason you mention.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Uhuh, and in many cases rightfully so. While in the past cliping ears and tails on dogs was a prevention against getting them (torn, bruised etc.etc.) damaged in the fiels (and with no vetcare, a really bad outcome for the dog)... now dogs are pets, there is no further need to butcher those bodyparts. I have never kept sheep myself, so I do not know. But I can imagine a ewe's survivalchances are far better if there is not s sopping wet plaque of manure and other debris constantly touching the vagina-area after giving birth to multiples .... (nobody clips the tails of males...they are usually not living past the first year or so anyway, so far less of an issue.) I love what you are doing here (with the farm I mean). Found your channel a few hours ago, and am wowed!
Bare soil is bad Wood chips that are put on thinly will let plants grow Or put on thickly with trees also planted . The chips would disappear in a few years with the trees taller would let you then plant grasses
French experiments (recent but building on candian BRF research) on soil conservation show mushrooms (wood chips) add humus ans soil structure faster than annual (cover crops or weeds). With your very dry summers as in my region of france, i would mitigate that ’recipe’. Putting sparse wood chips allows for weeds to grow. The weeds provide shade to decompose wood a bit longer into the season ans other soil life. That is my working theory on my land.
Thank you for the suggestion. The challenge is that we are in a FOREST and not a grassland. It's a different situation from when you have an open field and can just replace a crop with another. Another challenge is that we have temperatures from as low as -10C to +45C (all in the shade).
Both are precious resources here and sold for good money. So we rather grow things instead of buying. But then... have a look at more recent videos and the recent change in direction towards planting a forest.
Sheep's wool is definitely a good material for thermal insulation in houses. Perhaps you could contact the people at Projecto Alvelal info@alvelal.es and they might know others in your area who might have some ideas - maybe even find out how to make it into insulation for your own buildings?
You should have charged that farmer for the use of your bulls. You can compost wool. Use it on the ground like you use straw. It will make a decent mulch.
In Spain and Portugal this is a typical landscape. In Spain it's called Dehesa and in Portugal the name for the landscape is Montado. The forest used to be much denser but over the centuries human activity has created an open forest where the oak trees provide the acorns for the pigs and the understory consists mainly of grasses for cattle.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Rockwool isn't great really for insulation. I have it in my own house. Try using high grade aluminium foil in conjunction with rockwool. Need air gap in order for the radiant reflection to work. Loads of videos on TH-cam. Try Attic Foil radiant barrier in search on youtube. I have spray foam under my subfloor. Then I stapled aluminium foil to the joists. Air gap between the insulation and foil. Checked difference with flir camera. Its really a great job.
@@terrkamp Thank you. It's all done since a while and we are not going to do anything to this temporary building. Once we build another one we can consider those ideas. But then we rarely see anything lower than -10C and it's only at night for a few hours. No winter with snow for months here 🙂
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I understand. But it works in hot and cold. Stop the building getting too warm too. Radiation works both ways. So its a general energy efficiency for both climate types. Use perforated foil for moisture escape.
Those swales are really something... Excited to see what it looks like in a couple years. Please do stick around!
For sure. This is a long-term effort and I like to document
I love your videos and look forward to each of them, thank you
Glad you like them!
Amazing work and inspirational! We have a small 60 acre farm in Eastern Washington State, USA that experiences a similar climate in the summer. I appreciate your example, ideas and honesty about your many trials, achievements and things that didn't work out well. As Nelson Mandela once said, "I never lose... I either win or I LEARN". Thanks so much!
That is awesome! And you are so right.
Loving the updates. Its so good to see people working with the Land & the Environment instead of against it. Well done & keep up the great work. Very inspiring. Cheers from Melbourne, Australia.
Thank you! Will do!
always a joy watching your video,s
Glad to hear that
Very good update and yes plant the vetiver in the area that you have a leak from the pond
Thank you so much!
Wool does not spoil. Keep it. It can be spun or felted later, when you have time, or someone with a knitting hobby visits the farm. You can make someone happy with something you don't have a use for at the moment. That has value.
Good point. Need to build the storage space for these things first though.
As a spinner and handwoven I can say that a few wool moths will ruin fleece faster than you can imagine
Has anyone tested if one can bag wool an then vacuum package it? Is this a good idea against wool moths?
Here in Germany I start to compost dirty wool from a very big farmer. It is also good for mulching the garden and is a good nitrogen source.
Amazing work and please keep up the great work, even getting the backhoe stuck creates a new ecosystem
It does. Everything can be part of the solution :-)
The drone is a great tool and such a wonderful visual aid . It is neat to see and learn the water movements through the property, it really does require time and study to be utilized properly. I Have been enjoying your humor mixed with information, the hungry cows were hilarious. Delaying the videos was smart, no need to add stress !
So nice of you. Thanks.
the leakage stream from the dam needs some little rock dams or log dams down its length to slow the water, deposit silt, encourage grass ...
I appreciate your 'wait and see what Mother Nature will do with it" approach. Sometimes listening is probably more important than doing.
Very much so. Thanks.
Your geography looks like my place in Central Texas. I enjoy watching your videos. We have a lot of similarities. On woodchips, I would lightly spread them on the pasture. My best Bermuda plot is full of them, but you have to reach in to find them. Only way I would put them in a swale is if the water stayed long enough to become a mosquito larvae nuisance.
Thanks for the observation with the wood chips on pasture plots.
I believe the Irish traditionally would use some of the wool for housing insulation. Would need more research though.
Yes, wool as insulation makes sense. After all the yurt has wool insulation. I should have thought directly about that. So we are going to save that material somewhere.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito - You can also consider using the raw wool as a weed suppression mulch. In some garden application! As any other organic mulch it will eventually compost and help build soil. Something that area desperately need!
By the general looks of it. The microbiology of that soil is in dire straits. I guess all help should be welcomed. ;-)
@@crpth1 Yes. That is what we had done in the meanwhile.
The Irish did a lot of cool things ...inventing Guiness, leg dancing leprechauns, MUSIC that has no equal for its enthusiasm and wool insulation.
Amazing !!!! I am actually doing the same on my property with a little bit less rainfall . This only proves to me the drastic improvements that can be done by doing this . I don't understand how you don't have 1 Million subscribers just from your content and productivity alone. Keep up the great work !!!!!!!!
Thank you for the encouragement. Where are you located?
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Northern Arizona in the states i have about 210 acres. we get more rain then the low lying desert areas. At the moment i spend 4 months out of the year and I'm in Israel now. I've spent some time down in the Negev and it's amazing what they pull off with minimal water .
If you have access to large amounts of wood chips, laying them only 2-3 inches deep will not prevent the weeds/pioneers from popping through. As far as I've seen, that occurs more at 5-10 inches of chips. Thanks for the videos - its a great project and I'm glad you are documenting it.
Unfortunately the easy access here means >2000 EUR for a big truck load. That big truck load would quickly disappear here. It's not like elsewhere where landscaping companies deliver them for free to get rid of the material. So we need to find other ways.
Clean wool is excellent for comforters, bed rolls or tatami mats which are usually stuffed with silk. You would not have to spend time spinning threads. I love you videos by the way!
Thanks for the tips!
make inquiries about a spinning or weaving coop that might be interested in buying, combing, natural-dyeing your wool & weaving/ knitting it for sale ...
Great video. Waiting for January. Now quite green everything, it surprises that need feed with external for the bulls. Really Hope that rotary grazing is also profitable.
Everybody around here feeds straw for a long time during autumn, winter and summer. It's so sad.
Yes, wool definitely makes excellent insulation and is environmentally friendly. Of course, you want to wash it clean first.
Totally agree!
It would make excellent bedding for the dogs.
As always I enjoyed your update. I have some suggestions that may (or may not!!) be of use to you.
(A) One possibility to help manage the water seeping from the pond in your main swale might be to install another swale that is not so deep about halfway down the slope from the main swale. This could intercept the seepage flow and redirect the water along that contour to better distribute the water laterally across the land further down the slope. I also think your plan to start planting vetiver grass in that area is a good idea.
(B) I noticed that when Juan was trying to get the back hoe out of that mud hole the front wheels were having to drag their way through a huge amount of mud thus making the job that much more difficult. Whenever we get bogged in really soft and wet ground in a 4WD vehicle we use a ramp (such as a long narrow sheet of plywood) to wedge under each wheel in the direction we wish to go (forward or reverse) to help lift the vehicle up and out. If you were to do that with the front wheels the back hoe would have a much easier time pulling the machine out. Cheers! RF
Thanks for your suggestions. Yes. We'll put some vetiver there. I think it's ok for that structure to be leaky. It will probably become less leaky once there is more organic matter in the berm. At the moment it's all sandy dirt and rocks.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito - I believe you're correct it will eventually stop leaking with organic matter build up. Although you can boost the leak "repair" with a few ducks! When you're all set and done... Please check "Arroz de pato à Minhota". Recipe of duck with rice. So typical in the Minho region of Portugal! Delicious! ;-)
With or without the leak I still advise checking the duck recipe. LOL 😂
@@crpth1 Thanks. Sounds good. I actually am thinking about getting ducks in the near future. ;-)
your soil looks just like the soil we have here in the Hill Country of Texas.... rocky, rocky, rocky and NO topsoil, just rocks... great information to use... great video
Yup. Sounds about the same. But then as China can turn deserts into good crop land... It can be done, if one really wants to.
Recently, i read chicory plants resist drought and a permanent prairie composed of grasses, clovers, chicory and others ( plantain, etc) have excellent soil retaining and upgrading, mineral and protein content for cows and beef. If interested, look up ’la vache heureuse’ in France.
Thanks for sharing!
It looks like one could herd pigs with a drone...
Yeah, I initially thought the same thing yet I et they'd bolt through a fance, wall, swale or German guy running with a camera.
You are making me think about that ... 3-4 drones and some AI ...
The swales look great. You mentioned what to do with the rock problem. "Living Traditions Homestead" in Missouri US mentioned a tool attachment for the tractor that removes most of the rock in the soil. If you could use this maybe you could plant new native prairie grasses. You can do one section of land a year to remove rocks and place it at the bottom of the swales. Some could be used for gabions for gates and fence walls. putting rock in the bottom of the swales might make the water to run clean/clear through the land? Good luck with the farm...looks good so far!
Thanks for your suggestions. You've been watching a video from 2020. A lot has changed since then ;-)
Removing rocks has been a topic for a while. This region here in Andalusia is full of rocks. There is hardly any topsoil left and what we have is basically exposed subsoil where the rocks belong to. The situation is a bit special and we need to build up instead of removing more.
Fascinating! 💕
wool can be used as pretty good fertilizer / soil improvement for smaller areas - Btw. it is also a good material to mulch young trees!
Right. We did give it a try. You will see that soon.
Please check if you got area suitable for growing beets, you could feed animals with leaves when fresh and roots could be stored, beets are very productive and 50 tons from hectare it's not a problem.
That sounds like a very nice idea. We will begin with "plants" after we've covered "infrastructure". The farm has been an open area of 45 ha with no suitable fencing at all and that means the animals would eat whatever wants to grow.
Nice video. If you want to use the wool you can use it as mulch/ fertilizer. It would also help with keeping moisture in the soil. Keeping raw (unwashed) wool for a long time only invites pests, not a good idea. Speaking as someone that spins, knits and works raw wool regularly
Thanks for the info!
Have you considered getting hair sheep? They would save you the trouble of shearing and you wouldn't need to figure out what to do with the wool. My brother raised them for years in Virginia. They can handle the heat and cold quite well.
The sheep at the moment are more of the kind "they are there". It wasn't entirely intentional.
Halfway into this video, I am amazed that I have yet to see a sapling oak! Maybe near the swales on the broken ground , when the acorns on the ground are dense, raking some of the acorns in such a way that they can germinate and replenish the oak component.
This land is part of the Spanish Dehesa system and that means ranching. During the 6 months long dry period of the year the animals will eat everything that is green unless kept off. We bought this property in 2017 and you are seeing the land after just 2 years of different management.
Keep watching. There a lot more to see. It is getting better.
do you have any plans to pick up all the rocks and have nice pastures?
Yes. The challenge is to find someone with the machine. The search is ongoing. These rocks are better used on the road instead of where they are now.
This is the bus the whole World should hop on.
I wonder if you seeded some cold season grasses into your pastures, id it would improve the forage production in the cool and rainy months... some of them are pretty hardy and should just fall dormant when it's hot and grow when it is cool, so you would have a good growth year round
In more recent videos you will see us seeding a lot and we seed with the help of the animals as well.
Un nuevo subscriber, buen trabajo.
Bienvenido y muchas gracias!
You could experiment with creating some kind of shelter for the animals perhaps, using the wool for insulation to see how it works. Good insulation could be good against the cold during winter (if it again becomes as cold as it was this winter). I'm uncertain whether it also would help keep the heat of summer out as well? Living in Norway, keeping heat out is not something I have much experience with. ;-p
Wool as insulation works for cold and heat. We have a Mongolian yurt and it has wool insulation. Works reasonably well.
The good thing about our animals is that they are used to the climate and cope well without any shelter. Especially the Iberian pig is known for its ability to live without shelter year round.
Withe wool you can do cushions. The wool must be “vareada” (in spanish)
Woodchips are great, I have used them to both suppress weeds and make a fungal based grow medium for everything. It acts like a sponge and keep the moisture where plants can access it. The best part is, it seems to improve the soil over the years. I have a limited amount of it, so I tried to make another patch with straw, the woodchipped area is far superior in water retention and fertility. Try to make a test, put some potatoes on top of the dead dirt and put on top 10cm woodchips, wait 3-4 months and then harvest the potatoes. Observe how it without any work or composting transform the dirt and make it into fertile soil.
I had a similar very stoned area, my observations limited it down to wind removing the leaves and leaving the area without any organic matter. A single olive tree that drops very small leaves that is not easily blown away was like an island in the stoned area.
Wool can be used for insulation, but getting hair sheep is maybe a better solution.
Thank you for this interesting idea with the potatoes. I was also thinking about using straw as alternative but as you say woodchips seem to be more effective.
Why potatoes? Is there any special property they have over other plants? Or was it just what you available?
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I wanted to try no dig potatoes, this summer I will try with sweet potatoes, it was just a over the winter experiment for fun, and I had some old potatoes at hand. But if you have access to woodchips or getting a wood chipper for pruning's like I do , it is well worth the effort to improve the soil with no following work. Composting is a hassle here in Spain, Chip everything up and just lay it on the dirt is my experience so far and my former dead hillside is transforming to living soil with easy to pull weeds. It is the fungal dominated topsoil that seems to be the key. Hot compost kills the fungi and grow bacteria, cold composting mimicking nature is far superior.
Wool is very good for heat insulation, and also sound insulation.
you can try to create some extra soil via composting
We have started to do so. Watch out for the video for March
What about using figs to produce very leafy growth, you would need to keep good control of them as they very bushy, maybe that is what you want. Please do not use the invasive Eucalyptus as they drain all the water with their amazing root systems.
I would have never thought about Eucalyptus. They have them nearby in Portugal and I know ...
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito - Yep! Stay away from Eucalyptus. In Portugal it was a self inflicted plague! From the 50's vison of "land development"!
A terrible monoculture that imposed a toll on nature to harsh to bare!
Thankfully nowadays there's the political will to help contain it. Truth be told it's not easy since an enormous industry developed around the Eucalyptus and let's not forget pine trees! Both developed into monocultures' that occupy huge tracts of land... wildfires any one?! I guess we know the unfortunate answer! ;-)
Wouldn't it be an idea to get rid of some cows to allow the grasses to grow larger etc? And in a few years when your gras production is up to speed, then get those animals back?
We try to do holisticmanagement.org/land/mob-grazing/ and should actually have a larger herd. At the moment we can have them in a 5000m2 paddock for more than a day when there is moderate growth after some 4 weeks of rest. What we lack at the moment is the 70-80 paddocks we have planned. We only have 22 available for the main rotation and as we need to keep the bulls separate from the cows it gets a bit tight. Much more fence posts coming ...
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito With good exterior fences you should be able to train your cows to temporary single wire fences allowing you to have an infinite number of paddocks. One trick I found to keeping the bulls separate was to keep a few cows with them, as a seasonal grazing dairy I used old cows that hadn't bred back to fatten up before slaughter. Look up Spyder fence from New Zealand.
Thanks for the video.
Looks quite cold in Andalusia...
It was!
To anwser your question at 15:00, I do think putting wood chips or other types of mulch would deffinitely help, but should be helped by planting or seading some plants or crops. In africa it's a much used practice in combination with Nitrogen fixing plants to help build healthier soil quicker. The sooner the quality and diversity of micro-organisms and fungi in the soil goes up, so does the water retaining ability of the land and the soil starts to build.
So the idea with the straw and the pigs is a good one since it helps make mulch, but maybe they should be helped a little more by planting trees or crops after they foraged the berms.
Good. Yes. The thing with the wood chips will probably be it. It's a question of sourcing them. I envy folks a bit who get them delivered free. Here they have to be trucked in from afar. Still working on that.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Maybe some trees need cutting or trimming, some dead branches would do. Maybe there is a woodchipper you can borrow or rent?
@@fab199105 We actually did just that and used the wood chips around some new trees.
@@fab199105 We actually did just that. However, it does not create the amount of material we would need to cover those large berms. But something is better than nothing and so we applied it in our little food forest in the making.
Varear means struck the wool with a stick. Hat smoots it and helps cleaning it.
To top off your swales I would suggest a chain flail muck spreader. Mix wood chips fifty fifty with farm yard manure and add seed, grass, beans etc you will then be able to drive along the swales and spread across both the swale and the berm, advise you do this just before the rain this will prevent soil damage by you tractor. The idea of mixing the wood chip with fym is to encourage its breaking down into soil, in that climate likely to take many years other wise. To mix your fym with the wood chip use a concrete pad if possible and your back hoe. I would also suggest hand spreading grass seed over areas damaged by the tractor to prevent a permanent open sore developing which will lead to soil damage and erosion. I don't think using the pigs to soften the swales necessary this will happen over time anyway, what is the rush? keep the pigs moving from paddock to paddock on a daily basis, pigs rooting is a great way to clear scrub bracken and brambles but probably counter productive on your sward.. Regular dressing with fym and basic slag likely to build soils more quickly. The damage being caused to your land with the current paddock system also concerning.
Thank you so much for your long comment. There are, however, a few things that we cannot do in our climate and situation.
Here in Andalusia things like wood chips are used for heating and it's nearly impossible to buy them cheap before they are converted into fuel.
We also don't have a farm yard where manure is being accumulated as our bovines walk around the land freely and deposit the manure there. We also try to not have a tractor which prevents us - sometimes sadly - from using the usual implements.
Watch th-cam.com/video/pYM8a8ZZFAU/w-d-xo.html to see what the pigs can do. We intend to do more of that.
Hello Granja Caimito
This is amazing. I had never heard of 'swales' until I heard the word from you. I went to agriculture college in south-west England some 45 years ago and I don't believe the word was ever used; but then, with us the problem used to be having too much rain in the winter and ditches were needed to help the water to run away or not come onto the land in the first place. With the climate changing a bit, maybe swales will be necessary here too.
Do you practice a particular type of agriculture, such as Bio-dynamics or Permaculture? Many years ago, in Australia, Alex Podolinksy was able to reclaim what was called there 'bush' or 'scrub' land by using biodynamics.
Best wishes, Luke (from England)
A swale is just a special form of a ditch. Wider and with plants on the berm. We lack those a bit but are working on it. Not even weeds wanted to germinate. You'll find in more recent videos.
My thinking is that there is just agriculture. Being a consultant myself I can understand why people need to have their own method :-) We figure out what works here (!) and don't give it a name.
Love your channel! Thanks so much. I live in Gibraltar now but am moving to Portugal to do much the same thing as you. Where did you source your electrical netting from? I emailed premier 1 in the US and they do not seem to europe.
Our supplier for all things electric fencing is from Germany but they deliver all over Europe: weidezaun.info
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito you’re a star, I will use them then. Not as though Germany needed a boost for their trade but you’ve helped your nation 😁🙂👍🏼
I would let the weeds do their work if you want to build soil considering you plan on grazing it. You can add wood chips around the new trees when you get to planting them.
In this climate with 6 months without rain that is a bit more challenging. You'll see in newer videos. There is also no wood chips as in Andalusia they are used for heating.
Not sure if fig leaves could be toxic for your animals
Quick research shows a few articles about dead cows eating them but it seems to depend on the exact species amongst the family of 850 plants...
I am a former grazing dairy farmer in America. I love the work that you are doing. I have a couple of ideas for you. First on wool, I suggest trying to sell it online to people who want to spin their own yarn for craftwork, if that doesn't work, then you could offer it to local schools for crafts. You could also try felting it to make yurts for your workers by involving craftspeople. Once Covid is over, you could even offer the use of one of your spare buildings to local artisans or students to use for wool and leather crafts, free at first and for rent if it becomes popular. Worse comes to worst, then you could use the wool for mulch.
For the swales, green manure crops are almost always profitable if you graze them. If I was doing it, the day I removed the pigs, I would spread a mix of the cheapest stuff you can find at the local coop or grain dealer. Coops almost always have some kinds of grain or other seed crops that have been sitting around for a year or more that they are eager to sell off just to get rid of them. A mix of oats, small grains, sorghum, maize, beans, buckwheat, vegetable seeds, clovers, forage turnips and radishes, rape[canola], hairy vetch, grass seeds, etc. a mix of any or all of them would be great. You could spread it on with one pass on a hand-cranked seeder or from an ATV then lightly rake it in or just lightly mulch it with old hay. For this kind of mulching, hay is best because it should have lots of free grass, clover, and weed seeds. Old because it is cheap, moldy is fine, [but avoid breathing in the mold by using a cloth mask or a bandana like an Old West bank robber.] When it has grown up, I would graze it lightly with the cows, rest it and let it go to seed then graze it with the pigs. The pigs will destroy it but "accidentally" replant it especially the grasses and clovers. The pigs manure and the roots they miss will build the soil. The longer you leave the pigs in the more manure but much less roots. I would take them out as soon as they finished the plants above ground and before they really got to rooting---the grass and clover could then come back from their roots as well as seeds. Message me if you like the idea and have questions.
Reading some of the other comments, I wanted to add that chicory is great in pastures, there are forage chicories available, at least in the US and New Zealand. I am sure that your climate is milder than mine, so sun hemp and some other semi-woody green manures may also be of use. Have you read Russel Smith's book Tree Crops? Permaculture draws a lot of ideas from it. A free PDF version is available on the internet. I don't know about German or Spanish versions. You might consider adding mulberries and persimmons to your wonderful oaks for the hogs.
Hi! Thanks so much for the effort you are putting into your comment. Good thoughts and suggestions. I do appreciate that a lot. I do take notes based on all the comments the videos get and over time you will see us trying them out.
However, there is only so much we can do in a day :-)
For the moment we need to finish up all the fencing as this was a completely open place with nothing to keep the animals away from anything we might want to plant or seed. We only have this 45ha and no other other place to keep the animals while plants grows. So we build paddocks and rotate as much as possible and here and there we use the concept of a sacrifice paddock where we feed them something else while the plants in the other areas grow.
Eventually we will have those 70-80 paddocks I've been talking about and THEN the focus will shift towards planting and seeding.
I wish setting all the fence posts were much faster but then what we do is pretty uncommon here. We are the only ones with that much fencing and the only ones with electric fencing too. Feels weird at times ;-)
I have not read that book yet but similar ones and yes, that's more or less the plan here.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Thank you For your response. I saw that you had lots of rocks on the surface, if you have lots of rocks in the ground then it definitely makes setting fence posts much harder. Good luck in your magnificent endeavor.
@@leoscheibelhut940 These rocks are not only on the surface. You dig and you get half rocks, half dirt out. Quite a challenge
Wool is good building insulation, stuffing against wind infiltration, dog or other animal bedding, mulch for plants, bushes and trees.
I like the idea of mulch.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I also thought of using it as mulch. It isoalates the ground really well against heat in the summer and cold in the winter. And keeps moist in the ground like all mulch. It usually takes 2 years for the wool to break down. So use it for your garden when suitable.
This webpage is in swedish, but maybe google translate can help. But the pictures and video are very explanatory as it is. :)
www.sarabackmo.se/tackodla-med-ull/
If it was me building the soil on the berms I think I would spread native grass seed first, then cover that seed with spent hay or straw so the grass seed stays. Do this before the rains. At least try it and see how it works. I think chickens could help too going behind the cows and spreading that manure. Just sprinkle food on the cow pies and the chickens will scratch eating the food, bugs and fly larva. Chickens are smarter than you think, it will take no time for them to know where the foods. Chicken will need a mobile coop to go to at night. Sell you wool on line after it’s been cleaned.
Partially that is what we did since December 2020. The chickens are about to come as well.
I would put woodchips with the idea that it helps to build up mycelium fast, that is gold for soil building and many more positive aspects such as deeper root growth when the weed eventually come.
Yes. I think so too.
If you put woodchip down, please innoculate mycorrhizal fungi, it will speed up the breakdown and does wonders for plant roots.
The Quercus ilex seems to have that relationship. It might actually be there already. But yes, good point
You could use the wool as an long time fertilizer - search for it
Yes. I read about that. Need to find it again. Other ideas?
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Just saw this th-cam.com/video/MUoCaExtqV8/w-d-xo.html
@@Spriing Pretty cool. I'm following Richard and probably would have stumbled upon this as well. Thank you for sharing.
Not wood chips, they eat up what nitrogen is in the soil. I know there are lots of eucalypt trees, do the utility people prune these. In Australia trees overgrowing roads or under power lines are pruned and the prunings are composted and sold as forest mulch. Seeds in this product don't germinate because of the composting process. The result is a wonderful looking mulch which breaks down over 12 months and most micro fungi love it.
Around here there are only holm oaks. Eucalyptus plantations are in Portugal. Very far away.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I still would not recommend wood chips unless well composted
Seeing sheep with undocked tails is sooo weird to me :) but also: gorgeous.
(Living in a wet weather -area...it makes sense to cut them short when they are tiny babies because of hygiene-issues.)
I'm not 100% sure but here in Europe I believe more and more of these practices are not allowed anymore. There is another practice - one we should use in the future - to sheer the area around the tail for the very reason you mention.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Uhuh, and in many cases rightfully so.
While in the past cliping ears and tails on dogs was a prevention against getting them (torn, bruised etc.etc.) damaged in the fiels (and with no vetcare, a really bad outcome for the dog)... now dogs are pets, there is no further need to butcher those bodyparts.
I have never kept sheep myself, so I do not know.
But I can imagine a ewe's survivalchances are far better if there is not s sopping wet plaque of manure and other debris constantly touching the vagina-area after giving birth to multiples .... (nobody clips the tails of males...they are usually not living past the first year or so anyway, so far less of an issue.)
I love what you are doing here (with the farm I mean).
Found your channel a few hours ago, and am wowed!
@@muurrarium9460 Welcome aboard! Enjoy!
I would say sprinkle wood chips lightly so that the grass can also grow.
We would have done so if wood chips were available here but there none
Wool Can be used as great insulation material
If it is a waste product, it doesn’t decay and no bugs live on it, typically it is too expensive to use
Right. In the past when people only had certain materials their price wasn't important but their function. And in our case it's "waste" but has value.
Bare soil is bad
Wood chips that are put on thinly will let plants grow
Or put on thickly with trees also planted .
The chips would disappear in a few years with the trees taller would let you then plant grasses
Good. So you guys seem to agree that wood chips in general is the way to go.
French experiments (recent but building on candian BRF research) on soil conservation show mushrooms (wood chips) add humus ans soil structure faster than annual (cover crops or weeds). With your very dry summers as in my region of france, i would mitigate that ’recipe’. Putting sparse wood chips allows for weeds to grow. The weeds provide shade to decompose wood a bit longer into the season ans other soil life. That is my working theory on my land.
Thanks for that. The chips are then additional food for the other plants. Nice.
Grow Sudangrass... it has 1m long roots and holds the water.
Thank you for the suggestion. The challenge is that we are in a FOREST and not a grassland. It's a different situation from when you have an open field and can just replace a crop with another. Another challenge is that we have temperatures from as low as -10C to +45C (all in the shade).
min 27:20 Isn't wool a nice fertilizer? ^^
Yes, it is. We learned that and did apply it already.
15min ... not so keen on wood chips as mulch ... straw is better ... breaks down quicker, not so much lignin, which needs fungi to decompose it ...
Both are precious resources here and sold for good money. So we rather grow things instead of buying. But then... have a look at more recent videos and the recent change in direction towards planting a forest.
Wool has been used as mulch for crops.
Yes. I learned that and we will give it a try with the old wool that we have.
Sheep's wool is definitely a good material for thermal insulation in houses. Perhaps you could contact the people at Projecto Alvelal info@alvelal.es and they might know others in your area who might have some ideas - maybe even find out how to make it into insulation for your own buildings?
The yurt has sheep wool insulation. So yes. That's a good point.
Thanks for pointing out to www.alvelal.net
Funny to see sheep with tails. We dock ours to control blowfly strike.
It's not a common practice in Spain. Never saw sheep without tails ;-)
Very nice
Thank you so much!
Wool mattress,,washed cleaned,,,,
Wool is good for the garden
It most definitely is.
You should have charged that farmer for the use of your bulls. You can compost wool. Use it on the ground like you use straw. It will make a decent mulch.
We actually did mulch with the wool a few times already
Why so many oak trees ?
In Spain and Portugal this is a typical landscape. In Spain it's called Dehesa and in Portugal the name for the landscape is Montado. The forest used to be much denser but over the centuries human activity has created an open forest where the oak trees provide the acorns for the pigs and the understory consists mainly of grasses for cattle.
A rock picking Roomba would be nice...
It would be great!
Seems like you can just move the pigs with the drone
Could be done but they won't stay ;-)
Meine Oma hat überzählige Schafwolle als Mulch benützt.
LG aus Bayern
Wir auch 🤠
Sheep's wool to insulate the dwelling house?
We have rock wool. But yes, that would certainly work with a lot more wool.
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito Rockwool isn't great really for insulation. I have it in my own house. Try using high grade aluminium foil in conjunction with rockwool. Need air gap in order for the radiant reflection to work. Loads of videos on TH-cam. Try Attic Foil radiant barrier in search on youtube. I have spray foam under my subfloor. Then I stapled aluminium foil to the joists. Air gap between the insulation and foil. Checked difference with flir camera. Its really a great job.
@@terrkamp Thank you. It's all done since a while and we are not going to do anything to this temporary building. Once we build another one we can consider those ideas.
But then we rarely see anything lower than -10C and it's only at night for a few hours. No winter with snow for months here 🙂
@@ProjectGranjaCaimito I understand. But it works in hot and cold. Stop the building getting too warm too. Radiation works both ways. So its a general energy efficiency for both climate types. Use perforated foil for moisture escape.
@@terrkamp Yes. I know 🙂Thanks a lot.
You name a dog nummer acht?
She was always missing when I counted them and so she earned her name.
I would put wood chips and plant sunflowers
We do have access to any of the organic "waste" material like elsewhere. Wood chips are a heating source here and sold for high prices.
Sheep fleeces make good insulation.
They do. We use them once a year as mulch around trees.
insulation = wool