Thursday 24 May 2018

Cherry Heaven, Robinia Coppice and Irrigation Channels. Week 7 - The Polyculture Project

Another cool and cloudy week punctuated with intense sunny spells, my favourite type of weather in the gardens. This week we continued planting out the warm season crops such as tomatoes, squash and sweetcorn, cleared out the undergrowth in the Robinia pseudoacacia coppice, worked on the irrigation channels for the perennial polyculture trial garden and picked the first of the cherries.


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.


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 thDiospyros 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


Last year with the assistance of Chris Mallorie,  Fergus Webster and Gabriele Landi we started to fell some Robinia pseudoacacia in a small woodland plot.



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.




   

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!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Support Our Project 




If you appreciate the work we are doing you can show your support in several ways.

  • Comment, like, and share our content on social media.
  • Donate directly via PayPal to balkanecologyproject@gmail.com or via FTX Pay



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.




You can also register for our online training, services, and products directly here.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


No comments:

Post a Comment