Perennial Vegetables, Late Flowering Herbs and Autumn Leaves - The Polyculture Project

The polyculture study 2018 is over for the year but we are still active in the gardens during the autumn so I thought I'd continue the blog post updates on what we're up to.

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.

Aponia - The Market Garden 

We've had the first few overnight frosts in the gardens and this usually kills off the sub-tropical vegetables such as tomatoes, basil and squash, but the cold hardy vegetables continue to grow well. The broccoli really enjoy the autumn weather and should start to flower within the next month or so. Parsnips, carrots and kale are also unaffected by the cold nights and will continue to grow given warm day time temperatures that we often experience here. The misty mornings are a welcome change to the oppressive dry heat of the summer.   

The last of the courgettes, the first of the parsnips and butternut squash picked for the veggie boxes this week. We're also including walnuts, artichokes, apples, grapes, kale and parsley. 

Our perennial vegetable bed, a polyculture of Fragaria x ananassa - Strawberry  ground cover, Allium tuberosum  - Garlic Chives on the borders and main crop of  Asparagus officinalis - Asparagus has established very well this year and will be ready for the first of many harvests next spring. The feather like foliage of the Asparagus looks enchanting with the morning dew.  

Adjacent to the perennial vegetable bed we are growing a strip of Miscanthus x giganteus - Giant Miscanthus. These plants provide excellent wind protection and are a great source of biomass. We planted most of these from rhizomes last year and they have already reached over 2 m height in growth. Next year we will start to cut them regularly to provide mulch to the Asparagus plants.  

This is one of our White Mulberry cultivars planted in the spring. These cultivars have unusually large leaves having been bred for the sericulture industry. You can find out more about these amazing plants in our previous blog - Mo' Mulberry - The Essential Guide to all you need to know about Mulberry

Mulberry Cultivars

Although the Market Garden is well sheltered from the wind by the surround trees to the north of the site, our 9 year old Paulownia tomentosa - Foxglove Tree has shot up the last few years above the surrounding tree canopies and was promptly felled by the wind during a stormy night last week.   

Misty morning in the forest garden 

Wildlife In the Gardens

 Dylan found these juvenile Podarcis muralis - Common Wall Lizard.  These are primarily insectivorous lizards and from birth will seek out and feed upon insects such as crickets. They prefer rocky environments, including urban settings, where they can scurry between rock, rubble, debris and buildings. We have a number of rock piles around the gardens that these lizards take advantage of.

Ataraxia - Perennial Polyculture Trial Garden   

The Autumn color change is occurring a little faster in Ataraxia then in the Aponia and the home gardens and this due to the fact that the site is more exposed. Changes to daylight hours and the temperature in the Autumn trigger the plant to stop food-making processes in the leaves. The green chlorophyll cells, mainly responsible for the food making processes, break down and the green color disappears leaving the yellow/orange/red pigments to become visible. Plants, being incredibly efficient and very adverse to waste, extract many of the nutrients in the leaves before they are shed.  Here you can see the trees at higher altitude on the mountain tops already well into the transition and the plants around the Ataraxia starting to change color. If we don't have any strong winds within the next few weeks it's going to be a great spectacle.   

The Crataegus sp. Hawthorn in the hedgerows are full of fruit this year. These are edible but quite fiddly to eat and not particularly tasty. They provide an excellent source of food over winter for a number of bird species.   

One of my favorite local herbs is Origanum vulgare - Pot Marjoram. The flowering is still going strong as we approach mid autumn and these plants make an excellent late pollen/nectar provider to bees and other pollinators. 

Great to see Parthenocissus quinquefolia - Virginia Creeper making its way up the fence around the pond. We planted this in the spring with the aim being to soften the metal fence and provide some shade around the pond edges to reduce evaporation during the summer. These plants take a few years to get going but can quickly cover vasts area once they settle in. This Autumn we'll planting three Vitis vinifera cv. - Grape  vines on the fence on the other side of the pond where it is more accessible, along with a few Actinidia arguta  - Hardy Kiwi plants.

 Dylan, Archie and I have been clearing the area where we will be building a forest garden next month during our Design and Build a Forest Garden Course:1-4 Nov. It's approx 150 m2 area we will be working on that should host up 60 productive plants when fully planted -  really looking forward to this course! We still have 4 places available, should you be feeling spontaneous you can Register here.

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

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