Processionary caterpillars ,lemon grass tea and clearing land - Off the grid in Portugal #8
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- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
- #processionarycaterpillars, #corktrees, #clearingland,
While clearing land Luke found a lot of cork trees so nature is taking care of reforestation for us and all we have to do is clean the land around the trees to help them along, I make a simple lemon grass tea and talk about the thing I dread the most come spring..the processionary caterpillars
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I use to live in Portugal and also had these catapillars. You have to be careful not to get close, as if they feel threatened they can shoot out their tiny hairs (but you dont see this) and can get stuck in you or your pets.
I was told when I got some on me, to use celeotape on my skin, then pulling it off to help remove hairs.
I didnt know this to begin with and had days and days of swelling and itching.
A friend told me how to calm the skin, which was pack eucalyptus leaves in a jar, then fill jar with olive oil and leave in the sun to brew. Leave as long as you can, and then use this on irritated skin. It really did bring the swelling and itching down!
I love watching you two! You're doing a great job and seem very happy there! :)
Hi Red.. thanks for that! Will definitely be making that eucalyptus oil!! 😁😁
Have heard that spraying the nest with hairspray before removing helps in not spreading the hairs around. If its low enough on the tree that is.
Hello, there is something you can do to fight the processionaria, which has already been done in portugal with good results. Consists of insensitating a small bird that is the natural predator of the processionaria, the great tit, moving to the area at the time of reproduction, placing nest boxes, coincides with the procession phase. Nest boxes are very easy to build. A good project for you. There are several articles about it on the internet. Cheers
Wow Rui! That's really interesting and something we will definitely look into. Me and Sarah are both really grateful for all these wonderful comments. We learn so much from our subscribers .😁😁❤❤
Very interesting Rui, i heard also the Jay eats them too.
ua-cam.com/video/vAGQvkx61fs/v-deo.html
this is the bird I talked about. here is one doing the job :)
Great idea. If they put and build nests close of the trees with this problem, the birds instead of eating snails and worms from the ground they go for the most abundant and close food supply the caterpillar. I bet this is a lot cheaper and natural than other solutions.
I am with you Luke, Land management is important. You get some much more out of your property if you work with it and learn what's best for it. Fire breaks can be an important feature, and if planned carefully can be multi purpose, used for transit and site access, then animal feeding or transit, and light and air flow. Yes to the chipping, recycling as much material as you can is a great use of your brush and trees. compost, water retention and shade management. Yes to bees a great addition to a property like this.
Really looking forward to getting bees but will have to wait a little bit..one step at a time... sometimes I feel my head is going to explode with all the new things we have to learn. Lol.
Regarding cleaning the land, the bits we have cleared over the last few years look amazing. All the cork oaks we freed are great and i love exposing all the boulders and old canals and waterways and granite walls.
Each bit we clear turns into beautiful grass lands and come spring full of wild flowers. Hopefully when we get goats we will be able to clear more and keep everything nice and tidy!😄😄
Oi from a new subscriber in Wisconsin, US! ... You two have a wonderful life philosophy!
Hi Ariel , thanks for this lovely message x
I love your dog and land! We have professional cleaners who vacuum clean the trees:)
wow we never heard of that Billy Bob
Hi Luke and Sarah, enjoying you whole story and all your stories, thank you for the time and effort to make these videos. Re. the caterpillars you can get pest control companies to inject your trees in Oct/Nov which stops the moth laying eggs in the tree, we have seen these pest completely eradicated on one campsite we stay on over winter. We have always been very aware of these for the last ten years we have been coming to Portugal because we had a dog, but we sadly lost her to cancer just before Christmas. Take care all.
sorry to hear about your dog Paul ,but thanks for the information about injecting the trees, we never heard about it , will definitely check it out.
Thumbs up for the new logo!
Thanks Rui😁
You gave me a good reason to grow lemongrass. Tea! I like your new logo. I would like to know more about cork trees.
Thanks SJ2 ❤, lemon grass tea is the only hot drink i drink and I love it , we use the small shoots for tea and the big ones for cooking.
Luke will be making a video soon about the cork trees
Thanks for watching as always😁 Have a great day
Love this Video beautiful job you Guys doing , im Portugues and Love people like you Coming to Portugal God bless you .
❤
For UA-cam's algorithm 😉
😁
oiá, as for vegetable plantations, here are winter and summer plantations.
as far as I know it gives Portuguese cabbage and broad beans, which are given at low
there is no better person to ask, than in local seed and feed stores. PS gosto muito da energia positiva que vocés transmitem,
Muito Obrigado Nuno! We do have some cabbage but havent put our peas and favas in yet!😬
When clearing all this land, maybe you should use the waste as mulch around your cork trees to make them grow faster? I do this here in Norway and it makes my trees grow 3 times faster. I also use a shredder sometimes to make the composting process faster. The mulch also protects the water in the ground, and the trees can live 3-4 times longer between rain.
Hey Kay -Christian , we just got told this last week by another subscriber so we have started doing it but thanks so much, we are learning so much from you guys . Have a great day
Thank you for the video we have learnt something new and will watch out for the caterpillars when we get to our land. Which at the moment we can't fly out to get to see it x
Happy to spread poisonous caterpillar awareness...take care and hopefully you can get to your land soon enough♥️
They are not danger to humans, but a lot to dogs and cats (but cats are smarter and stay away from them).
They have the same effect than this plant (abundant in Portugal also and i use them to make great soups with them, i going to the forest collect them).
If you have any accident with one of this caterpillars you only need to wash with cold water to relieve the sting.
The plant that with contact with naked skin can let your skin very red and with pain. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtica
@@arturjcrebelo3275 ues thanks Artur, we use this stinging nettle for fertilizer for our garden and luke also makes a really nice pasta dish with it.
@@lukeandsarahsoffgridlife Fertilizer? Really? You need to make a video about that use. Because i never heard of it.
ua-cam.com/video/L0ljTs9qlb0/v-deo.html. 😁😁
I've learned something new today :-) Super informative!
Hi Jason 😁
Always love your videos 😁 feels cool to have been on UA-cam as you posted this one... First "like" heheh. All the best to you there 🌿
Thanks Lucy 😁 Have a great day
Sara have you tried planting spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and carrots in August (seedlings) to have a winter harvest?❤️✨
I will do that this year x x
Great video guys, always something to learn!
Surely this is another reason to remove all pine trees from your property and replace them with indigenous species that don't suck all of the nutrients from the soil?
Hi CT thanks for this comment , another subscriber just suggested that we can get some one to come and inject them on oct -nov and this will prevent the moths from laying eggs on them so we will check this out , we have more cork oaks and holm oaks on the land than pine trees and are very happy about that .... eventually we will be cutting some of the bigger pines down to use in building in the future but we don't really want to cut down good trees that will be useful to us later on.😁
Yes, pine trees are beautiful but they have being introduced in late XVI century (???) or not.
I remember our teacher tell us that we need lots of wood, and pine trees they grow faster than oaks, because we need to build ships to the discoveries and to make wine casks...
But a few years ago some investigator from New University of Lisbon come that pine trees are in Iberian peninsula at least for more than 1200 years ago because they find some remains in different ares in Iberian peninsula from that time (way before the discoveries age). The new theory was the vikings that bring them when they come to raid the peninsula. Right now i dont know what's true or not.
But they give us good wood, the pines are great, very different from eucalyptus tree.
In some areas in Leiria area after 45 years of intensive grow of eucalyptus (the tree need only 15 years to grow and be cut) to paper industry the land is almost a complete desert.
Thanks for this information Artur, Bom dia
@@arturjcrebelo3275 Indeed! Pine Trees have deep root systems that suck the surrounding areas dry allowing nothing much to thrive under or around them, combined with the fire hazard from their flammable sap and throw in the processionary moth issue they're a bloody ecological nightmare! 😱
@@lukeandsarahsoffgridlife I saw that comment regarding inoculating the Pines, a very interesting concept and regarded to be 100% effective too 👍🏼
Your dog entrap your show a lot.
She loves the camera😃
The veg needs to go in bigger and deeper pots/tubs, also the earth looked really dry as well not enough watering
Thanks
be careful with the processionary caterpillars they are poisonous and letal to dogs and cats...there are a couple of traps you can put around trees. Keep going your wonderful videos!
Thanks Nuno
Be careful yourself with these caterpillars..their hairs stays a long time active on the ground..for years
Thanks strawberries I didn't realise that they stay active for years ..dang that makes me even more worried...ahhh