There is still time to enroll for the full course or for separate weekly sessions or modules that are of interest to you. You can find out more and register here.
So here's some photos from our forest gardens and what we've been up to in gardens this week.
The majority of plants in our home forest garden are all bursting into leaf now apart from
Ficus carica cv. - Fig, Morus alba - White Mulberry and Juglans regia - Persian Walnut that will be coming out over the next week.
When moving an old compost pile the boys found a few Slowworm - Anguis fragilis. They are very welcome in our gardens and help to keep the slug populations low. Dylan has been making profiles for the animals of our gardens and you can find his profile on Slow worm and other reptiles in the gardens here.
Slow worm probably settled in the piles from October for their winter period of dormancy, called brumation (similar to hibernation of warm-blooded creatures). They do this to ensure survival during the coldest period of the year when food sources are scarce. They were still quite sleepy from winter dormancy so we moved them under some log piles until they're ready to venture out into the Spring
I cut down a Prunus persica - Wild Peach tree about 4 years that grew up next to a wildlife pond. The tree was dropping most of its fruit in the pond and turning the water eutrophic and it was too large to transplant. We always leave the stumps in the ground when we fell tres, as they can provide great habitat to a number of invertebrates and saprophytic fungi.
One such invertebrate that requires rotting stumps to complete their lifecycle is the endangered European stag beetle - Lucanus cervus. One of the biggest terrestrial beetles in Europe, the larvae feed on the rotting wood for three to five years below ground before emerging as adults. I'm not sure whether they are using this stump but we always come across male and female beetles during the summertime in the gardens.
Juglans regia - Persian Walnut in flower over in Ataraxia. The Catkins are the male flowers and have been dispersing 100 s of 1000s of pollen grains over the last week. The female flowers are much smaller and if they manage to receive the pollen and the pollen manages to fertilize the female flowers a walnut will start to form. Some walnut fruits are already visible as you can see in the second photo.
Welcome to our Online Store where you can find Forest Garden/ Permaculture plants, seeds, bulbs and Polyculture multi-packs along with digital goods and services such as Online Courses, Webinars, eBooks, and Online Consultancy. We hope you enjoy the store and find something you like :) It's your purchases that keep our Project going. Yuu can also find our full list of trees. shrubs and herbs for forest gardens on our website here
Spreading Ground Covers
This patch of Symphytum tuberosum - Tuberous Comfrey is spreading beautifully under our Elaeagnus angustifolia - Russian Olive plants that we are growing as windbreak for our home garden. The plants spread via seed and form vast carpets of cover. To get a patch going you can plant out 5-8 plants approx 50 cm apart and they should start forming carpet cover within a few seasons. The plant's roots and shoots are much smaller than Symphytum x uplandicum - Comfrey but they produce a fair quantity of biomass especially this time of year when they are in flower.
Fragaria x ananassa - Strawberry in flower. We have these growing under our fruiting shrubs and tree for ground cover. We don't get too much fruit from them when grown for ground cover but they make a great cover and very attractive to bees. We're growing strawberries for fruit in other areas of the garden where they have more space, richer soils, and can get plenty of light and water. We've also introduced some Wild strawberries in the garden from a nearby forest in the mountain.
Grapevine Polyculture
Our Vitis vinifera cv. - Grape and Vaccinium corymbosum cv. - Blueberry experimental polyculture we planted out in Ataraxia with the polyculture study crew last spring is coming along well. You can find out more about the polyculture here. In the below photo you can see the Hemerocallis fulva - Orange Daylily fringe that should be flowering around June. Much of the plant is edible and quite tasty and is a versatile plant that succeeds in many soils. The beautiful edible flowers are also attractive to a variety of insects especially butterflies.
Here's the planting plan of the polyculture
You can find a whole lot more about growing grapes in our previous post The Very Fine Grapevine - The Essential Guide to Everything you Need to Know about Growing Grapes
That's all for this week!
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 or via FTX Pay
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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| You can also register for our online training, services, and products directly here. |
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