Integrating Wildlife Patches in the Vegetable Garden, Chop and Dropping and our Perennial Polyculture Trial Garden - Week 9 - The Polyculture Study

It's been a rainy and stormy week here in Shipka and the gardens are loving it. Plant growth at this time of year is so fast you can almost hear it. Cassandra and Lily have joined us for the next 3 weeks and it's great to see their enthusiasm for and knowledge of wild foraging.

So here's what we've been 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.

The Market Garden - Aponia

We've been leaving 2 m long fallow patches in the vegetables beds as a way to integrate beneficial habitat around the crops.  The wild plants are left to grow in the patch and we cut back the sides when the growth starts to impede upon pathways.   Here is an example of how fallow patches can be set up within a raised bed garden. The example shown below has 180 m2 of cultivated land and with 6 fallow patches covering 14.4 m2  this is less than 10 % of the land dedicated to habitat and provides a refuge for wildlife and beneficial insects within a intensively cultivated area.  The below diagram assumes that there is no wildlife habitat around the perimeter of the garden, if there were the number of fallow patches may be reduced and concentrated to the inner part of the garden.      

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Achillea millefolium - Yarrow and Trifolium pratense - Red Clover flowering in a fallow patch in the annual raised beds. 

Some invertebrates from the fallow patch 

The Fallow Patch, we've left this patch fallow for the last 2 years.  

We planted out squash and beans from the flats. Fortunately we sowed beans in flats as well as directly into the beds, as the majority of the directly sown bean seeds either decomposed or were eaten.  

The Kale seedlings are establishing well and ready for a first harvest following which we will thin them out.     

The growth this time of year is incredibly fast and we are mowing the pathways once a week. Here's Ronan mowing the pathways in the forest garden   

Allium schoenoprasum - Chives planted around the edges of raised beds attract a range of pollinating insects that in turn attract the Flower Crab Spider. These spiders will quietly sit and wait on a flower or on a leaf until prey comes close enough for them to grab. They have no problem taking on insects far larger then themselves. 

The Cherry Orchard - Eleutheria

In the north east of  Shipka we have a cherry orchard planted with early - mid and late cultivars that have been very productive over the years. We headed there last week to pick the early cultivars but to my surprise there were hardly any cherries on the trees. Having looked around at some of the wild cherry trees in the vicinity it seems they are also very light on cherries this year. I can only assume that the location was subject to some unfavorable weather during the blossoming period, perhaps a prolonged frost.

Fortunately the trees in the home gardens, located lower down the mountain, are full of cherries so we headed over there for a harvest. Although having plots in various places can be time consuming, it does offer some protection from the vagaries of weather. I've heard it was common in the past for growers to have a number of smaller plots scattered around a landscape rather than a large one for this very reason.       

The Perennial Trial Garden - Ataraxia 

Over at the perennial trial garden we've been chopping and dropping the native plants that surround the cultivated plants to allow space and reduce water competition. Here's Cassandra cutting back Clematis vitalba that seems like a great candidate for a biomass plant given how quickly it grows and how tolerant to cut back it is.  

The trial preparation is going well and we have all of the productive plants in place and various biomass plants establishing before we begin the actual biomass trials. You can find out more about the polycultures and biomass plants from this garden here. Here is an overview of the planting scheme. 

Ronan scything around the Corylus avellana - Hazelnut  and Rubus × loganobaccus - Loganberry

Found a nice patch of  Rumex acetosa - Common Sorrel in the biomass beds. Thank you Lily for the identification. This edible perennial has a sharp, citrus, taste with younger smaller leaves tasting best. There is a good profile of this plants on wildfood.co.uk

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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