So here's what we've been up to this week in the gardens and some info and photos of winter fruits in the forest garden.
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
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| Plants, Seeds, eBooks, Consultancy, Bulk Fruit and Nut Tree Orders for Permaculture, Polyculture, Forest Gardens and Regenerative Landscapes. |
Probably the most wintery of winter fruits the Mespilus germanica - Medlar will hang on the tree right through to the new year. If picked now and kept inside for 10 days or so in a dark room the fruit will soften in a process known as bletting (pronounced like betting) and are ready to eat. The fruits can also be eaten directly off the tree in late autumn and right through the new year.
Erigeron annus still flowering away with Chaenomeles speciosa - Jap. Quince fruit in the background
The Paulownia tomentosa - Foxglove Tree are starting to shed their humongous leaves
Ginkgo biloba - Maidenhair Tree,....I so love this tree :)
Clematis vitalba - Travellers Joy waiting for a windy day to shed its offspring into the wild. Although they can grow aggressively up trees and smother plants in the forest garden, I always keep sections of the gardens to let them run free as they provide habit and resources for many organisms and are delightful to the eye at this time of year. They are also an excellent chop and drop biomass plant producing plenty of organic matter in our gardens even during the driest months.
The mild autumn has been good to the Buckwheat seedlings. They self seeded from plants that were sown in late Spring and serve as a pretty good winter ground cover at the moment. We'll see how they fare when the cold weather arrives proper.
Picking fruits off trees in the winter, never fails to amuse me. Diospyros kaki - Japanese Persimmon is probably the best tasting of the winter fruits, packing so much vitamin and sweetness.
Juglans regia - Persian Walnut get a bad rap for not being good companions to other plants. In my experience there is not much that will not grow under and around Walnuts and our Diospyros kaki - Japanese Persimmon (pictured behind the walnut in the below photo) certainly enjoys the company.
I wrote a post about growing plants around walnuts and listed all of the plants I've observed growing well, you can find that here if you're interested
Plenty of Chaenomeles speciosa - Jap. Quince as usual. After a frost they soften and can be squeezed like a lemon for juice. I add a squeeze with some honey, grated fresh ginger , dried Aronia melanocarpa - Black Chokeberry berries and a few dried husks of Zanthoxylum piperitum - Japanese Pepper Tree mixed in hot water. Allow to fuse for 5 minutes, strain and drink up the goodness.
Sorbus aucuparia - Rowan fruits right at the top of the tree. Provisions for the birds this winter.
The crimson candelabra-like stature of Rhus typhina - Stag's horn sumach brighten up the place this time of year and in the summer these fruits make a tasty lemonade. They appear to be good biomass plants as well growing very fast and sending up suckers from the expansive rhizomes.
Elaeagnus umbellata - Autumn Olive still full of fruit and tasting better than ever at the moment
I harvested the seed of this Sorbus sp. from Wisley gardens in the UK about 8 or 9 years ago. I'm not sure of the species as the tree was not on their database and did not have a label. Oddly, when the seeds from the tree germinated some of the seedlings had completely different leaves than others and as the plants have grown these differences remain. I've planted about 6 of these tree around the town in various gardens and this year we received the first fruits. I think the parent may have been Sorbus torminalis or some hybrid with Sorbus torminalis as one parent.
Planting Out Our Polyculture Orchard
After a week of rain the soil is lovely and moist and with the cool weather it's a perfect time to plant out some new fruit trees in the Polyculture Orchard. We planted some pears, apricots and hazels into the tree rows and mulched them well. You can find the planting scheme for the orchard below.
Here is the planting plan for the fruit trees in the Polyculture Orchard. If you would like to learn about how to select trees for a polyculture orchard we are offering a webinar on this topic. You can find out more about this and register here.
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| Our Apricot cultivars |
Some friends from Germany, Simon and Kartini, purchased some land from us a few years back and have been returning every year to plant out trees and shrubs into the plots. Dylan, Archie and their pal Stoyan helped out with planting Castanea sativa - Sweet Chestnut in one of their fields last week.
As they are not here to look over the trees most of the year, they have been erecting tree guards for the plants to prevent the herbivores getting at them and have been using these tree planting pits that collect rainwater and eliminate the need to irrigation.
Over at Aponia Dylan planted some Elaeagnus umbellata - Autumn Olive into our biomass belt between clumps of Miscanthus x giganteus - Giant Miscanthus . You can read more about our biomass belt here.
We set up a new bed for mother plants in Aponia where we planted five cultivars for Corylus avellana - Hazelnut . We'll be using these plants for propagation material for nursery stock. Hazels are relatively easy to propagate using a method known as stooling which is simply heaping loose soil around the collar of the tree, waiting 12 months, removing the soil and dividing the shoots with roots away from the main plant. For more on Hazel (including stooling) see our guide to growing Hazel here.
For more info on the cultivars that we have planted click below
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| Hazelnut cultivars for forest gardens |
Autumn Giveaway - Webinar Survey Results
We had some great feedback and will use the information from the survey to develop our webinars over the winter months and plan on launching a new webinar platform in the new year.
Here's a summary of the results;
The participants voted the topics they are most interested in in the following order of popularity;
- How to Design and Build a Forest Garden
- How to Select Fruit and Nut Trees for your Forest Garden/Polyculture Orchard
- Creating Habitat for Biodiversity
- Integrating Animals into home scale Forest Gardens
- How to use software for polyculture/permaculture design
- Farm Scale Regenerative Design
- Polyculture Design for Urban Gardens
- How to use software for building base maps and site analysis
60.2% of the participants thought that €30 for a 2 hr live webinar including access to design spreadsheets, species lists and other resources to take away is good value.
14.2% thought that €30 was not good value
25.6 % did not commit to yes or no but provided a range of useful feedback including sliding scale, offering a series of webinars and posting some free webinars to engage more people.
And many of the participants left us encouraging words of support and some great ideas. Thanks everyone that took part and for the words of encouragement. We're going to work on the webinar format over the winter and plan to launch a new platform in the new year.
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'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.
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| 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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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
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
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| You can also register for our online training, services, and products directly here. |
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