Garden Journal 2018 - Starting from Scratch!

This #gardenjournal2018 entry will be a bit different from my previous entries!

Imagine that this is a little part of your new garden....

The SteemIt Community Garden Journal Challenge 8 - December (16 Steem Bounty) is held by @simplymike and the rules are as follows:

And that is in the comment section to The Original Post of course ;)

I have been a nomad the last two years, and my two previous entries to this challenge were from the garden at the house I stayed in for a while in Italy!
This time, I have bought my own land (kindof, I still need to pay back my generous mother), on the island Bornholm in Denmark, and I will present you with the huge space where many plants will grow!!

So, yes, maybe you already read my post about this crazy place I bought together with my brother, his girlfriend and my mother.
It is 12 hectares!!
8 hectares are forest and there is a bit more than 2,500 m2 of old (falling-apart) buildings. But the important thing in this post is the land!

Here my son and my mom are crossing the old "sports ground" which is probably about 1 hectare big and could be a big coming communal garden!
The plan is to find a bunch of families and turn this space into a kind of eco village. There is enough space to share with at least 10 families!
I read that in the 40's this place was a kind of school where up to 80 people (students and teachers) lived, and back then the school was self sufficient with vegetables, meat and wood for heating.

Most of the land, though, is forest and has to be or become forest (as a certain amount of land in the country has been reserved for forestry as a means against deforestation). This part (picture above), as you see is relatively new forest. it has been fields in most of the history of the place, but at some point been chosen to become forest. But the rules for forests are relatively loose and I am thinking that in these parts that are still to become forest, the plan would be to grow a beautiful food forest! There are already quite a few cherries - I thought I could see some kind of line, so I am kind of hoping that they are planted and this was a cherry orchard and not wild cherries, so it could be really nice cherries!
It is a bit difficult to tell the trees on this time of year, but the most frequent inhabitant of this young forest is clearly elder trees! (All the trees in the background of the above and below photo are elders!). It must be an amazing smell to walk here when they flower!!

A little beech amongst the elders. I am not sure what the trees in front are

My father happens to be a mushroom expert (and microbiologist) and he has a lot of spores for oyster and shitake mushrooms which would be great to grow in the forest!

This is a part of the older forest where mushrooms would be great to grow on logs of wood

It is really interesting to start thinking in lines of forest gardening in this kind of scale! It gives a lot of very different opportunities that managing a small piece of kitchen garden!
I am also thinking to keep some forest bees! And of course lots of forest fruits - I am especially excited about blueberries :)

One problem we will probably face, though - living right in the forest, are deers! The place is full of deer trails and we saw a little cute one last time we were there :) (My mum told that she saw a big stag with antlers first time she was there!) But I know people living close to forests that have huge problems with deers eating up the kitchen garden! So an idea may be to have the most deer-licious veggies and greens growing in the little slots between the buildings like this:

I know it looks incredibly sad on this photo, but this is actually the south side! - Just imagine summer, sun, and all those holes in the building with beautiful windows with people looking out from..! We'll get there..!

One animal that doesn't exist at all on the island, on the other hand, is fox! It has never been introduced or connected to the mainland, so foxes are non-existent! That could be good news regarding chickens and ducks (there already is a lake perfect for a couple of happy snail-munching ducks!).

Little stream of water with interesting insects!

Well as you can probably sense, we still have to take in the place and get an idea what to do where and just what there is! I still don't have a clear idea of which kind of trees there are, I am quite convinced that these (in the right side) could be a pear and an apple, but some trees I just need to see some leaf on to be sure

Actually, believe it or not, I haven't been right under them to look for remains of fruit - there is so much still unexplored!!

Apropos unexplored, the biggest part of the forest lies behind the creek, and I haven't even been there yet!

A great adventure and endless possibilities lies ahead! The great thing about the garden part is that we can start "immediately" - where all the ideas for the inside space has to wait until we have restored/build the buildings, and that could take some time!

or maybe we should just let the garden grow indoor...? Blackberries right on the table 🤣

I already got offered a lot of horse manure, so we could already start spreading some manure to enrich the soil.

That must be it for this time! Exciting to see if we have gotten a little further in this ridiculously big project in next year's Garden Journal Challenge!

Thanks again @simplymike by hosting this great challenge, I really enjoy all the entries :)

Thank you for stopping by! <3

@frejafri

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