Abnormal October, Forest Garden Seed Collecting, Mushroom Hunting, A New Forest Garden - The Polyculture Project

It's been a quiet month at the project now that the polyculture study crew left last month, although last week we had a great group join us for our Design n' Build Forest Garden Course that I'll be writing about in the coming weeks.



It has been an unbelievably abnormal hot and dry October here. For the first time I can recall we have not experienced an October night time low below 0 (although at time of writing there are still 5 nights to go) . The mean high temperature for our area in October based on 30 years of climate data is 13 C the mean low is 4 C and it has not dropped below 20 C all month.  According to the same data source, we can expect 8-9 days of rain in October with a total of 49 mm of rainfall throughout the month. We have had 0 mm of rainfall. It's quite surreal as it feels very much like summer but the trees are turning orange and dropping leaves. I guess the weather will change rapidly in the coming weeks with a wicked wind from the north and all of a sudden we will be in winter so for now I'll enjoy it while I can and keep picking tomatoes :)

Forest Garden Seed Collecting

Archie and I have been harvesting seeds from the trees and shrubs in the forest garden this month and sending out the seeds to our customers all over Europe. I've found that for many shrubs that ripen in the Autumn, sowing the seeds indoors within a few weeks of picking and cleaning them results in the seeds germinating without the need for stratification and the germination rates are very high.

Forest Garden Seed 

The reasoning behind this may be that the fruit tissue that envelops the seed contains an inhibitor to prevent the seed from germinating within the fruit and before the winter has passed. By cleaning off the tissue and sowing indoors where the temperature is always above 0 C the seed can bypass stratification altogether.  I find this works very well for all plants from Elaeagnaceae specifically Elaeagnus umbellata - Autumn Olive and plants from Rutaceae such as  Zanthoxylum piperitum - Japanese Pepper Tree as well as Chaenomeles speciosa - Jap. Quince but does not seem to work at all for seeds from Rosaceae or Cornaceae such as these Cornus mas - Cornellian Cherry seeds below.

Castanea sativa - Sweet Chestnut are already littering the ground in the gardens.  If you are looking to grow Castanea sativa - Sweet Chestnut from seed it is vital that you sow the seed as soon as they fall to ground as they will quickly dry out and lose their ability to germinate.  Our grow your own sponge plant Luffa aegyptiaca - Vietnamese Luffa  should ripen soon, turn dry and yellow-brown, after which I'll peel the skin to reveal the fibrous tissue underneath,  remove the seeds (for planting next year) wash out the sap, leave to dry, marvel at the structure, and then start using as a sponge.

 

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 went up in the mountain for a walk last week. I always enjoy the opportunity to learn from the forest and to see how plants arrange themselves in the wild. Of particular interest this trip was a  Rubus spp. ground cover that had formed a blanket of cover in the deep shade of the beech forest. I'm familiar with Rubus caesius - Dewberry that also grows well on the forest floor but this species had black shiny fruit more like a regular blackberry, sweeter than the Dewberry and formed a fuller cover.   

Unidentified Rubus sp. covering the beech forest floor. 

We also found a few Parasol Mushrooms - Macrolepiota procera - on the edge of the woods. These are one of my favourite edible mushrooms and taste delicious. They are very easy to identify and are not easily confused for poisonous species so great for the novice mushroom collector. There is one poisonous lookalike in north america Chlorophyllum molybdites and a smaller parasol Lepiota brunneoincarnata in Europe, but as long as you only pick mushrooms that have a cap larger than 10 cm in diameter you are safe.  

Prokope - A New Forest Garden

Thank you to the participants of our Design n' Build a Forest Garden Course for a lovely course, we really enjoyed hosting you here and getting started on a new forest garden.

The primary purpose of the garden is to grow a polyculture fruit orchard  providing a variety of fruit from July - October. Our goal is to encourage growth of existing biodiversity as much as possible and provide new habitat that enhances biodiversity. We are also aiming to utilise the slope of the land and existing water source to irrigate the garden.

I'll be writing about this garden with plenty of photos, maps and more detail in the coming weeks including the species we used , the fruit cultivars, access and irrigation layout and support habitat features. Here is a growth forecast illustration of Prokope, our new Forest Garden. 

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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