• Home
• blog
• akg
• articles
• books

Category Listing For
permaculture

The value of seeds

I have one more seed swapping event this year – I’m off to the Harvest Veg Event 2010 in the New Forest. I have therefore been collecting seeds from my garden, and processing and packing them ready for the swap (and any ad hoc swapping!).

For the first time, I am adding MyFolia codes to my seed packets – which means that gardeners who grab one can let me know where they’ve ended up. MyFolia also encourage what they call Serendipty Drops, which is leaving packets of seeds lying around so that they can be picked up by passers-by: basically book crossing, but for seeds. I quite like that idea, but you’d have to leave them somewhere indoors or risk them being soaked and germinating in the packet….

I have found seed swapping to be a very rewarding experience. Not only do you meet some lovely, like-minded people, but you can also get your hands on seeds that are hard to find elsewhere. And there’s something about swapping seeds that gives them more value. When you’ve bought a packet of seeds, and it was cheap and it’s got thousands of seeds in, then there’s a tendency not to worry about over-sowing, or letting the packet get past its sow-by-date before you use them. There’s a tendency to hoard, and collect, more than you need.

But with a packet of swapped seeds, it’s different – particularly if they were collected, cleaned and packed by hand. This adds value to them, so you’re motivated to take good care of them, sow and plant them carefully, nuture the plants and then save your own seeds to pass them on. You’ve been given a gift, and it’s important to share it with others if you can.

No doubt this mentality was widespread before the industrialization of the seed industry, and will become more important again as the environmental problems we face mean that seeds that are open-pollinated (and therefore able to adapt to your microclimate) are much sought-after.

If you’re collecting seeds in your garden and would like to join in with seed swapping, then MyFolia is one place you could start. You could also add yourself to the Blogger Seed Network. There are plenty of people out there who are cultivating extraordinary plants – unusual species, or heirloom varieties – who are more than happy to spread the wealth.

For those of you who are into South American crops (achocha, yacon, mashua, oca, etc), then take a look at the Radix blog, which is all about these potentially very productive plants – how to grow them, collecting information about how well they do in different parts of the world, and trying to breed these basic species into varieties that are well-adapted to our climate. If you’re on Facebook then you can also join the Radix Root Crops group.

London Permaculture Festival

Pete and I spent yesterday running a seed swap at the London Permaculture Festival. It was a long day (setting off at 8 am and not getting home until 6.30 pm and only eating a handful of grapes inbetween), but I met some great people.

I came home with some red sunflowers – nothing particularly special there, but I have used up all my sunflower seeds so now I have some new ones for next year. I also have asparagus lettuce (or celtuce) which (if I remember correctly) came from Hedvig who listens to the show and is from Get Growing. It’s always nice to meet online friends in the flesh, and apparently Hedvig’s introductory talk on permaculture was very popular, although I didn’t have a chance to attend it myself.

A lovely Greek couple gave me some wild radiki seeds, and described the plant to me as “like dandelions, only nicer”. Having looked it up this morning, it’s chicory.

Leyla Laksari from Haringey Council (and the Living Under One Sun community allotment project), left me with some intriguing seeds that she recognised from her native Iran. One is a sour cherry (A kit teh) and the other is a plant that bears orange fruits that are good for diabetes (Zul Zul-Lak). The names in brackets are what Leyla wrote on the envelopes for me, but it’s going to take a little bit of detective work to track down what they might be :)

And I met Azul from the Food in the Sky project and Rajan from Pebble Garden, and handed out seeds to people who were going to take them to Croatia, Portugal, India, Sub-Saharan Africa and Iran!

One of my favourite moments is shown in the (rather rough) photo above – a lady brought in some ornamental giant allium seeds from her garden. She didn’t know which variety they were, so packed the seedheads as they grew so people could see their size. I ended up handing out seeds on sticks, it was hilarious!

I also signed a few books and handed out a few cards, so if you have found your way here from the Festival then welcome! If I didn’t get a chance to speak to you personally then I’m very sorry, but it was such a busy day.

We packed up to come home before the start of the evening festivities, but one band played during the day and I liked what I heard, so I bought their CD – you can check out KarmaFreeLife in MySpace. Everything was live including the beat box loop they recorded at the beginning of the set :)

Forest Garden Plants: Araucaria araucana

Just over a minute into this film of Ken Fern (badly in need of digital remastering!) he talks about the monkey puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana, and about how it has the potential to be one of the most productive nut trees in our climate. If they had been planted in any number when that discovery had been made then we would be awash with nuts by now – but unfortunately they weren’t. Although they are sometimes grown as ornamental trees, they aren’t often grown as productive trees – and there are a couple of reasons why that is so. The first is that they are slow growing – this one is about 8 years old, according to its label:

Araucaria araucana, the monkey puzzle tree

It will be another couple of decades before it is reliably producing nuts. The second reason is that plants are either male or female, and you need both for nut production, and it’s impossible to sex the plants while they’re young. So if you want monkey puzzle nuts you need to grow several trees (as yet, I don’t know how many – do you?) to guarantee a harvest, even though one male tree can usually pollinate several local females.

On the plus side, as well as producing tasty nuts, the trees don’t cast too much shade – although they will eventually grow very tall:

And the ones at my local arboretum appear to be taking very good care of the local ladybird population:

I would dearly love some little monkey puzzles of my own, to give me a headstart on the forest garden I hope to have room for once we move – they’re definitely on my wish list.

Resources:
Wikipedia
PFAF
How to germinate monkey puzzle trees
Agroforestry Rsearch Trust (supplier)
Nicky’s Nursery (supplier)

London Permaculture Festival 2010 programme of events

I’m taking the Alternative Kitchen Garden Seed Swap on the road again on Sunday, to the London Permaculture Festival – so do come and say hello if you’re stopping by! This is the final programme of events:

Kennedy Hall (ground floor):
Info stalls, books and everyone else from 11am till 5-6pm

Winter salad plants of sale & growing info with OrganicLea
Southern Solar- manufacturers & installers of Solar Panels
Hackney Marshes User Group
Campaign against Climate Change
Women’s Environmental Network
Biodiversity of London book stall
John-Paul Flintoff’s Recycling table
Seed Swap – don’t forget to bring some seeds!
Natural Beekeeping Trust
Permanent Publications & Permaculture Magazine book stall
Veggie Power – waste oil to bio diesel
Permaculture Association & LAND project
Sustainable Haringey
Transition Towns Tooting, Finsbury Park & Camden
Greenpeace
Shiatsu
Project Dirt’s interactive map of London groups and events

What is Permaculture? Picture exhibition
Permaculture is more than just the design of our garden. It helps you design the flow of different energy forms = people, nutrients, sun, water, money and much more into sustainable cycles.

The exhibition seeks to celebrate the energy behind the people who practise sustainable land design and to encourage you to consider this path in life as a valid one generously awaiting you should you be drawn to it.

Video Training for Social Change
VisionOntv has created easy templates for rapid-turnaround citizen video news reports. These reports can be made by absolute beginners, or by people with skills but little time. Come to the workshop to learn how to make fast-turnaround video news reports.

Please bring the items of portable recording equipment you have – video camera, stills camera, mobile phone, laptop computer and connectors; we will use them during the workshop.

Permaculture Question Time at 2pm
Panel: Andy Goldring (CEO- Permaculture Association), Nicole Freris (Naturewise), Tomas Remiarz (Chair- Permaculture Association), Maddy Harland (Editor- Permaculture Magazine) & Graham Burnett (Spiralseed).

Sew Your Own with John-Paul Flintoff journalist for The Times and author.

Music
There’ll be space for impromptu music on the day- so bring your instruments and join in.

Karma Free – 1pm- A full band sound from just vocals and bass in conjunction with 2 loop stations.

Citizen Helene – 7pm – Beautiful, light and amusing songs from a wonderful voice and guitar.

Northern Celts – 8pm – Magical Celtic Dance Music with caller.

Bar opens at 5pm :)

Trefusis Hall (lower ground floor):
Transition Town London Meeting 11am – 1pm
An informal networking event for those interested in meeting up and sharing experiences of Transition Town groups in London.

Connecting Conversations 1pm – 6pm
Weaving a stronger London network by talking together about what really matters.

Dark Mountain Project 6.20pm – Start
Hosting ‘Things that grow in the dark’- reading from their new book and inviting conversation on the shadow side of the environmental movement.

Storrow (lower ground floor):
11:30 – Let’s Hear It From the Bees
The ‘crisis of the bees’ as a challenge to humanity. Our estrangement from nature is reflected in our damaged relationship to bees. The bees are telling us that we must change to ensure our common future. Can we open ourselves to the teachings of the colony? Heidi Herrmann from the Natural Beekeeping Trust (60mins)

12:40 – Permaculture- Inspiration around the World
Travel from Scotland to Copenhagen, East Germany to Japan, Australia to Africa without spending any carbon! Enjoy stories and pictures from permaculture communities, both urban and rural. Maddy Harland, Editor of Permaculture Magazine (60mins)

13:50 – Towards Diversity
Addressing Race, Gender and Difference in our Permaculture Communities. Places limited to 20
Nicole David & Pilar Lopez. (90mins)

15:30 – The Meadow Orchard
This new community-led permaculture project in Crouch End North London is a 1.5acre beautiful open grassland habitat that has been left untouched for several years – the project aims to set up a community garden and forest garden on part of the site as well as protect and enhance the meadow and woodland habitat of the rest of the site. We are working with local community groups, schools and the NHS to create a project that promotes health and wellbeing.
Kate Allardyce (40mins)

16:20 – Reclaim the Fields: moving towards a community food growers network.
A European movement of young people is emerging- RTF is about networking, lobbying and direct action in order to unite growers and the land, everywhere. Sean Hearn, Becca Temple & Claire Joy from Organiclea will lead a presentation of the movement in this part of the world. (60mins)

17:30 – The Work That Reconnects taster
This is a process devised by eco-philosopher and activist Joanna Macy which offers participants an opportunity to explore and address our feelings around the major changes underway for our planet at the moment, based on the belief that the sharing, expression and acknowledgement of such emotions can free us up to more playfully and effectively play our role in these challenging times. Cath Sunderland & Debbie Warreners. (90mins)

18:45 – Leytonstone Environmental Poets
Original poetry like you’ve never heard it before. After their show there’ll be an open spot for anyone to come and share poems.

Film Room (first floor):
11:20 – The Elephant in the Room
“Permaculture, and the sustainability movement as a whole, has always been based on the idea that we can avoid ecological disaster and create a sustainable society. That has been its aim. If this is no longer possible, what is our aim? Does the new situation require significant changes in the practice of permaculture?”

Video link-up with celebrated Permaculture author, teacher & designer Patrick Whitefield talking about his recent controversial article ‘The Elephant in the Room’.
Chaired by Claire White. (60mins)

12:30 – Permaculture Polyculture Research project
“Polycultures” is about growing things together – a central concept within permaculture land use. The worshop will introduce examples of polycultures on different scales, introduce the Permaculture Association’s member research project in this field and allow time for questions and discusion. Tomas Remiraz. (60mins)

13:40 – An Edible Forest Garden
The presentation will describe the structure, benefits and features of a temperate forest garden and give an account of the first five years of the Forest Garden in Homerton Road, Hackney, with types of planting and species, and illustrated with photographs. David Rees. (30mins)

14:30 – Watercourse Regeneration
A talk about new technologies for water regeneration and cycling in city landscapes, how they are being developed in cities around the world; the technologies that may find a place in the future but are not yet being used on a big scale; and the role of local water in city environments and the importance of starting to use local living water, rather than sourcing all our water through the big water companies. Marilyn Collins. (30mins)

15:30 – London Orchard Project
The London Orchard Project has been running for eighteen months. Come and hear about our successes (and challenges!) in creating successful urban orchards on a shoestring budget.
Rowena Ganguli. (30mins)

16:15- Reels of Resilience
Short archive films from the 30s & 40s covering relevant Permaculture themes including food security and community. What lessons can we learn from the past? James Taylor. (60mins)

17:20 – Under One Sun: Community Garden
Film about a community garden in Harringey. (20mins)

18:00 – Beyond the Tipping Point
A new film exploring how we imagine the future in the face of impending environmental crisis and how this affects the way we respond. (30mins)

18:40 – The Power of Community; How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
A documentary about societal changes in Cuba response to the sudden lack of oil in the 1990s (60mins)

19:50 – Ward’s Corner Film
Documentary on the local activism surrounding this proposed development in Tottenham. (60mins)

Dome (outside):
11:30 – Introduction to Permaculture
What is this ‘Permaculture’ stuff about? There’s a whole festival to celebrate it, but what is it? This is a brief taster of permaculture so you can enjoy the rest of the festival with that extra bit of info. Hedvig Murray (20m/then outside)

12:00 – NonViolent Communication: a very brief introduction NVC helps us understand what takes place when communication becomes difficult and gives us practical support in how to respond constructively. While we often respond to difficulties in relationship by blaming or judging, NVC encourages us to look for the essential needs behind our communication so that we can respond to ourselves and others with empathy. It is through responding with compassion that we can find win-win solutions in which everybody’s needs get met. Cath Burke and Millie Baker (90mins)

13:40 – Towards Inclusivity
This workshop addresses the challenge we face to ensure our movement reflects the diverse make up of our neighbourhoods. Transition Finsbury Park is taking part in the Transition Network’s Bringing Diversity Pilot Project. We will share some of what we’ve learnt (10 min presentation) and then have an open discussion to help move our planning towards the more proactive, practical steps we can all take. Jo Homan (30mins)

14:20 – Guerrilla Gardening
Gardening without boundaries delivered from the heart by the unique Chris Tomlinson (30m/then outside)

15:00 – Introduction to Permaculture
What is this ‘Permaculture’ stuff about? There’s a whole festival to celebrate it, but what is it? This is a brief taster of permaculture so you can enjoy the rest of the festival with that extra bit of info. Hedvig Murray (20m/then outside)

15:30 – Permaculture Diploma Talk
What is the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design and how does
it work? Whether you have completed a Permaculture Design Course and are
now considering following the Diploma route to develop your permaculture
practice and studies, want to know about the latest developments with
the Diploma or just want to know what it’s all about, this workshop will
provide you with the answers you’ve been looking for! Graham Burnett (40m)

16:20 – Medicinal Herb Walk
A herbal talk and walk, to find and explain the uses of plants that grow around us in streets, gardens, parks and verges. Christopher Hedley. (20m/then outside)

Garden
Children’s Events
11.00 – Mr Potato Head: Potato printing with natural dyes (All welcome especially under 5’s) with Nathalie (40mins)

12noon -Jack & the Bean Stalk: How do plants grow?
Storytelling followed by a treasure hunt with permaculture inspired clues and magic bean planting in pots made from recycled materials. (All welcome especially 5-12 year olds) with Rosie (60mins)

2pm- Poi Dancing, balancing & juggling training. Parents are invited to explore cutting edge research into child-developmental psychology and its applications into the teaching of play, dance and sport. (Appropriate for teenagers and adults and children’s class will be aimed at children under 14s) with Charlie.

3pm-Ugly Bug ball: Come on lets crawl!- singing the song and learning about our common garden friends with a mini beast hunt and bug costume making competition, face painting and fashion show.(All welcome) with Rosie & Cecilia (60mins)

6pm-Sweet dreams- Zzzz. Preparing to journey to the land of nod! Lantern and dream catcher making with recycled materials. (All welcome). with Nathalie and Lucy (40mins)

Seed Mandala
We will be creating a Mandala space with natural products that all come from, as well as take us back to, nature. Practise awareness of the self and environment and attempt to harmonize your hand, head and heart through this beautiful yogic practise in an attempt to encourage the more intuitive practice of permaculture.

Also outside
Dr Bike
Camden Cyclists (the local branch of the London Cycling Campaign) will have a Dr Bike stall, providing safety checks, advice and minor repairs and adjustments. We will also have information on topics such as cycle storage, quieter routes, our campaigning activities and other issues of local interest.

plus: Locally sourced food from Happy Kitchen & bread from Ben E5 and the first 25 entrants to get a copy of Graham Burnett’s Earthwritings

Book Review: The Permaculture Garden

My new plan for the garden is to take it further down the low input/ high output route. The inputs I am particularly looking to reduce at the moment are the time I spend doing things like potting on and planting out, and the amount of watering I have to do in summer. Those of you who are in the know will realise that I am talking about applying permaculture principles to my garden. I was already doing that, but permaculture is very much a cyclical process of observing what is going on, thinking about and researching possible solutions and then implementing the ones that you think will have the best and most sustainable effect.

There are lots of books about permaculture, and many have a slant on gardening, but one that I have found particularly useful recently is The Permaculture Garden, by Graham Bell.

The book begins by looking at what a garden is, and the uses to which one can be put. Then it moves through planning the best use of your space (and it is aimed at people in urban environments, who don’t have acres) and walks you through some projects that you could complete in a day if you want to get off to a flying start.

The longer term work involves looking at the resources you have available, permaculture gardening techniques to make the most of those resources and prevent waste and pollution and looking at some of the more unusual permaculture principles, including shaping your growing spaces to increase the amount of productive ‘edge’.

There’s a chapter on adding features like greenhouses and play spaces, one on water (including both ponds and grey water systems) and one on the basics of forest gardening. The final chapters look at community gardening and working with the soil and then there’s a good booklist giving lots of publications you can turn to for more detailed information on all of these subjects.

Throughout the book there are lovely line illustrations by Sarah Bunker and many lists of useful plants that aren’t confined to a boring appendix but are added into tables according to their uses or their favoured locations and dropped in throughout the text so that you’re never overwhelmed with information.

A lovely book book for anyone new to permaculture who wants to focus on the gardening aspects of it, and for those already familiar with the principles who want a reference book to refer to for information or inspiration every once in a while. The Permaculture Garden is published by Permanent Publications and available from the Green Shopping Catalogue.

Potting on: the home front

“There are limits. To the human body, to the human mind. Tolerances that you can’t push beyond. Well, those are facts. Provable facts! Everybody has their limit.”

Gaius Baltar says that in Battlestar Galactica, in the episode where the cylons keep attacking every 33 minutes. Each time, humanity hopes that the cyclons won’t come, but they do. I was reminded of it this morning when I went into the garden to let the chickens out and realised that last night’s rain didn’t come to anything and the garden is still parched. Rain is forecast for today, too (although it depends on which forecast you look at – personally I think they’re all rubbish), and it’s hard not to be hopeful that it will indeed come.

When I can get out into the garden, I am working towards the new plan when I’m not watering. Last week I was potting on plants that were suffering in small containers – my new dwarf buddleijas, two mints, honesty seedlings and some mystery alliums that were crammed together into one pot.

I have made a lot of changes to the plants at the front of the house, which is a south-facing sun trap. The windowboxes are under an overhang and therefore in a rain shadow, and it can get pretty windy – it’s a harsh place for plants. I have grown edibles out there in the past, but I am increasingly worried about contamination as there’s a lot of traffic and trash blows in on the wind, so I’m guessing it’s a bit of a pollution trap as well. This spring I had broad beans in the windowboxes – I can shell those and they’ll be fine, but they tended to wilt when the weather was hot.

So I have replanted the windowboxes with three different sempervivums that were kicking around in the back garden and hadn’t really found a home. Much of the time they are low growing, and it will be a while before they bulk up and look impressive from a distance. But when they flower they send up spikes that look like space aliens, which is always fun, and they have pretty flowers. And they will love the hot, dry conditions and should be happy there for ages, so replanting the windowboxes won’t be a chore for a while.

Earlier this year I moved my dwarf nectarine from the Grow Dome (where it had suffered from drought and heat and red spider mite and developed a bad case of scale) out to the front of the house in a container. I cleaned off the scale, and positioned little Nectarella so that it could catch some water when it rains (in winter I can move it back so it doesn’t, which should protect it from leaf curl). It is much happier there, basking in the sunshine, even though it knows this is its last chance. If it doesn’t thrive there then it’s for the compost heap.

I also had half a dozen big pots of comfrey out there – the idea was that they would catch the drips when I watered the windowboxes and thrive in the sunshine. They didn’t, it was too dry and they didn’t like it, although comfrey is almost impossible to kill. I have enough comfrey plants in the garden, so I am in the process of dividing up these spares into smaller chunks of root and potting them up to take to the seed & plant swaps I’m going to later in the year. Comfrey should be popular with permaculture and transition people alike – it is a dynamic accumulator that brings nutrients up from the subsoil, and its leaves can be used as a compost activator, to make a liquid feed for tomatoes and other fruiting plants, as a mulch and as animal feed (the chickens quite like it). It’s also edible (although most people wouldn’t want it), medicinal and a good plant for bees.

Forest Garden Friday: 25th June 2010

Last week I paid a visit to CAT, the Centre for Alternative Technology, in Wales. It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to go for a long time, but it’s a hefty trip from here so it required some planning. But this summer seemed like a good time to go as they have just opened their new WISE education centre, which has a newly planted forest garden outside.

CAT is built into a lovely wooded hillside. It’s tranquil and quiet (when it’s not heaving with visitors) and the way up is via a fascinating water powered railway, one of the steepest in the UK with a 35° slope. Water is pumped into a tank in the top carriage, which when released descends to the bottom and pulls the bottom carriage up.

The CAT forest garden was only created this year, but it has plenty of advice on offer for anyone wishing to make their own. With a forest garden, the most important thing is to do your planning, before you get stuck in.

Forest gardens are mainly planted with perennial plants, but they take time to grow and the garden will look bare (and bare soil encourages weeds) in the meantime, so why not fill up the space with some fast-growing annuals? (Click through for bigger photos, so that you can read the signs!)

Not all of the plants in a forest garden have to be edible, but they should all be useful in some way. The string plant, Phormium tenax, will come in handy if you’ve left your string back in the shed.

An established forest garden mimics a natural forest and uses nitrogen-fixing plants, together with mulches and the effects of the microbes that thrive in undisturbed soil, to fertilize the plants.

The end result is a beautiful, productive and low maintenance forest garden!

---

I’ve said before that forest gardens are all the rage next year. Not only have they started a one at CAT, but there’s a new one at the Eden Project too! I may not be able to get down to see that one this year, but if you do then please take photos and blog it or send them to me for inclusion in a future Forest Garden Friday! :D

Forest Garden Friday: 18th June 2010

Japanese wineberries

In this edition of my Forest Garden Friday round-up I thought I would catch-up with what Alys has been doing in her forest garden on gardener’s world. It first came to light that Alys was creating a forest garden in a back garden-sized plot in episode 5, first broadcast on 2nd April. Alys looked at how forest gardens are multi-layered systems that mimic the natural way a forest grows, but are filled with productive plants. And she planted her first one – a Japanese wineberry, which not only produces delicious fruit and copes with partial shade, but adds winter interest to the garden as well with its red stems.

My Japanese wineberry is still quite young, but I have already propagated (by layering) two offspring, who have gone off to new homes this year. I have a third new plant that I will find a home for here. You treat wineberries like summer fruiting raspberries for pruning.

In episode 6 (from 9th April, about 20 mins in) Alys shows how a forest garden, once established, is a self-sustaining system. The undisturbed soil is home to microorganisms that can move nutrients between plants. Nutrients are made available by nitrogen fixing plants such as the autumn olive (Eleagnus umbellata), which also produces fruit for jam and ‘dynamic accumulators’ such as comfrey and sorrel (which is a good early salad plant if you like the lemony flavour).

Both of these episodes will be available on the iPlayer (unfortunately only to those in the UK) until 10th July. So far those seem to be the only segments on Alys’ new forest garden, but she’s managed to cover quite a lot of the basic principles very quickly (including using plants with more than one use). Personally I’d like to see a lot more, but Gardeners’ World is frequently a disappointment.

Permaculture in Kenya

I have received an email from Daraja Academy, the first entirely free secondary school in East Africa for young women, which is in rural Kenya. Part of their mission is to provide not only an academic education, but ENVIRONMENTAL education, and this August they have a group of students from UC Davis’ landscape architecture department visiting the school to show Kenyan students how to implement a permaculture garden. The goal is to empower Kenyan youth on how to practice farming methods that are sustainable. The hope is that they inform their communities when they go home and, furthermore, create their own permaculture gardens to provide income.

There is a fundraising page if you would like to contribute to the project (all of the money raised will be used for the garden) and once the project gets underway there will be a blog, so I will give you the link to that when I receive it.

Back to the land

Since last summer I have been playing the Facebook game FarmVille. It started out reasonably simply – you sowed and harvested crops, and tended animals. I enjoyed watching the plants ‘grow’ and the interactions with my FarmVille Neighbors. I could scare away unwanted animals from their farms and send them animals as gifts. Later on I could fertilize their crops.

I turned my farm into a little Permaculture plot, but later on all of the clicking to plough, sow and harvest an ever-increasing area became too much and I succumbed to an intensive farm with petrol-powered machinery.

For a while that was fun, but then I became disenchanted. As other people sold their trees (having gained all the Ribbons that growing trees moved them towards) I made mine the stars of my farm and turned it into the beautiful Food Forest shown above. It didn’t need as much work, to I stopped by less and less. I still enjoyed seeing which unusual crops the developers would add in, but many of them were only available for a very limited time.

I tried to get involved when they added in farming co-ops, but these were geared very firmly at industrialized farms (fast and furious yields being the only real goal) and my food forest didn’t operate on the same level. The constantly changing themes with decorations to add to your farm, and different gifts being demanded by Neighbors, mostly passed me by.

I have looked at FarmVille today and they’ve added another new dimension – as you harvest your crops you collect special bushels to sell in your own little farmer’s market. The game requires a considerable investment of time to keep up with what’s going on and be a good Neighbor, and I find I would rather be outside in my real garden, tending my real plants. Despite the odd weather we’ve been having this year (it’s hammering down with rain today, which is going to be good for the plants) I feel there’s a real chance of the garden flourishing, provided I give it enough attention.

And so I have finally made the decision to give up my FarmVille farm. I hope some of my good Neighbors remain my friends. I will be sticking around on Facebook, and if you’d like to keep up with me there then there is a Facebook page for my book and a new one for the podcast. There’s also an AKG Facebook group. And last, but not least, I am happy to befriend FB users who read my blog or listen to the show. This is my profile, but please do introduce yourself when you send the friend request :)

Spam Recipes

As those of you who have your own blog or website will know, once your site has been active for a while it becomes a target for spammers if you allow people to leave comments.

Just so you know, I reserve the right to remove comments that I feel are spam. I also reserve the right to remove links from comments that I think are spammy. If you don’t like it, don’t post a comment. Don’t bother entering into an email argument with me, because these are my rules.

Increasingly, this website is being targeted by PR people and online marketeers because of the access it has to the global gardening community. I get an ever-increasing number of emails asking me to promote things. I don’t mind if the person in question has bothered to take a good look at the blog and realises that – for the most part – I only talk about edible and useful plants. But this is a blog about permaculture and sustainable, organic gardening, so there are many things I have no interest in promoting. Again, this is my site so it’s my choice and if you choose to send me a PR email regarding something outside of my interest area, then in all likelihood you will not get a response.

For those of you in the dark as to what has promoted this rant, I shall now provide some useful content :)

You may remember that in 2008 the Guardian published an article of mine on eating your weeds (No Hoe Zone) – the ultimate permaculture trick of turning a waste product into a resource. I am going to continue that theme today, and give you several links to recipes that use Japanese Knotweed, a perennial plant that has become an invasive weeds in the UK, but which I do not have in my garden. None of these are links to commercial content – they’re all people with an interest in sustainable living.

• Knotweed Crisp


• Apple & Knotweed Pie and Strawberry-Knotweed Cobbler, among others


• Knotweed Fool


• Japanese Knotweed Oatmeal Crumble

I feel better now. Thank you for listening :)

Forest Garden Friday:21st May 2010

This week I have been potting on some new arrivals in my garden, all of which are good forest garden plants. But what makes a good forest garden plant? Most of them are perennials, or self-propagating annuals and biennals – which is one of the reasons why a well-planned forest garden is low maintenance.

One of the underlying principles of a forest garden is that each plant should have multiple uses. The golden hop shown above is a gift from Maddy Harland from her forest garden (of which there was a sneak peak in the first episode of Alys Fowler’s Edible Garden tv show).

Hops are climbing plants, which mean they make use of vertical space – one of the ‘layers‘ in a forest garden, and also a great way to make the most of small gardens. Climbing plants can also form temporary screens for privacy or shielding something ugly – although the golden hop will die back in the winter.

Plants are either male or female, and it’s the female plants that bear the flowers used for flavouring beer and for making hop pillow to guard against insomnia. The hop also has edible leaves and shoots, can be used as a tea, is a dye plant and can provide coarse fibres for clothing or paper.

And it’s ornamental and the flowers are scented (and no doubt it has some wildlife value), so I think it has earned it’s place! There’s a lovely article about golden hops over at Paghat’s Garden with more details and some interesting history.

If you click through to the larger picture of my new hop then you’ll be able to see ‘weeds’ growing at it’s base. They’re not weeds at all, they’re self-seeded pink purslane seedlings that have hitched a ride – making this a two-for-one gift! Pink purslane is a woodland edge plant, meaning that it is adapted to cope with shade. It has edible leaves and medicinal uses, and also makes a good ground cover. There’s not a lot of shade in my garden, and it may not like this sunny spot on the patio, but as I repotted the hop I separated some of the seedlings and have potted them separately, so I can find a more suitable home for them elsewhere in the garden.

Gardeners who like the unusual may have been seduced by a new item in the catalogues this spring – the Aronia ‘Viking’. I was, and my two plants have just arrived. This Aronia is sold as a ‘superberry’, with high antioxidant values. Apparently it’s fruit is unpalatable raw, but lovely cooked – I’m going to have to wait a couple of years to find out! There’s a lovely saying I found over on the gardenweb forums that explains how it works with new perennials. In the first year they SLEEP and do very little, in the second year they CREEP and get a bit bigger, and in the third year they LEAP and really get the hang of growing and fruiting. So don’t forget to be patient with new plants :)

Details about the new Aronias are a bit sketchy, but I think ‘Viking’ is a purple chokeberry. This family of plants will be more familiar to readers from North America, and according to ISUE the edible berries are also considered to have medicinal uses (much like cranberries) and the plants themselves are good in hedges and windbreaks, ornamental in their own right, and have a wildlife value.

Back when I started looking into unusual edible and useful plants, I thought it would be cool to collate them into a Top Trumps game. But now that I’m a little older and wiser, I realise that the deck would be so large as to be completely unwieldy :D

Could You Supply Raw Materials to Lush?

I’ve mentioned Lush before, as they send their lovely cosmetics and toiletries out packed up safely in compostable popcorn packaging.

But now, according to a new item from the Permaculture Association they’re looking to downsize their environmental impact even further by sourcing as many of their ingredients as possible from the UK – particularly honey. As long as it is grown or produced with the environment in mind, your produce could be considered. And they’re always looking for new product ideas, so even if you produce something that isn’t currently on their wish list, they might still be interested.

It’s probably a bit out of the range of gardeners, but if you’re part of a larger land-based project then it might be of interest. It’s certainly heartening to know that there are companies supporting UK environmentally-friendly agriculture :)

The first Alternative Kitchen Garden seed swap

On Sunday Pete and I went along to the Sustainability Centre for the Hampshire Green Fair. We took along seeds and plants and ran the first ever Alternative Kitchen Garden seed swap :)

The weather wasn’t kind – it didn’t rain, but it was breezy and cold – but that didn’t prevent us having a great time. There was a super turnout, and plenty of people who brought plants and seeds, or came with empty hands and went away with something to plant.

Pete and I are currently decluttering the house and a couple of weeks ago we cleared out a lot of old plant pots that I was no longer using. I washed all of the plastic ones and took them with us on Sunday, and they all found new homes! A lot of them went to a school gardening project, which is nice.

I met friends from Twitter and Facebook and the lovely Dawn from the Raising Seedlings blog, who not only brought seeds and plants to swap, but gave me a jar of her Glutney Chutney too!

I was very restrained and didn’t add too many things to my collection ;) but I couldn’t resist some allium seeds (the big purple ornamental ones) and lamb’s lettuce (which will be useful if the weather doesn’t warm up!) as well as a feverfew plant and a gartenperle tomato. There are also some field beans, and I may snag those to grow them for their flowers, like they do at Le Manoir so that I can keep the broad beans for beans.

There were lots of people who were unfamiliar with the seed swap idea and hadn’t come with anything to exchange, and so we collected a lot of donations. We split the money between the Sustainability Centre and Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library, who were kind enough to provide us with seeds to swap.

We had a great day, it was lots of fun, and the Green Fair was wonderful (as ever). We have been invited back to do more seed swaps there, so keep an eye out on the blog and I will let you know when they’re coming up.

Sunday Seed Swap

The Hampshire Green Fair is set in the beautiful grounds of
The Sustainability Centre

On Sunday I will be running a seed and seedling swap at the Hampshire Green Fair (as well as signing the odd book). It’d all very exciting, and there’s lots to do before then.

I’m taking the last of my spare oca tubers – they’re all well and truly sprouting now, but you can chit them like potatoes, and as long as they’re planted soon they will be perfectly happy.

I will also take along the rest of my home-saved seeds (Welsh onion, sorrel, lilac peppers, achocha) so there won’t be any more packets of those to mail out to interested people until the autumn.

As well as my own seeds and seedlings, I have had some exciting donations of seeds from seed companies. There have been contributions from Victoriana Nursery Gardens of seeds that would be good for little fingers to plant. Chiltern Seeds have sent a wide-ranging collection of herbs, vegetables and flowers, and I have just received a bumper collection of heirloom seeds from the lovely people at the Heritage Seed Library.

I’ve also got some odd packets of seed that were freebies, and I’m welcoming all contributions to the swap. But if you don’t have any spare seeds or seedlings to bring along then that doesn’t mean you can’t take part – I’ll have a charity pot and a small donation will allow you take home something new :)

The Sustainability Centre and a charity called Elizabeth FitzRoy Suppport who work with adults with learning disabilities are creating a gardening project onsite, and my intention is to donate any leftover seeds and plants that they can use to them.

So, if you’re in the area on Sunday, come and say hello!

XML Feeds

Email

Search Me

Blogroll

Copyright

Valid XHTML & CSS