2021 Week 9 - The Beginning of a Forest Garden

Answer to Last Week's Mystery Cliff-hanger
The mystery objects from last week were eddoes, also know as taro or elephant-ears. They are an exotic ornamental which I will be growing in the polytunnel. The tubers are a popular root crop in some parts of the world.

Now that good roots have developed, I've potted them up and within a week their shoots have poked up into the air.

These will live in a new exotic section within the polytunnel where I am going to experiment with various crops. Familiar will be sweet potatoes, ginger and okra, less familiar are groundnuts (apios) and Madeiran vine. I don't think the galangal root which I purchased are going to come back to life so I am on the look out for a new source of fresh galangal.

The Forest Garden
Last week I spoke about my new forest garden and that is the main topic for this week.

A forest garden seeks to copy nature but using plants with a purpose, either edible, medicinal or for other purposes such as dying or basketry. It involves growing crops on all different levels, from ground cover to herbaceous perennials, climbers, shrubs, fruit bushes and trees. It doesn't really suit annual crops such as carrots, so I will still be keeping a substantial part of the veg plot for more traditional staple crops.

But some of my existing planting scheme will provide a perfect start for a forest garden. The area I will be using already has cobnuts, an almond, a sweet chestnut, apples, pears, a mulberry tree, greengauges, lime trees and black locust.

In amongst these are the fruit bushes and canes and mahonia. There are flowering currants and buddleias to attract insects and at ground level rhubarb, strawberries, asparagus, sorrel and horse radish.

So we have a good start. I have purchased some unusual crops to incorporate, including oca tubers, mashua, Caucasian spinach (just germinating from seed) and yacon. We are now entering the realm of crops unfamiliar to most in this country.

I will be adding herbs too along with wild garlic, Good King Henry and Day Lilies.

But this doesn't quite make a forest garden. I want more variety and more in the shrub and tree layer.

To this end, I have purchased small starter plants of the following, many of which even I had not heard of until I started researching.

Chocolate Vine, Russian Olive, Blue Sausage Tree, Japanese Raisin Tree, Red Elder, Chinese Quince, Himalayan Honeysuckle, Chilean Guava, Goji, Chinee Dogwood, Barberry, Hardy Orange, Bladdernut, Sechuan Pepper, Mini Kiwis, Nanking Cherry and Yellow Giant Fig.

Well, what an eclectic collection of plants! 

I have selected them to be hardy, mostly self-fertile and hopefully fairly maintenance free. I doubt they'll provide us with staple foods, but they will eventually add a great deal of variety to our diet. The area should also be a beautiful place to spend time and be a major attraction to wildlife.

This is a project to be developed over several years and is a major new departure for me. Only now do I really think I have the gardening knowhow to make it succeed. I need to nurture the young plants I have brought, hopefully to get crops and to take cuttings. I will be growing many new plants from seed too, though perennials are often more difficult to grow from seed than annuals.

There will be failures along the way, but it is an exciting new project. Every year I seem to take on a new project and a new feature develops on the smallholding. Last year it was the willow holt. The year before I converted the veg plot over to no dig.

Last week I showed you the extension to the polytunnel. This will be crucial for raising the plants to go in the forest garden, as well as elsewhere. This week the netting came through the post. It was surprisingly easy to stretch over the tunnel frame and I managed to order just the right size.

There was time for some more traditional gardening too. Underneath the big old ash tree in the middle of the garden is an ornamental bed. A few years back I raised some grasses from seed. I was aiming for a large area of grasses which would swish in unison and create a wind-blown ocean. But it didn't quite achieve the desired effect. 

So this week I dug up a whole load of the grasses, leaving just enough to suggest a small swathe, and transplanted the rest to a problem area for which I had never quite found a purpose. I like the result.

Much of the extra work I've been doing this week has been possible because of the help I've received from the dogs, who have been turning the compost heap for me with great enthusiasm!