Today was a big day for the Thyme Terrave project in Rovira Regenerativa. We are bringing an abandoned terrace back into production.. without destroying the natural ecosystem that has grown over at least 30 years of natural succession. We were feeling confident about the design after a successful pilot project with just 4 trees, and in November 2025 on our “Think Eco” youth exchange we went for it and planted 15 large fruit trees – peach, cherry, walnut, fig, quince.
The design is a row of fruit trees along an irrigation ditch and we’ve had some ups and downs with the implementation of the design. I’ll share the developments this week…
Ups : The ditch is finally LEVEL!! In the end the easiest way to see the level was to fill the ditch with water – way easier than fiddling with plastic tubes, or trying to get an A frame in the ditch. And way more fun with the mud!
The trees are looking (mostly) great and thriving with the great conditions we’ve had this season.
Thanks to the hard work of Claire and Manolo our ESC volunteers today, we got the ditch on level as far as the peach tree AND filled in branches to keep the dry uncovered soil on the walls of the ditch shaded and protected.
The irrigation system from the tank works as planned. We cleaned out the tank last week and today added rocks and old borken tiles to the system capturing water from the track. You can open the tap and irrigate all the trees in ten minutes. No movement required!
Downs : Some trees have been eaten by deer so we put up protection.. it looks like we lost 1 tree completely, and there are 2 that may grow back next season.
Talking more with JP and Aline last week I understand better the problems of a deep ditch in the ground.. you are creating a LOT of surface area, with bare soil. It gets hot in the sun and a lot of water can evaporate here, and in a deep ditch you are losing water from further down, where it is usually safe underground. It is really important to get the bare soil at the bottom, and up the sides covered. Our technique for is to fill in the ditch with branches.
One addition to the design could be to drop a tube in the bottom of the ditch. Potentially muddy rainwater directed from the track through the silt basin wouldn’t go in the tube, but for irrigating from the tank, we could guarantee that there are no blockages in the ditch and that the water gets all the way to the last tree. This is the last thing to think about before we finish this system!!
Ah except paths… the humans walking all over the place are crushing bushes that have taken years to establish themselves!! We need clear paths to separate the human areas from nature’s space.. and the windy paths that have emerged cris crossing the ditch may be perfect to keep the deer away as much as possible!!