Hi everyone! We’re Nicole & Carlos. We recently bought 2 hectares of land in the Costa Blanca. It’s still early days, but the idea is to turn this land into a diverse, productive, and regenerative system inspired by syntropic agroforestry. Our vision is pretty simple. We want to create an efficient system that produces great fruit and sell it directly to the local community, while at the same time regenerating the soil and increasing biodiversity. Beyond that, we’d love for this to become a kind of community space — with workshops, educational offers, and things like u-pick days where people can come, connect, and experience the land. Last week we did our first small pilot planting, which was a big milestone. Now we’re really excited to observe what actually grows well here and learn from it. That’s going to guide everything that comes next. The plan is to use what we learn to design a bigger planting by this autumn/ next spring— similar to the “infestation” idea. We’d love to connect with others in the region who are into similar things — feel free to reach out! 🙂 Looking forward to learning and growing together. 🌱

Hey you all ! I’m starting to document all the plantations I’ve designed and planted and plan to update you every few months so you can track growth and refer back to past videos. This is the largest plantation I’ve designed and planted so far—with the help of volunteers, it covers 6,000 m². This is an almond grove with seedless grapes climbing eucalypts in between. This is what I call a “hybrid infestation – plant all at once”, as we’re really seeing the planting in two steps: 1- The placenta and secondary species - letting the myoporum, eucs, casuarinas and acacias form a continuous hedge in between the almonds. 2- Years down the line when appropriate - when almonds start producing well - coppice the acacias, eucs, casuarinas, tamarix and myoporums let them regrow for the ones that recover. Then plant the next wave of succession on a growth pulese : grevillea robusta as a long-term emergent - Planting it now alongside the eucalypts is an experiment to see if it can survive next to their sizable trunks; some may need replanting. I would also plant the low-ish strata - Main : Viburnum tinus good drought-resistance and reliable - Others: Prunus lusitanica, Ruscus apophyllum, and Acanthus mollis (testing them out) The only ick is that I have to make sure that I find a plant that can handle coppicing really well when harvesting the almonds. One challenge is finding plants that can handle coppicing well during almond harvesting. One idea is to have two people pulling nets while another shakes the tree, allowing almonds to drop without stressing the understory. The other is to use plants like Acanthus mollis, which go dormant in summer, then the ground is free to put nets down. Finally, I’ve considered seed bombs of primary forest species like carob, olive, lentiscus, Italian buckthorn, etc.. - an idea Scott Hall gave me. Birds might naturally assist with this in 5 years, but adding seed bombs then would act as “biomass insurance.” Although slow initially, with improved soil fertility after 5 years, these species should establish much faster than in the current poor soil.

I haven't been very active lately. The Spring has been quite hectic and there's loads to do on the farm as well as on the land I bought ! That said I'm currently working on this mini course on plant stratification which I'm planning to release in June, takes me longer than I thought due to otehr priorities taking my time - still in the scripting process at the moment ! It’s shaping up to be a very complete resource — around 10 videos, each between 5 and 20 minutes. That's why I will be charging for it, as it’s taking a significant amount of time and effort to put together. I’ll share more details about pricing soon. Before I finish scripting, I’d love your input: 👉 What questions, doubts, or challenges do you have about stratification? 👉 Are there specific plants or situations you struggle with? I'd also want to offer a couple Q & A sessions on this platform - on Zoom - about stratification in this course to clear up doubts and add these sessions to the course. I'll talk about stratification in general, but with a strong emphasis on Mediterranean species - since I feel there’s a lot of confusion around how stratification works in this climate, and not many resources are tailored to it - main issue I see is people seem to be assigning a lower strata to a plant than the true amount of light it truly needs to thrive and especially fruit while misunderstanding that stratification is dynamic and changed through pruning and maturing. Let’s start a conversation in the comments — your input will directly shape the course 🙌 Looking forward to hearing from you!

First time using an air prune bed, so I’m curious to see how root development compares to traditional trays. The goal is to have strong seedlings ready for transplanting into the land by early October. I’m working in a Mediterranean climate (Mallorca), so timing is pretty critical for survival through next summer. Would love to hear from anyone who has experience with air-prune beds: Anything to watch out for in the early stages? Maybe keep it covered with plastic until germination since nights are still cold?

I’ve never seen such a wet January — it’s often the driest winter month here in Andalucía. Here’s a screenshot of the meteorological records for my area for January alone — nearly 400 mm! That’s almost what we usually get in a whole year, since the annual average is around 450–500 mm. If we add the rainfall since Autumn 2025, we’re probably already over 600 mm. It looks like we’re in the middle of a La Niña influence. I’m no meteorologist, but here’s what my gut tells me: - The last two years, aquifers have been able to recharge more than during the previous drought years. - We seem to have perfect conditions for larger-scale plantings, thanks to the rainfall. This is one of the reasons why, after seeing the heavy autumn 2024 rains, and the total rainfall of 2025 we went ahead with a large syntropic planting (~6000 m²). Doing this is especially important when water is limited - mind you, we’re on a hill where wells dry up faster than in the lowlands. So why is this the right time to plant? El Niño and La Niña cycles don’t happen from one year to the next. Each phase usually lasts 2–7 years, because ocean and atmospheric systems take time to shift. This creates clusters of wet or dry years, rather than a perfect alternating pattern. For planting, this is crucial: if we’re at the end of a wet phase, it’s a great opportunity to plant. The soil still has moisture, the aquifers are recharged, and there’s a high chance of more rain during the rest of winter and spring, maybe even into early June if we’re lucky. Let the trees and the soil soak up that rainfall, we'll end up with deeply taprooted trees that will grow more vigorously than in drought years, it's the perfect opportunity - the timing couldn't be better !