It's been a bumper year for cherries in our region, but there are big differences around the country depending on local weather patterns. We usually enter a somewhat tropical weather cycle at this time of year with hot, sunny spells quickly interrupted with heavy downpours, which are difficult to predict and can really affect the cherries. Firstly, the fruit sugar content becomes markedly reduced after frequent heavy rainfall, and secondly, the fruit can split and quickly start to decompose. So while we just managed to harvest our main crop before the first heavy rain, other people around the country haven't been so lucky. Slight variations in ripening times depending on microclimates and elevation also play a part.
This year with the help of our ESC volunteers, we've made some cherry compote, and also some jam. Cherry compote, along with Cornelian Cherry syrup made from the fruits of Cornus mas was one of the first things we learned to process when we arrived in Bulgaria over 15 years ago now, from a special lady named Ivanka.
Cherry stems saved for drying and making tea
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| Sophie & Dylan making Cornelian Cherry with Ivanka back in 2007 |
We think the plant growing in abundance around our house is Matricaria recutita - German Chamomile. as opposed to Chamaemelum nobile - Roman Chamomile. See a previous post that Paul wrote on how to tell the difference between the two. We also collected some petals from Rosa canina and intended to collect some Elderflowers, but as the sky turned an ominous shade of grey we decided to call it a day!
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| Marco & Ruxandra |
In response to the warm temperatures and high rainfall, the native plants in all the gardens are growing vigorously. The plants are predominantly grasses and herbaceous climbers, and the next few weeks will be busy as we weed and mulch the trees using a chop and drop method, as well as topping up the mulch with some straw in time for a potentially long dry season.
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| Rushar & Tara chopping and dropping the biomass around the trees in one of our gardens, Phronesis |
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| Tara making a doughnut shape around one of the Zanthoxylum piperitum trees. These trees should be much taller and more mature in growth by now, but the unfenced location has left them vulnerable to hungry herbivores both wild and domestic. |
When thinking about designing a polyculture, it's very helpful to define the overall intended function of the garden. The primary purpose of Phronesis is to produce round wood for fence posts, light construction wood, and stakes and pole wood for the market garden crops. The secondary purpose is to provide fruits and nuts in the under story and a range of habitat to support wildlife. The goals of this design were to encourage growth of existing biodiversity as much as possible and provide new habitat that enhances biodiversity and to utilise the slope of the land and existing water source to irrigate the garden.
Dylan & Archie took the group into the mountains and diverted the mountain stream water into the garden pond, which was almost empty. The main water channel into the garden needed some digging out, after which the pond filled up and started overflowing into the pathways, irrigating the garden in the process.
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| Markus getting stuck in! |
One of the trees in the upper canopy of Phronesis is Alnus cordata - Italian Alder, a truly remarkable tree. In the below image you can see a 7 or 8-year-old specimen growing in the home garden. The tree takes a natural conical shape which is useful in a garden scale forest garden as they do not take up too much space in the canopy area. We lift the lower limbs to allow light in the lower layers and can easily grow an number of fruiting shrubs and herbs under the trees It also fixes nitrogen, is fast-growing, and drought tolerant so a firm favourite.
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
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| Can anyone else can see a tree man with a large hernia?! |
The Rose harvest continues usually until the end of June and some of our fellow villagers were only to happy to have six extra pairs of hands. The plant is Rosa damascenca - Damask Rose, and the blooms are harvested early in the morning by the sackful, and sent to a distillery to start the process of extracting the oil, a product that is currently more valuable than gold. This region is known as The Valley of the Roses, and most of the world's beauty products contain Rose oil that originated from these very fields.
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Special thanks to Ruhsar, Ruxandra and Tara for their beautiful photos, many of which have been used in this post :)
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