Learn to plant water

We chose this area on our property as it only had 1 small beefwood sapling (which we retained) and, apart from having our washing line, it was basically cleared and unused.

We had the area deep ripped with an excavator to provide some aeration. The clay soil is hydrophobic and we’ve found it very difficult to get any water penetration without some surface and deep disturbance. Our teacher Thiago brought a few friends with him, in between COVID lockdowns, purchased all of the seedlings that Jenny at Linwood Trees had available at the time and some veggies from IGA’s on the way, and over 2 days planted out 5 Syntropic rows.
Over the next 12 months we also added in more than 600 indian fig/prickly pear plants, harvested from within 1km of the property, bananas and cassavas, date palms and some citrus. We also seeded the rows between the trees with green manure winter/summer mixes sourced from a supplier.

We hosted our first workshop in September 2020, where some of the additional planting happened and some management of the emerging system.

By this stage of the system we had hosted 2 workshops, had done some management and were regularly chopping and dropping the green rows. We also had implemented a second System in Sept 2020 which is growing well.

We had a good rainfall season 2020/2021 and so the growth of the trees and grasses was exceptional. We harvested root crops, zucchini and some leaf crops from the plantings in June and September 2020.

We can see the principles of the forest at play in succession as plants serve their purpose and are taken out of the system. We are also starting to see the function of the wave design in the system, to optimise water harvesting.

We dug a creek bed system on the property this year as well, experimenting with syntropic principles in a different context and started to retrofit an old food forest in syntropic ways – but on a circle instead of lines.

In May 2022 we hosted our third workshop and the system was managed by the participants – with a lot of chop and drop and ‘lifting of skirt’s for the bigger trees (pruning limbs to enable growth of the trees underneath). The house, which was fully exposed only 2 years before, is no not visible at all from the publicly accessed areas on the site, which we are relieved about. Old man saltbush and river red gums are emerging as the heroes of the forest, providing growth and biomass. At this workshop we also implemented a non irrigated system on the perimeter of the property, planting it out with Indian fig, aloe vera and other seeds sourced from within a few metre radius. Our friends Penny and Pete got married onsite at THE Hungry Spirit and had their wedding photos taken in our lush outback rainforest which was in stark contrast to the hard red claypan we had started with.

This photo was taken right before our 5th workshop, at this stage we’ve now had 50 people participate in workshops, putting their energy and time into pruning, planting and learning. We so value and appreciate their commitment and the love that they put into the process. It is palpable. The system is really doing it’s own thing. The main thing to notice is the diminishing number of prickly pear/indian fig, as the cactablaster takes them out and they die naturally as the soil improves. This is something Thiago said would happen, and we are pleased that it is.
We also launched our Youtube video which was really well received.

Our other systems are also progressing beautifully. We do lose trees that we plant, it’s hard to take, but it’s a part of the learning process and recognition that we are still to improve the quality and quantity of life (in the soil and above) to support the trees we plant. There is no escaping the fact that we live in a harsh climate.

We made the decision not to proceed with either of our scheduled workshops this year (we’ve had 65 participants since 2020), so we’ve been slowly managing the systems in our spare time which has been lovely. The growth and health of everything is extraordinary, we had a harsh summer this year, but it finished with big rain and we’ve had reasonable falls since which has meant lush green everywhere. Some of the really big prickly’s are all but gone and the mulberries have lost their leaves and the medjool dates, planted in Sept 2020, are growing really well – they are a long play!

Our Youtube video has had more than 270,000 views in 12 months and this has resulted in dozens of emails, calls and visits from people around the world interested in what we are doing here in Lightning Ridge.

The rivergums are so, so tall now and some of the saltbush enormous and so generous with their biomass giving, between them and the green rows, it means we are less and less reliant on bringing in mulch to keep on the trees.

Our other systems are going gangbusters as well. We’ve learned so much from watching, managing, planting and living with these systems – all with such different beginnings, purposes and management approaches.

It makes our site incredibly special for those who are wanting to learn about Syntropic agroforestry and farming because you can see multiple contexts in action, at a small scale!

After an incredibly dry but normally hot summer the autumn of 2025 has delivered more than our average annual rainfall and then some! We’ve had big drenchings and sprinkling days of rain and the ground is heaving with life, the dam is full and the systems are pumping.

We lost a lot of mulberries over the summer, which we thought it was due to the heat, however Thiago says it is also that he has seen them die before in the systems, in favour of the trees that are coming next – their purpose is served. I’ll miss picking mulberries on my way to work during Spring!

Our Youtube videos have now reached 374,000 people which is wonderful and we are so grateful to Russell from Curiosity Mine for his support in documenting the forest! As a result of this exposure, not a week goes by now where we don’t get some kind of reach out about the forest – an email from someone overseas inspired and asking questions, a visitor driving through town who has discovered what we do or media outlets asking to share our story.

In some ways I mourn the loss of the previous versions of the forest, particularly as our System 1 ages, it becomes less impressive in some ways than the iterations where there were bananas and cassavas and it looked like a rainforest – but the maturity comes with other advantages – more shade and different life.

We are excited to be able to plant a system at our August workshop using all of the knowledge and intelligence we’ve gathered in the past 5 years and design an ideal system from the beginning! What a treat it will be to see how it evolves in comparison to these original systems.