#186 What this forest looks like 3 years after debarking every tree

Six years ago we bought this abandoned piece of land in Portugal to find another way of living. And since then we've been building up our base camp, getting rid of invasive trees and making space for native trees to grow. And in this update we're going to check out what happened to the trees we debarked three years ago and prepare the land for a future project. Welcome to a new project camp update. Back in season three we removed the bark of many mimosa trees close to our office. The trees transport its nutrients from the leaves to the roots through the bark. By breaking that layer they won't be able to do that in the long run and the roots die slowly. During this project we also used the dead trees to create water retention lines. They should stop erosion by slowing down the water running down the slope and should also store the water once the wood starts to decompose. So how does this patch hold up now after three years? Did the mimosas die? In March Julie and Javi went to check out the patch. Let's see what they found. So here we are. We are going to have a look at the debarked area. We are next to the office right now and the reason we are going to look into this patch is because now it's March and they are flowering. So we can have a look better which ones are alive and which ones aren't. Okay time for action. So here we have certain lines of dead wood. Do you see here kind of lines of the deadwood that was already on this patch. And now on top of that you see the moss that's laying. Let's have a look. Here you see a debarked tree completely dead. Also dead. Also dead. Here you see the lines of the debarking still. And if you look up it seems like they have no leaves. So that's kind of cool. And then if we go to the bottom of these debarked trees we see that here one sprout this one is alive so it resprouted on the bottom let's have a look around here you see all the debarks are done that only this really big one didn't die it's still alive here you see a really big debark tree that fell so when they're dead in the storm they all fell down looks cool especially this area seems completely empty there are a couple of re-sprouts that correct exactly at the moment where we where we debarked it seem like they easily fall with the storms especially because they're just dead wood standing up and then falling but having them fall makes the soil have more sunlight and then the brambles seem to enjoy a lot of space as well let's do a quick analysis of this debark patch first of all the debark trees they died that's great the second part is when they die way more sunlight actually reaches the soil and new plants growing up including brambles and the third point seems to be that it becomes quite messy because the dead trees they start to fall in all different directions and in the meantime resprouts are still happening so they come in between and this in combination with the deadlines of of that wood that we left in the beginning doesn't make it super easy to to clear this patch. So while using this debarking method, it seems that it would be recommended to take out the dead wood, remove it regularly, and keep on debarking the resprouts. And what about the water retention lines? Let's go back with Jorgas and see if they worked. So we're at one of the water retention lines they made at the bottom of the patch. You can see that the mimosa kind of sits on top of the soil and barely touches the ground. And the result is there's very little decomposing going on. It looks a bit wet right now. We had a lot of rain the last couple of days, but the whole season this has just been dry and this wood has been doing nothing. We have this lovely example where the mimosa beat us. Got debarked, it died, and then in some way, it just re-grew around the dead stump and now the tree is alive again. It's fascinating what nature can do. at the outside of the patch and here we didn't debark but we cut some of the stems and the result is very different because now they didn't slowly die but the root system stayed alive the sun hit it and the re-sprouts have been very strong so each year we cut them and in one season they grew twice my height like two meters times two okay so there's quite a lot we already learned from this patch just by walking around and exploring it but to really get all the results we have to clean it up. In update 105 at the end of season 3 we made these swales to capture the water in the winter. They work quite well. We want to extend them into the patch once we clear it, but we want to try something different. The last time we made them we just used dirt. This time however we will have a lot of wood left over from clearing the patch. We want to bury the wood into the mounds so that in winter they soak up all the water and hold it much better it's called hugelkultur and we'll try it once this patch is cleared it will change our view from the base camp quite a lot but enough talking let's cut some trees and why are you brush cutting here since the patch is over there for starters there's some trunks hidden there that we want to get rid of they're totally hidden but yeah we already cut quite deep into it and still nothing can be seen so somewhere deeper the trunks are and we also want to be able to reach the patch from all sides so we can clear it so we need to cut an excess root there's a pellet some old stumps I wonder how big the pile is so we have a couple of really big logs in there and we don't know yet if we want to use them for the swades later so we don't want to cut them into pieces so we decide perfect place to learn how to use a digger. I'm going to get in there and it's going to be easy. No problem at all. I have so much digger experience. It was not planned but maybe we can move it like that. It was nice to start the day with some digger practice. But let's get back to cutting for now. But before we do that here's a small interruption from the video team. As you might have seen in previous updates we plan to buy some more land from our neighbors. To be more specific this is the land with the lagoon on it that our neighbor the net cash kindly that is used earlier we were planning to buy it but then we discovered that the land is actually twice as big as we initially thought so in order to finance it we have some help from today's sponsor Surfshark Surfshark's anti-scam features and ad blockers can help you stay safe online here at camp we do a lot of things on the internet we do research we buy things online for the projects we post stuff of course like the video you're seeing right now and like anyone else on the internet we use email and using the internet there's a lot of things that can track you and where you're going and what you're doing on the internet with things called trackers they're tiny bits of code and when you visit the website they will follow you from there on out and all of this data will be sold to third parties and this is all without you even knowing but with Surfshark's ad blocker and VPN this is not the case using their ad blockers these trackers cannot track you anymore so your data will not be sold to other parties and with their VPN your IP address will be concealed so they won't be able to get that either. 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So thank you so much Surfshark for sponsoring this video because now we're one step closer to getting the land with the lagoon on it. For now let's get back to cutting. So we're at the bottom of the patch we're gonna clear the resprouts, carry out the deadwood and see what we can find. Let's get to it. Water retention light at the bottom of the patch and in all honesty it surprised us how much it has decomposed. This is in the soil and this is just totally rotten away and will act as a perfect sponge and we thought Mimosa wouldn't do that so it's quite a nice surprise. And also the other ones have quite a lot of life on them some moss some fungi so yeah it's been much better than than expected in this in this line why are you making so much piles there is piles everywhere that's a good question we want to treat it as resources and we're going to use it as a resource in the swale you got to have exactly the stuff you want so I If I need a log that's a couple of years old and dry, and only died recently, I take it here. If I need a small branch, I take it here. If I need live stuff, I take it there. If I need some more nitrogen or something to fill the swale, I take it there. If I want something that's already decomposed, I take it there. So it's like the aisles in a supermarket. You can just pick what you want. You gotta treat yourself. One of the things that we discover is this huge pile of stumps Let's continue over there. It was full of brambles. We brush cut everything. Between all of these brambles, we found these beautiful oaks here, alive, proud. And we hope that he will grow very happy in his life. So here I am in the Mount Stump Rest from season three. It's very beautiful, but we need to get rid of it to be able to work on the patch here. But we tried by hand, it's a little bit too much work, so I don't know how to do it. Maybe I call a friend. Hello? Yeah, if I have some time. Yeah, I think I can make time. I'll be there in a bit. Ciao! Maybe we have a good solution here. Let's see how it works. Okay guys, how do we work this pile? We figured out that there's a lot of dirt in it, and in the end we want the dirt. We only don't want the stumps, so we sawed them with hand, cut the ends so we can use them in this way later and then the small stuff we can throw in the pickup by hand it should work well everything is a resource we have cleared the beginning of the patch and we finally our famous second water retention line we're gonna remove it but to do it alone is a little bit of a hard job so we got the big guns yes the retention line is gone it's neatly stacked into different piles okay next on the menu chainsaw brush cutter clean up freaking hot yeah it's gonna be good nice it seems like that behind me the pile is still full of logs and stumps from season three so we get the digger in again dig more out so we can then clear the rest maybe it's also just nothing uh we're gonna see but if you take the bramble away you really see how how there's some stumps and piles and logs let's go well we had same problem last year ah perfect cameron cameron do you remember how to solve this how did it happen i have no clue like a twist on the spot or something some prop yeah something like that learn from this process don't get this thing off it's annoying no but last season it took two months to get it on i think we are already very good with doing it in 30 minutes really closely you see while your hus working can only mean that it's not that far anymore right through the bushes we've managed to get very far into the patch you see the last row of mimosas they're covered by brambles the last piece of the pie welcome back audience we are at the patch and we're gonna clear it of bramble so we can remove the last water retention line so yeah let's get to it. Opla. And now we're at the third water retention line. This one sits at the bottom of the highest terrace of the patch. It's a roughly four meters high, meaning all the water that falls at the top of that terrace squeezes through the ground and has to go through the gap through the bottleneck in the ground here. Meaning we expect it to be very wet and much more decomposed and different than the other ones who are a bit dry. So we're very excited to see what we find. Yeah and maybe even some of the soil erodes into the terrace. It rained maybe two weeks ago, one week ago, and the wood is totally damp. These have been really soaking up the water and acting as a sponge. That's actually very cool. You can see how mulch it is already. The third retention line and now we need some brush cutting. Now that the brush cutting is done, let's take a look closer to what we have we have two different outcomes the first that we prefer is this one it's like the mimosa is fully dead even the roots are dead we love it and the second one is like here we have only the mimosa the standing trees that is dead but the root system is still alive so we have new mimosa now three years later by the way chloe has been around for some time now but we never properly introduced her hello i'm chloe i come from france six years ago i looked at my plate and i was wondering where does this come from so to learn about growing vegetables i went to do some wwoofing in biological farms i loved learning and most of all the volunteer experience so i continued volunteering in a small association in north of lima in peru where i learned spanish and a lot about human connection and cultural exchange then arrived a moment in my life where i actually could come to camp so six months ago on a casual sunday i sent my application for the landscape team and i casually went on a 20 hours bus drive to arrive to camp now i'm here living outside surrounded by nature and with very cool and lovely people. I enjoy taking care of the land and learning how to use power tools but what I love the most about camp is the community living, sharing good moments such as pizza nights, games, discussion and it's also a place where you could always share a good human moment. In the future I would love to continue to learn about how humans can live in symbiosis with nature, be part of collective projects and keep sharing my life with cool people but for now let's go back to the landscape. We are going to take care of the dead wood and of maybe some living mimosa. That's it for now the next step is to take care of the last water retention line and we will do it from the top and once that we do this we will take care of the last living mimosa. We've uncovered a little dirty secret of the land I can I can say come a little closer. I pulled this big log out and under it all is barbed wire. They cleared this patch three years ago and still this kind of stuff is left and we find it even now. But that's a reminder to how long this stuff lasts if you don't take care of it well. We are in the back of the patch close to the Pooh Palace and one of the last things to do is to clean up a couple of the mimosas. There's a bunch of them that are really big and they provide lovely shade for the patch So we'll keep them but there's some smaller ones in between don't really have the space to grow So we'll cut them down to keep it nice and tidy with that the end of the clearing is close Yeah, you can see the progress so far. It's time for the last trees. Let's go there I am again Video Pod sorry for hijacking the video a second time but I just wanted to let you know that in Near future on our patreon a new Q&A video is coming up And if you want to ask us questions that can pop up in this Q&A you can go to the link in the description down below join us on patreon and then ask your question there and maybe we'll answer it in a q a video but for now let's get back to the video do you see behind us i see no water retention line and no mimosas it's gone we did it now all that's left to do is clean up so we can start working on the swales this is a pile of standing dead wood that was debarked and this is the rest of the standing dead wood this is our messy pile and this is a really messy pile these are the tops and this is the rest of the tops this is a pile of free sprouts these are the stumps and those come from the water retention line three years later and the land is finally clear and the experiment has been very successful debarking is really a cool method but it really depends on where you are if you have a lot of natives growing or if you maybe have the time to maintain it after you debark it so it stays clean then it can be really cool if you don't have those things you maybe need to have a plot of arable land very quickly and it's not so good so it really depends one benefit of debarking is that the ground stay protected from direct sunlight but it creates standing deadwood that are fire risk now that we cleared everything we are more fire resilient water retention line are a slow process that works it's more effective when it's down the slope where it catch more waters so decompose faster so we are done and we have learned a lot we made our land more fire resilient the view is amazing and we are ready for the next steps and with all that hard work done we can start working on the swales before the season ends this project was done fairly quickly all thanks to the hard work of everyone in landscaping team who kept going through rain and through the intense heat if you like what we do you can support the project through the link in the description down below. 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