Thursday 28 June 2018

Polyculture Vegetable Beds, Organisms in the garden and the Regenerative Landscape Design Course. Week 11 - The Polyculture Project

It's been a wet and wild June so far, here's an update on what we've been up to in market garden, forest garden and during our Regenerative Landscape Design Course.  



But first just to let you know we've revamped our Online Store where you can find Forest Garden/ Permaculture Plants, Seeds, Cuttings, Bulbs, Rhizomes and Polyculture Multi-packs along with digital goods and services such as Online Courses, Webinars, eBooks, and Online Consultancy and finally we've added a Bulk Fruit and Nut Tree order form for Farms, Orchards, Nurseries, and Large Regenerative Landscape Projects. If there is anything in the store you would like to see but is not there, please let us know. We hope you enjoy the store and find something you like :) It's your purchases that keep our Project going. Thank you. Enter Our Store Here

Plants, Seeds, eBooks, Consultancy, Bulk Fruit and Nut Tree Orders for Permaculture, Polyculture, Forest Gardens and Regenerative Landscapes.


The Market Garden 


We've had the benefit of Victoria Bezhitashvili's close attention in the market garden this season where she has been cataloging the pests and diseases mainly in the vegetable beds but also on some of the perennial plants. We'll be publishing her report in the coming weeks, it's very interesting to learn of the number of organisms we share our produce with. Most of them are more or less harmless but categorized as pests and diseases as they can cause severe damage to crops.        


The vegetable polycultures are bearing their first yields with dwarf beans, beetroots and kale ready for the plate.



This time of year the Brassica or Cabbage Bug - Eurydema oleracea can eat a little more than they are welcome to. Around once per week this time of year we'll inspect the plants, gather up the unwelcome diners and commit genocide.. perhaps the least enjoyable aspects of keeping a garden.   


Some sort of weevil (Curculionidae), according to our invertebrate surveys by Chris Kirby Lambert are some of the most common beetles in our gardens. Although strict herbivores, they rarely cause significant damage to crops. 


Amaranth dominating the carrot seed bed 



The Forest Garden


A view in the forest garden. We encourage a diverse herb layer in the forest garden during the last 2 weeks of June (the wettest month in our climate). We'll cut 60 -70% of the herbaceous layer down and lift the biomass trees. This material will be used to mulch the productive plants or build new planting beds. The timing is important i.e, before the long dry summers we often experience here. Cutting back the plants not only reduces the competition for water during the dry season but when used as mulch will also prevent evaporation from the soil.         


The northern boundary of the forest garden is home to Castanea sativa - Sweet Chestnut with  Robinia pseudoacacia - Black Locust  nearby and Corylus avellana - Hazelnut  in the under story.  


Herb and Shrub layer often entangle in the forest garden. Here you can see a 



The Hazelnuts planted 2 years ago are filling nuts. These plants are are quite odd in that pollen is released from the male catkins in bursts across a 4- 6 week period in January - March. The pollen germinates as soon as it reaches a receptive flower but the fertilization process does not take place for another 4-5 months in June. Once fertilized the female flowers develop into nuts very rapidly with 90% growth occurring within 4 - 6 weeks.  Check out our  article The Amazing Hazel - The Essential Guide to Everything you need to know about Hazels for more about these fascinating plants 


A young Castanea sativa - Sweet Chestnut with its whole life ahead of it. These trees have been known to live for 2000 years !!




Regenerative Landscape Design Course


We had a great week with our guests on the Regenerative Landscape Design Course this June. Practicals included building an overflow swale for the pond, a wildlife pond in the perennial polyculture trial garden, a raised bed via sheet mulching, compost building and topography surveying.    







Chris arrived during the course to carry out the early summer invertebrate survey. You can just see him in the back right sweeping the hedgerow.


Inspecting the net after a sweep. You can see the results from last season's survey here  and check out Chris's website here.

Chris Kirby-Lambert



Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course 


Want to learn how to design, build and manage regenerative landscapes?  Join us for our Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course from May 1st to Sep 13th, 2023. 

We're super excited about running the course and look forward to providing you with the confidence, inspiration, and opportunity to design, build and manage regenerative landscapes, gardens, and farms that produce food and other resources for humans while enhancing biodiversity.

Regenerative Landscape Design Online Course

You can find out all about the course here and right now we have a 20% discount on the full enrollment fees. Just use the promo code
 RLD2023 in the section of the registration form to receive your discount. 

We are looking forward to providing you with this unique online learning experience - as far as we know, the very first of its kind. If you are thinking of reasons why you should do this course and whether this course is suitable for you, take a look here where we lay it all out. Looking forward to it!

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We offer a diversity of plants and seeds for permaculture, forest gardens and regenerative landscapes including a range of fruit and nut cultivars. We Deliver all over Europe from Nov - March. - Give a happy plant a happy home :)


Our Bio-Nursery - Permaculture/Polyculture/ Regenerative Landscape Plants 

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Design and Create Webinars - Forest Gardens, Urban Gardens, Permaculture, Regenerative Farming   


We're hosting a range of online learning sessions including how to create habitat to enhance biodiversity, how to design and build a forest garden, polyculture design software tutorials, regenerative farm, and landscape design, urban gardening and much more. If you would like to be notified when our next sessions are coming up please add your email below and hit subscribe and we'll be in touch.




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