Here in Shipka it's been a hot and dry summer with no significant rain to mention in the past 10 weeks. Our tasks have been largely routine - mainly irrigating, harvesting and processing.
Thank you to Pauline Lousteau, Biljana Kostovska and Sandra Koljackova and family for your help in the gardens and special thanks to Ute Villavicencio for your ongoing support and for taking care of everything while Soph, the boys and I got some beach time in. We also say goodbye and thank you to Natasha Barbier and her wonderful array of unusual wines, all the best Natasha :)
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
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| Plants, Seeds, eBooks, Consultancy, Bulk Fruit and Nut Tree Orders for Permaculture, Polyculture, Forest Gardens and Regenerative Landscapes. |
Market Garden
The gardens are producing very well with the hot season crops peaking now. The basil and tomatoes appear to be doing particularly well this season after getting off to a shaky start during the long and unusually cool spring period. |
| Produce from Zeno |
One of my favourite tomato cultivars this year has to be a Mirabel Yellow Cherry, another great cultivar given to us by our friends Flori and Georgi. A Oxheart version of Bulgarian cultivar Rozava Magia was also given to us by fellow market gardeners Anni and Stoyan from The Green Gate, who are growing some excellent vegetables for CSA.
Here's the list of tomato cultivars we're growing this year.
| Common name | Code | Color | Maturity (days) E, M , L | Genetic type | Size | Shape | Growth |
| Rozava Magia | T1 | Pink | Large | Beaf heart | Indeterminate | ||
| Citrina | T2 | Yellow | Medium | Plum | Indeterminate | ||
| Black Krim | T3 | Black Red | M-L - 69-90 | Heirloom | Large | Beefsteak | Indeterminate |
| Ukrainian Purple | T4 | Purple | M -75-90 | Heirloom | Medium | Plum | Indeterminate |
| Marglobe | T5 | Red | M -75-90 | Heirloom | Small | Standard | Indeterminate |
| Anna Russian | T6 | Pink | M -75-90 | Heirloom | Medium | Heart | Indeterminate |
| Tigerella | T7 | Orange | M - 75 | Open Pollinated | Small | Round | Indeterminate |
| Green Zebra | T8 | Green | M - 70–80 | Open Pollinated | Medium | Standard | Indeterminate |
| Mirabel -Yellow Cherry | T9 | Yellow | Small | Pear | Indeterminate |
Comfrey Records
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| Dylan and Archie cutting the Comfrey |
Feeding the Comfrey
Comfrey needs to be fed in order to keep producing well. We currently feed the plants trimmings from the surrounding area and the old leaves left over from making the comfert liquid fertiliser. We are also growing nitrogen fixing shrubs and trees for future chop and drop feed for the beds - read more about this here.
Following the cut we mow the White Clover - Trifolium repens pathways and plants growing on the edges of the beds and apply the trimmings to base of the plants. As a rough estimate every 1 m2 of mown surface may produce 5L of material, but obviously this depends on the size and type of the vegetation you are cutting, length of time between cuts and a range of environmental factors. I'm basing this figure on mowing after each Comfrey cut, i.e, every 30 - 40 days.
Here's a short clip of how the Comfrey is looking 15 days after the cut.
Irrigation
In hot and dry conditions such as our's this year, it is essential to irrigate the annual crops once per week. Our preferred method of irrigation is to flood irrigate as we are fortunate to have access to water from a nearby mountain stream. We can divert this water into the garden where it flows along the paths between the beds. We raise the water level in any particular bed by placing a barrier (sack filled with sawdust) at the end of a bed and the water is absorbed into the soil and can travel vertically via Capillary Action. We still need to make adjustments to the path gradients in order for the flood irrigation to reach the entire length of the beds and have been watering by hand from the pond the areas that the flood irrigation does not reach. The difference from the flood irrigated section and hand watered section is very noticeable with the flood irrigated sections looking much better.
Our irrigation goal with the hand watering is to apply approx. 500 L per bed (per week without rain) from summer - early autumn. That's a total of 3000 L of water each week for all the annual crops in the study area (6 beds 1.3 m x 23 m). The pond we recently installed can hold around 8000 L.
It can take quite some time to flood irrigate contour beds as the water needs to permeate deep into the soil to reach the crops in the center of the bed as well as the plants on the edges. I'd estimate at least 1.5 - 2 hrs per bed are needed to achieve this, and this can cause problems for us as the stream is in high demand from other growers during very dry periods. By having the pond, we can fill it up during periods when the stream is not being used such as late at night and during the midday heat. This provides us with a useful back up plan.
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| Paths that double up as water channels |
It can take quite some time to flood irrigate contour beds as the water needs to permeate deep into the soil to reach the crops in the center of the bed as well as the plants on the edges. I'd estimate at least 1.5 - 2 hrs per bed are needed to achieve this, and this can cause problems for us as the stream is in high demand from other growers during very dry periods. By having the pond, we can fill it up during periods when the stream is not being used such as late at night and during the midday heat. This provides us with a useful back up plan.
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| Wildlife and Irrigation Pond |
Forest Garden
There is an influx of produce coming out of the forest gardens in August with hazel nuts, plums, black berries, figs, late raspberries, apples, peaches and grapes . It's been a bumper year for plums!
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| Some August Fruits from the Forest Garden |
We're just about managing to keep up with the harvesting and processing. Sophie and Ute have been making some excellent jam, chuntney and pesto, and we've been freezing, drying and canning like the man from del monte :)
Pest and Disease - Orange Rust
A blackberry bush that growing in the forest garden has been looking unwell of late. The plant has been the picture of health the last few years and has flowered and fruited prolifically. This year however, over the last few weeks we have observed that the leaves of the 2nd year growth have become mottled and a yellow powder has coated the undersides.
A quick google search revealed the culprit as Orange rust a fungal disease that occurs only on brambles, particularly blackberries and dewberries. Unfortunately once this systemic disease sets in the entire plant is infected for life.
A blackberry bush that growing in the forest garden has been looking unwell of late. The plant has been the picture of health the last few years and has flowered and fruited prolifically. This year however, over the last few weeks we have observed that the leaves of the 2nd year growth have become mottled and a yellow powder has coated the undersides.
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Orange Rust on our Blackberry. A thorn less cultivar, name unknown.
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The disease is not known to affect red or purple raspberries which is great as I have just planted a patch of these no more than 3 m away from the infected plant.
The infected plant is one of four blackberry plants I propagated from the mother plant in the home garden. None of the other plants have been infected including the mother plant which leads me to believe that the plant's position on top of an irrigation swale that is frequently full of water has provided the conditions for the fungi to take hold and is something I will bear in mind for future water side plantings.
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| Disease cycle of orange rust. From the American Phytopathological Society (APS Compendium of Raspberry and Blackberry Diseases and Insects) |
Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course
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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!
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.
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| 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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If you appreciate the work we are doing you can show your support in several ways.
- Make a purchase of plants or seeds from our Bionursery or Online Store
- Consider joining us for one of our Courses or Online Courses
- Comment, like, and share our content on social media.
- Donate directly via PayPal to balkanecologyproject@gmail.com or via FTX Pay
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