Our foodforest is designed and -after years of preperation- planted by Kate in April 2019. With the help of an army of young enthusiasts she worked the soil, planted trees, seedlings and scattered seeds. 2019 was a very dry year, and very hot too. A typical long summer. Since we fully rely on rainwater in Boodaville Kate calculated the trees needed only 5 liters of water, every three days, each. Considering the temperatures exceeded 50 degrees only 2 months after the trees were planted, it’s a miracle (or good design?) the majority survived!

In June, one of the trees accidentally got loads of water after a tap got left on overnight. This tree and it’s companion plants thrived through the hot summer and even now it looks considerably better compared to its pals. (Imagine what a good timed big rain event can do!)

After a long dry summer we did an intervention in October 2019 with Kate. We replaced some dead plants, planted more seedlings and scattered loads of seeds. A few weeks later the volunteers left and Boodaville was left alone for the winter, as usual.

In December, just before Christmas, I returned to Boodaville because there appeared to be a leak with the main rainwater tank. I tackled that problem and since other water deposits were already full I decided to do an experiment and emptied a 200 liter deposit onto one tree. Would it have the same effect on a dormant tree as it had on the lucky appletree? As I put bucket after bucket around the tree, I realised the soil absorbed all the water. In this area where big rainfall events either cause flooding (followed by evaporation) or excessive runoff, so this is a good sign. It gave me confidence knowing the design of the food forest can handle rain events as big as 200mm/1 hour.

After my Christmas Trip I went to my family in the Netherlands to support through very challenging times. And by the time the last funeral had passed and I made plans to return to my beloved Boodaville for spring, all borders were closed and I had to wait.

So it was June, 6 months after my last visit, before I finally saw Boodaville again. Lucky coincidence is that this region had its wettest spring ever. In fact, one of my friends recorded more rainfall in the first weeks in January alone compared to total sum of 2019! There was a trend of about 80mm rainfall every 3 weeks and the day I arrived in Boodaville the rain was pouring down too.

The food forest was one massive jungle, waist deep. All paths had disappeared. About half of the trees had completely disappeared under the cover crop. It was time to chop and drop. It took me 2 weeks to clear all paths and trees (as recently as yesterday I was missing plants!) And the 2 weeks it took me go all around the foodforest was also all it took for vigorous regrowth in the part I had started chopping and dropping. The battle to stay on top of the cover crop and give the trees and plants their necessary sunlight kept going for weeks. It kept raining (one day only a 15% chance of rainfall was predicted and Boodaville got hit by a massive thunderstorm, bucketing down water yet another time and since I wasn’t home when it happened my bed was soaking wet for days!)

The amount of insects in the food forest, compared to the surrounding fields, was abnormally high. I even had an unfortunate encounter with one of these little critters when it flew into my mouth, stinging in the back of my throat and making everything swell up like crazy. This is the closest I ever came to being helicoptered out of Boodaville since there was no way I was able to walk to the car. Read below why….

Since I am alone, keeping the project running was an immense challenge with an exploding food forest and our only access road was blocked all this time because of the unusual rainfall. so I had to walk the last kilometer from the nearest road end with all supplies. Food, drinking water, horsepoo for compost tea, gas bottles… After I managed to get the gas bottles through the mud, up the hill, over the flat, down the hill and up again there was nothing I couldn’t do and I also carried other big, heavy things in that were accumulating on the other side of the mud like a new table (in great condition, found on the streets of Barcelona) and a new bed base (thank you dump!). Ah, and there was (and still is) a considerable family of rats occupying the houses in Boodaville and both houses are leaking despite all the work we did last year. So all together it was a bit much but in the end it stopped raining so the vigorous food forest growth slowed down and after 6 weeks of walking the road was finally accessible by car and my life became a lot easier. Around the same time the first people arrived in Boodaville to help me which is great.

So now I’m chopping and dropping at the edges of the food forest, in places where I couldn’t be bothered to put my precious time before and that’s how I keep finding plants. It’s like a present every time. I also make compost tea every week. I change ingredients, whatever I feel like or what I have available. It’s so nice to see the trees respond to the tea. It’s amazing what something that looks so small can do. I love watching it all flow and grow, feel its energy. It’s my favourite place to be