Primaterra

When the forest was abandonned more than ten years ago, the brambles started growing freely in the meadow until it got completely covered by this plant.
Most of the vegetals we like to it need a good sunny exposition, a requisite difficult to get in a forest. Then, it was neccesary to clear up the meadow in order to get an optimal space to cultivate edible plants.
By the time we started working, the brambles covered an extension of around an hectare. Everybody recomended us to rent a tractor to do the job, they couldn’t believe we wanted to spend our time doing this hard work when a machine could do it in few hours. Afortunately, they didn’t convince us. A tractor condenses the soil due to its weight and it clears up indiscriminetely, killing plants which it is worth saving. To this we have to add the cost of renting the tractor and the need to enlarge the path to allow it to arrive to the meadow.

We decided to do the clearing up with a débroussailleuse. I don’t know why I am similing like that in this picture, the brambles were higher than me! Cutting them is a hard and painful task due to their thorns. Besides, the machine is heavy and terribly noisy. Despite it, I don’t regret having refuse a tractor, we have found some interesting plants that were growing between the jungle of ronces, like two small ashes (the only ones of all the forest). Besides, I wouldn’t feel as satisface of seeing the meadow after the clearing up if a foreing would have done it with its tractor.
We have left a wide hedge of brambles sourrounding all the meadow. Animals that use this plant for protection, nesting and feeding will still have enough to keep doing it. At the same time, we will have an excellent barrier to avoid indesirable visits and a delicious fruit, the blackberry, at the end of the summer.
I still have a lot of surface to clear up but I have stopped working until next autoum to prevent disturbing birds in their period of reproduction.

This area won’t be a meadow forever. In fact, I expect to make a forest garden in here. A forest garden is the most productive of all forms of land use. It is an imitation of a natural forest where trees are grown in conjunction with crops and all species are chosen to meet human needs. As in a woodland, plants are arranged in seven stories, with fruit trees constituting the canopy. A forest garden requires minimal maintenance because most plants are perennials and largely look after themselves. The wide diversity of species ensures that any small invasions of pests never reach epidemic proportions.*
As Robert Hart wrote, the forest garden is far more than a system for supplying mankind’s material needs. It is a way of life and it also suplies people’s spiritual needs by its beauty and the wealth of wildlife it attracts.


*Forest gardening: cultivating an Edible Landscape. Author: Robert Hart