The baking temperatures continue and with them has come the demise of most of the tomato plants in the home garden. Over the past few weeks my concern over the welfare of the plants has been growing along with the browning leaves and fruit that isn't ripening, and now - a week or 2 earlier than usual but at a critical point that the tomato plants can take little more assault - the destructive Southern Green Stink Bugs - Nezara viridula - have arrived, and are breeding abundantly on the tomato and bean plants. With no natural predators that we are aware of, it's a matter of manually removing them. They have a very effective defense mechanism of falling off the fruit or plant when disturbed, but having dealt with them for years, we've learned to position a jam jar underneath and catch them as they fall.
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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| Under attack from Stink Bugs in the third instar stage |
It's generally been a disappointing year generally in the home garden for annual vegetables, probably in part due to the unsettled and unusual weather patterns, but also due to setting up the garden much later than usual and planned this year. The ESC volunteers are doing a great job in their home garden, and it's been a real pleasure watching them take control and manage the vegetable plot effectively. Their garden was planted out around a month earlier than the home garden, which might have made a significant difference.
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| The annual vegetable polyculture beds at the Crew house |
On a brighter note the Forest Garden, Aponia has been an absolute pleasure this season. This week we've been weeding some of the swales, and as it's high summer, spending a significant amount of time watering and counting our blessings in this heatwave to have a perennial water source to tap into and fill up the swales. Now that the grasses and native plants such as Hemlock have died back, the wild plum woodland is navigable again. It's been a pleasure to stroll through the woodland, plucking the odd plum from the branches and enjoying the cool shade provided. One of our volunteers, Markus, helped to clear an irrigation channel so we can divert the water through the woodland. The trees have adapted to our dry, hot summers and are pretty drought resistant, but it felt good to watch the dry land gratefully soak up the flowing water nonetheless.
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| The view from the woodland by the wildlife pond |
Blackberry season starts around now, and the image shows fruits from a thornfree cultivar growing in the home garden.
Part of our ESC project will involve planting some polycultures out in a community space, and I've decided that I'd really like to see Chaste tree - Vitex agnus-castusis as one of the plants in our selection. It's a deciduous shrub with a thousand year old history as a medicinal plant and a great magnet for beneficial organisms. The prolific late summer/early autumn blooms provide great forage for bees, and it's really caught my eye over the last week or two as it's come into bloom.
Check out our range of seeds, tubers and cuttings available all year around - delivery worldwide.
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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
- 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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