Planting out and bird life in and around the gardens. Week 6 - The Polyculture Project

It's been the driest Spring I can recall  but we finally got some rain this week. Very refreshing and relieving and the perfect weather for planting out. 

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.

Tomatoes , Beans, Squash and Tagetes planted into the raised beds on an overcast day. 

We did suffer some seedling losses in the cloches, the very hot and dry April combined with a few windy days seems to have taken it's toll on them.  Here's a tray of the survivors-  Climbing Bean 'Cobra' that we plant out on tripods as part of the Zeno Polyculture. 

For more info on Zeno a vegetable and herb polyculture illustrated below that includes Tomatoes, Basil, Beans, Squash and Tagetes see our previous post here 

My brother Pete and his family we're visiting this week.  Pete has been keeping records of bird life in and around the gardens. You can find his reports at the bottom of this post. 

Oecophora bractella is a species of gelechioid moth - photo by Peter Alfrey

The legless lizard, Slow worm - Anguis fragilis are great pest predators consuming slugs, snails, caterpillars and ants. Unfortunately the local cats are partial to hunting the Slow worms  -  Photo by Peter Alfrey

Hawfinch - Coccothraustes coccothraustes Photo by Peter Alfrey

 Red-backed shrike - Lanius collurio perched in a walnut tree. Every year these wonderful birds patrol the gardens on look out for grubs. They breed around the gardens and each year they bring their young into the market garden where they perch on the tomato stakes and train the young ones  in the arts of fly and grub catching.   Photo by Peter Alfrey

Fire salamander - Salamandra salamandra . We never see these in the gardens as they prefer the dense and cooler woodland of the mountains but at night time and on rainy days you can find them  walking along the forest tracks.   Photo by Peter Alfrey

The herb layer in the forest garden full of flowering grasses this time of year 

Here you can find the Shipka Area Bird List by Peter Alfrey on Scribd

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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Support Our Project 

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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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.

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