Do you want to see an in-depth video on each of the trees we planted in the food forest? Let me know in the comments below! Here's the swale article I mention in the video: www.rootsreconnected.com/articles/swales-101

Very envious of this garden. What a nice thing ! And just 2 years.

This was the video I've been waiting for. Its awesome to see the difference from when you first dug the swales and how well they are doing... It would be cool to see a tour of the swales during a big rain and see how they well they work.

Hi Dutch Farmer. I salute you for your efforts and enthusiasm. As a Portuguese ex-farmer in one of the driest and hottest regions of Portugal, I know exactly how incredibly difficult your task is and will be in the future. You seem pretty resilient and you will need a lot of resilience to succeed in your endevours. I will not patronise you or give you lessons, you seem to know your stuff, but allow me to offer you some positive inputs from my experience (these are no rules, just reports from my experience): 1) Use the Eucalyptus as windbreaks instead of your pioneer tree. Find the prevailing wind, specially in summer and plant rows of Eucalyptus to shelter your property or crops as much as possible. The dry wind is the most dangerous aspect. As pioneers they will use all the water available for your crops and you will have to irrigate a lot more. There are also some concerns about allelopathic effects on other plants. 2) Plant your trees a bit bigger. They are too small to compete and to be able to seach for water efficiently in the lower layers of soil. If you plant so small you will have to irrigate without stoping all summer long. 3) Clear the green vegetation around your new plants, dig a shallow pit with the tree in the middle and mulch heavily with large chunks of woodchips. Avoid using fine compost as mulch, it gets hydrophobic as it dries and you need all the water you can get. At those high temperatures, all the carbon in the soil tends to be mineralised fast by the microorganisms and I believe this is the limiting factor for soil improvement. Feed the soil with as much carbon as you can get and consider using molasses in your irrigation water to improve carbon content in the soil. Good luck!

As a farmer like you, I am happy for your persistence in restoring the land by collaborating with nature.

Your effort to support your local environment is so beautiful. The food forest already looks fantastic and healthy! May your property continue to prosper!

I love the boulders right next to your property. It makes me want to climb them

I want to thank you for this video. I am not a person who regularly comments but now I have the need to. Seeing how working smarter and not harder can impact the environment we are sharing with the rest of the flora and fauna really did inspire me. You inspired me to change my garden to implement more native plants and plants that are not native, but due to climate change, are drought hardy which is now a must have. You are one of the persons that really makes a difference, in nature , but also you can change a way of thinking for a simple viewer that stumbles on your video. Videos like this really are a teaching treasure, and the way you explain every step in your reasoning of doing things really resonates with a lot of people.

yes please!!! I would like to hear about all of the plants!!!

Love to see y'all thriving, best wishes!

I live in Austin and I am totally fascinated what you are doing. Because of this video, I looked up Mark Shepard and am going to order his book from the library.

It feels like just weeks ago you were showing the eucalypts and other support plants going in, and now to see the HUGE trunks and see the next stage of succession starting to grow next to them is SO exciting! Absolutely love seeing this beautiful project moving into it's ne t stage already! Yall are doing fabulous work on this land!

I Remember reading an account of an early settler to North America. As they moved into the land to select a good place to settle, they found forests of various kinds of nuts that had obviously been cared for and cultivated by the indigenous peoples before them. When I thought of how long it would take to grow and care for these kinds of mature food forests, it saddened me to think of the expansion of the Europeans on the land, their not knowing the value of the forests and their clear cutting for other kinds of agriculture. I am so buoyed by the optimism and long term thinking of your videos. Thank you for creating these fascinating and informative pieces. More, please.

My parents both immigrated to Canada from Holland when they were young. I could listen to you your accent all day 😅. Beautiful eco system you have developed. A joy to watch it flourish

The food forest is already "manifique". We lived in Botswana for many years and paw-paws grew wild in our garden. Our variety was the tastiest fruit you can imagine. The food forest with it's bio diversity is fantastic. "Vous assurez un avenir merveilleux à votre famille". Wishing you guys all the luck in the world....❤

Your property landscape is beautiful with different elements, shapes, and levels. You have done great transformation to the land, it looks happier and will surely give back happiness to you, family, and community.

Fantástico trabalho, obrigada por escolherem Portugal, obrigado por estarem a restaurar a terra, obrigada por estarem a cuidar do planeta no nosso querido país 🇵🇹 que Deus vos abençoe e proteja sempre 🙏✨

You and your wife are giving your land a Beautiful Love Offering. I am very excited for your Family 💜🦋

As much as I love you showing us what you accomplished, I'd also like to see your day-to-day life and how you go about living in the moment. So, smaller scale.

Such a difference 2 yrs makes.

Wat een prachtig landschap zo en heel inspirerend om te zien al die variaties in fruit bomen. Het landschap is steeds meer in zijn element. Echt prachtig wat jullie gedaan hebben. Hard werken maar heel slim aangepakt. Ga zo door, love it!

These videos are great. Especially for us beginners. Keep them coming. May God continue to bless you and your family.

Best ever definition of 'gardening'. It sits well with the definition of "weed" .... "Dig everything up and whatever grows back is a weed". Het boek van Sepp Holzer is twee dagen geleden aangekomen.... Hartelijk dank voor de aanbeveling.❤

Thank you so much for these videos. So exciting to see the speed of the transformation from a barren land to lush abundant landscape. Do keep the updates coming!

You seem to be more successful than a few other homesteaders

Yes, yes, yes! Your journey is so amazing. Thanks for sharing the process!

*I'd love to see more about your food forest. Loved that there was next to no bare soil anywhere, the abundance of flowers and grasses plus all the food. Several other youtubers in Portugal constantly talk about the fire risk and laws concerning grasses and other things that dry out and become a fire risk, is that something you could maybe talk about a little bit?

Gosh, what labour and brains can accomplish in just two years. Amazing as well as educative.

Amazing job. You guys are doing great. Can’t wait to see the garden all grown up in a couple of years.

It's really fun to see all of your work and the progress. So many of these youtube channels just show the destruction and start, but your planning and continuous work show what this can really be. Love seeing it! I also love your sentiment of providing food for more than just your family with the forest for the wildlife.

Absolutely fascinating! You are miles beyond the normal homesteader! I love all your videos!

For your peach fungus problem, arborist wood chips would help a lot or clean sawdust and aged manure or even very rotten wood and aged manure if you have it. I fixed a similar problem that way. Lovely food forest, really enjoyed the video

Yes please dive deeper! I don't mind a 2 hour long video, I would love it!

I really like the amount of information you put out. Good timing of how much info u put out. Awesome gardening Project

Thank you… don’t let it be too long between videos… Love it… amazing

We grew up with about 10, 100+ year old mulberry bushes along the driveway (these were at least 6-8 feet tall). Every year we would pick them all the berries and eat as many as we could then use the rest to make mulberry syrup. Which is still my absolute favorite syrup, even better than maple syrup. If you ever get any extras, I highly recommend you try it.

I just had to sell my 10 acres because of some health stuff. To see what you've done in 2 years gives me hope to try again! I'd like to see a full tour.

What a huge transformation!!!! From almost desert to a beautiful young forest!! You Dutch farmer and your family have quite planned very well of your plans for the transformation and executed even better than your plans!!!!👏👏👏 Very well done!!! Can't wait to see your next episode!!

So beautiful from senegal

Thank you for this video. So many lovely comments here!

I saw your place when you started out, so wow, its coming on so well

Well done! I love how wild your plantings are in sum.

You are an amazing couple!!! I could watch a video of you every day ☺ and never get tired. There is so much knowledge and hardwork AND progress in your work, it is surreal. What an awesome experience and example for your kids.

Love the enthusiasm you radiate in your videos, really inspiring! Also would love the hear more in-depth about the vegetation you planted. Groetjes uit Nederland :)

that cockerel cry at the end was just perfectly timed. It looks AMAZING

Your hard work and enthusiasm inspire me to do more with my own garden. I love following the development of your little pardise.

A 10 hours podcast of you telling us about all the species would be fun! More realistically a somewhat interactive map with all the trees and shrubs and herbs would be awesome to browse through, although a lot of effort to set up (I think). Maybe some time in the future! Love to see this project flourishing, keep up the great work!

Amazing work ! The results are already looking formidable

Your vision, hard work, and your growing knowledge because of your efforts to transform this land are truly inspiring. Recognizing that you are not just an owner of the land, but more importantly, you are a steward of it is very wise. We should all follow your example by being stewards of our planet, our fellow humans, and all of the animal and plant life on earth. Whether we live in a cramped city apartment or in a wide open land, we are all part of this garden of Eden and we are all capable of helping it thrive in big or small measures. Our reward is living in our garden of Eden and being able to share in its bounty. I keep watching your videos just to remind myself of this.

It's a huge difference in s short time, and great to see the perspective of it all. I think it can be disheartening for some to think it's not happening fast enough when you're in the thick of it, but regeneration takes time. This shows that actually nature is working with you with what she has.

you have the most beautiful land... I love to see what you are growing and I also love the very big beautful rocky landscape around you.

lf memory serves me right, you had a topographical study of your land before you embarked on any development. That topo study made you conscious of the natural waterflow of your land, thus helping enormously in your decisions.

Thank you for sharing your journey here in Portugal. I have been following you before and was quite surprised and excited when I first saw your videos from here. Would be great if you could take us through the species you planted I am super curious what works well in our conditions. Good luck and looking forward your next videos!

excellent job!!... Your home will be even more amazing!!!

I could listen to you for hours! Its just amazing what you have done!

Your work is exceptional. A few more years is gonna be paradaise. Peaches are almost impossible to maintain without desease ( specially leaf curl) even with chemichal aplications. But they still produce a lot. What suprise me the most were the almonds. Do you have irrigation going on on those swale trees? The eucaliptus will regrow even after 2 or 3 ground cuts. You may want to add "olaia" as a native (well, native from most eurasia :)) nitro fixer with really beautiful blossoms.

Love to hear you talk for hours and hours about the system. Super fascinating and I feel like people are learning a lot.

Thanks for sharing and explaining your planting system. What an amazing project!

Beautiful and I so appreciate all of your videos. I wasn't surprised to hear you mention Mr Shepard too. Love all!

With regard to the eucalyptus trees, have you looked at the mixed eucalyptus/horticulture systems in Africa? The trees are on a short coppice rotation to provide poles for construction, firewood or charcoal, allowing the space around them to be used for maize, beans, onions, green veg etc. At coppicing, three or four shoots are allowed to develop through to about the size of the "big" tree in your video. The poles are good for construction/fencing or simply firewood. I would think a similar coppicing strategy would work for you until such time as the other trees reach as size which outcompetes the eucalyptus.

Man, can't imagine the amount of satisfaction one can feel when they see the seed they planted slowly grow into a giant tree ❤❤❤

Wondwerful progress. So blessed. Thank you. Delightful!!!

Great to see how well things are going and what a progress you two made. Thanks for so much enthusiasm and inspiration.❤

Yes, please go into depth about the various plants/trees! Love what you do and how you do it! Peace from Northern California.

You and your family are achieving something wonderful. It is a pleasure to watch.

Thanks & Respect for your vision of what nature is about, it sound's like a deep breath of nice & fresh air .....respect.

more in depts about your plants would ne really nice! Loved this video. it was a really good example on the philosophy behind permaculture.

So interesting to see the different plants and layers. I would love for you to delve deeper into the various layers, guilds and systems. Amazing growth after only 2 years. The great thing is that this system can be applied to any size land, not only big acreages.

I love your videos so much! Great work! I was wondering though, what do you do for forest fire prevention?

spring in Portugal is nice and look so much advanced than here i am in Ile de France. But i'm happy anyway my garden is blossoming and the vegetation growing nice since mid march, despite a lot of rain. Trees are amazing, for exemple i have planted my cherry tree taken from a random seed growing from my compost 3 years ago, and i never seen a tree growing so fast, i has grow 4 meters in 3 years and start flowering nicely this year, the trunk already 8 cm in diameter at his base. Around i did a no dig culture with a lot of horse manure each winter as cover.

I love seeing all your progress! Congratulations!!!

I'm excited about your artichokes! It gets a little cold here for them to perennialize where I live in Texas, but I had a few come back and make early buds in my little Food Forest Garden. We've had trouble with snails too on young seedlings, and also pill bugs. Pulling the mulch away from them seems to help. I'm planning on doing that just during our rainy Spring when the snails are out and the plants are still small.

Thank you for this follow up. I enjoyed it so much. To see the energy around you - where there was just depleted barren ground - is inspiring. Onwards and upwards - or rather (thinking water and roots) pepper and wider.

Love your passion for your chosen path, your vision, and your stewardship of the Earth. Obrigada!

Thanks for the update. I love to see the evolution, you are on the right track ! I am for sure interested to see more in-depth video's, please!

Personally I love to hear you talking about your land and all that you have planted and what is coming up on its own. Many of the different things you talk about are new to me coming from Ohio years ago and now living in Normandy . I somewhat regret that I didn't choose a place further south as you have because this is definitely not the sunniest of regions but I must say my garden is quite the paradise and I love it in each season other maybe than winter. I will be looking forward to your next vlog.

Great video! I'm starting a food forest in Southern Spain and documenting it on my channel, so its great to see another relatively close by. Do you mind me asking where you got your fruit trees from? I am looking at getting lots this year, but haven't found a source yet. Thank you.

Awesome video update. Great to see the success of all your hard work.👍

It's filling in one tree at the time! It looks beautiful! Blessings!

Amazing achievement. Thanks for showing.

So so so impressive what you achieved in just 2 years. I remember your first videos of this bare place. I too am the stewardess of a similar piece of ecologically "dead" land by the sea in Ireland, but I am many years older than you so it takes about an hour to plant a single tree of the compacted and acidic soil hitting bed rock most of the time. But I try my best to give it back to nature in a better condition than I "found" it. Thank you for your tremendous inspiration!

I really love those general Update videos.

I could listen to you for hours and hours talking about the plants and your food forest. :)

Looking fantastic, I am sure all the local fauna is very grateful as well. Really like your channel.

You have done an amazing job.

My wife and I would love a video deep diving into the various plants you've chosen and the successions you have in mind.

Exultant video content. Loving the diversity of flora and fauna.

This video had some keys that helped my understanding of the greater ecosystems that were a trouble to my father when planting on similar land where I grew up inn South Australia on a hills face. The soil seemed very similar, as did the weed types. Thistles were definitely a part of my upbringing and they thrived on the rocky outcrops on the slopes along with self seeded olives. In Australia some people coppice some varieties of eucalyptus that are fast growing for sustainable wood for burning. Please continue with the agriculture direction and I would be interested in taking a deep dive into your groundwater, well and what you know about how your aquifer runs. All the best!

Amazing well done

Fabulous progress in such a short time!

Love your videos thank you

Love the view over the valley!

You’re obviously excited about the progress and I can understand why. Your place has really improved quite a lot from when you guys started. Regarding the alder seeding you planted next to the eucalyptus, aren’t eucalyptus roots allelopathic ? I’m curious to see if the alder planted so close to the eucalyptus will thrive. Please keep the viewers updated.

Beautiful to see the fruits of your labor.

Hard work ... but the rewards must probably be so awesome! Love these vlogs Dearest Dutch Family Farmers 🌿🐝🍄

It would be great to see an in-depth video on trees and plants in food forest.

Que increíble video! Me encantaría que nos compartieras los avances de todo lo que han creado en estos dos años, no solo los arbilitos sino un vistazo en general pues el cambio es asombroso!! Felicidades 💚

Really interesting to hear how your garden is going thanks for sharing

Goed gedaan, jochie!!!! Ben trots op jullie.

Yes please! Would love a deeper dive! 🥰