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| Plants, Seeds, eBooks, Consultancy, Bulk Fruit and Nut Tree Orders for Permaculture, Polyculture, Forest Gardens and Regenerative Landscapes. |
We said goodbye to Malcolm this week - (thanks for joining us, Malcolm!) and welcomed Elise to the project.
The Gardens
Misty morning in the market garden. After the rains is a great time to chop and drop the vegetation building up a nice layer of water retentive organic matter before the long dry summers we usually have here.
Below the walnut tree on the southern boundary we have a good shrub layer establishing including Prunus insititia - Damson and Sambucus nigra - Elderberry. It's common knowledge that walnuts produce a alleopathic chemical called juglone but in my experience there are few plants that seem to be negatively impacted by this. I started a list of plants that we or other growers have seen growing well with walnuts. You can find that list here
Over at the volunteer house the Diospyros kaki - Japanese Persimmon is in flower. It looks like we will have a bumper crop of Persimmon this year.
The Orchard
We made our first visit to the orchard this year to catch the early cherries.
Angela and Victoria picking the early season cherries
We have not been mowing or grazing the orchard the last 3 years and native shrubs such as this Rosa canina - Dog Rose are starting to establish among the grasses. I prefer to mow or graze and move these types of plants into the hedgerows, as we see more diversity of flowering plants and insects in the orchard after cutting.
Cydonia oblonga - Quince fruits forming
The nuts are forming nicely on the young walnut trees in the orchard.
The Coppice
We went back to the coppice last week and it was great to see the regrowth doing so well and the emergence of many more flowering plants and insects taking advantage of the extra light now available.
Victoria cutting back the growth around the stools and thinning some of the smaller and bent regrowth in order to promote faster growth of the straight stems. We're planning on using the coppice sticks next year for tomato stakes.
Here you can see the regrowth 3 weeks after the first cut last year and the regrowth approx 1 year later. The tallest regrowth stems were over 2m tall and approx 4- 5 cm diameter
The Cornus sanguinea - Common Dogwood that grows in the understory of the woodland along with Hawthorn - Crateagus spp. are making the most of the light and flowering prolifically.
The herb layer is also a lot more active and colorful
Irrigation Channels
Victoria and Elise reshaping the irrigation channels for the perennial polyculture trial garden.
We divert some flow away from the main river into hand dug channels that pass through various plots of land before draining into our pond.
The final stretch before entering the garden. This stream fills our pond but we also use a passive irrigation system diverting the water into contour paths that fill with water. We raise the water level in the paths by blocking the low points with sacks of sawdust. The sitting water is then drawn throughout the soil via capillary action.
Upcoming Forest Garden Courses
If you would like to create a forest garden and gain some practical hands-on experience come and join us for our Desing and Build a Forest Garden Course. We'll be covering site surveying, landscape design software, installing access, beds, irrigation channels, planting tree, shrub, herb and ground layers, and wildlife ponds. All in 3 days! And plenty of follow up material to take away with you to digest slowly.
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| Design and Build - Forest Garden Course - Regenerative Landscape Design Course |
Registration for our course is now open with a 15% discount on accommodation and food fees when you register as a group (2 or more). You can also take advantage of early booking discounts if you book 3 months before the course starts.
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Please Consider Supporting Our Efforts
Our project grows with our desire to provide better quality information. Our overheads and demands on our time also grow along with our development and this presents a challenge for us to maintain the project and activities. We do not receive any government, institutional or NGO funding for our project and rely on revenue from sales of our courses, plants, consultancy, and design work along with the support of our amazing volunteers to develop and manage the gardens and are very grateful for this. So please consider joining us for a course or event, purchasing products and services from our online store or plants from our bio nursery, participating in our online educational platforms and support the project while we support you. Feeling super generous today? You can also support us directly with a one-time donation or become a sponsor of our project providing monthly support. With your support, we will continue to improve on producing quality information and data for the community, building a world-class demonstration landscape and progress on our mission to develop and promote practices that can produce food and other resources for humans while enhancing biodiversity.
We also accept donations via bank transfer in USD - EURO - GBP - AUD - NZD - (please email for account details) and via peer to peer distributed ledger - BTC - ETH
If you are not in a financial position to purchase our products and services or donate please comment, like and share our work. This helps us to spread our work further afield and is much appreciated.
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Would you like to be involved in the project next season? 1-6 month placements on our polyculture study are now open.
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| Permaculture and Regenerative Design Internships |
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| You can also register for our online training, services, and products directly here. |
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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 on for one our Courses or Online Training
- Donate directly to our Polyculture Project Crowdfunding Campaign.
- Comment, like and share our content on social media.
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 on for one our Courses or Online Training
- Donate directly to our Polyculture Project Crowdfunding Campaign.
- Comment, like and share our content on social media.
