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!

2021 Week 7 - Mulching and Willow Weaving After The Big Freeze

What a difference a few days make. The sun is streaming through the window, the snow is gone, the bees are out, birds are singing. 

Goose Love is in The Air
Valentine's Day on the smallholding means one thing... Cleaning out the goose stable, several months worth of accumulated straw and muck. For this is when the geese come into lay. Their behaviour changes as they become much more raucous and aggressive with each other.

Rather perversely, this is one of Sue's favourite jobs. I am happy for her to do it. All that mucky straw doesn't go to waste though. I am chief distributor. The blackcurrants always get a good dollop of this nitrogen rich mulch, as does the rhubarb. Both of these are relatively unaffected by the slugs that the mulch might attract.

I also decided to risk mulching some of my veg beds with it. The beds over near the boundary hedge are prone to drying out and this year will be hosting brassicas and squashes, both hungry crops. It will be a while before any of these seedlings are planted outside and it should give the ducks time to get on top of any burgeoning slug population before their services become more damaging than helpful and they get kicked out of the veg plot.

Ready, Steady, Sow!
Valentine's Day is also the starter gun for seed sowing. The days are getting longer quickly. and conditions are easier to provide to keep seedlings happy. I have pushed all my timings forward this year. In one sense this is a bad idea since you're pushing the limits and not growing the young plants in ideal conditions. On the other hand, I know there will be serious bottlenecks for propagator space and bench space in the near future, so the more I can get going now the better. The heat mats are in particular demand. These peppers should hopefully get off to a quick start with some bottom heat. Once germinated they can move to a warm spare room by a south facing window.

This week has seen me sowing more lettuce, turnips, carrots, radicchio, kohl rabi, parsley and broad beans. I've been busy sowing seeds of perennial plants too. These are often harder to germinate and look after, but the rewards come if you can get them through to planting out.

The conservatory is full of chitting potatoes

My potatoes arrived this week too. Varieties were a bit limited but I've risked saving some through from last year. I think I have eleven varieties. A bit excessive but they all have very distinctive qualities.

Additions to the Forest Garden
I received some plants in the post for the forest garden too. This is the experimental, exotic end of my growing. Japanese Raisin Tree, Himalayan Honeysuckle and Red-berried Elder will make exciting additions to the collection.

Fortunately the snow melting and a little rainfall has not flooded the place out. In fact it is drying up quite nicely.🙏 The warm weather and a steady breeze helps but I think when the ground is frozen it allows the soil deeper down to drain somehow faster than usual.

Willow weaving
Because of this I've been able to get out and sort the willow poles that I've been cutting. I have everything from thin slithers to three inch thick straight branches. The first thing I did was to construct a protective cage for my surviving perennial kale since the turkeys and ducks had ravaged the ones I had left unprotected over winter. I love this sort of task as it combines willow weaving with gardening and being outdoors.

I then picked out willow poles suitable for various purposes - bean poles, climbing structures, support frameworks. I will gradually throw these to the sheep to debark so they don't start growing when poked into the ground. The bark stripping service is available at a small price 🐑🐑🐑🐑😉.

2021 Week 4 - My Perennial Project

We'll start with the weather.

It's been a week of fluctuating conditions, beginning with snow and early morning temperatures down to 5 below. But this was followed by a warm and very wet weather system. A couple of nights of heavy rain have seen water levels rise back to annoying levels. The seasonal lake and various ponds have reappeared and it is pretty squelchy underfoot. 

This was my week to be in school rather than teaching from home, so combined with the weather I have had limited opportunities to make significant headway on the smallholding.

Seed sowing steps up
My growing year has stepped up a notch with a gradual trickle of seed sowing. I've pushed everything a little earlier this year and purchased an extra heat mat to help persuade the seeds into germination and keep the tender young plants warm and snug. 

Some of my onions have germinated very well. As they germinate they come off the heat mat to give room for others. They just move to a different shelf on the staging which is currently in a warm spare bedroom. As soon as things warm up a little most of this will move into the conservatory which offers much improved light, but for the moment it's a bit cool in there and damping off of seedlings might be a problem.

All my aubergines have germinated. These need a long season to produce ripe fruit as I grow them outside. Of all my crops these are the most susceptible to red spider mite when grown in the polytunnel and I don't want to risk giving it a foothold back in.

I've started off my indoor tomatoes too, ten different varieties. I'll concentrate on these in a future post.

Strong lupin seedlings
but one seems to have
given up the ghost.

On a more decorative front, some of the seeds I collected from a gorgeous lupin plant have germinated strongly. Hopefully I can look after them and raise them into perennial splashes of colour around the smallholding.

Potatoes
As we move towards February, potatoes loom on the horizon. It won't be long till I pick up my order of seed potatoes for the year and set them to chit. Because of lockdown I saved some of each variety from last year just in case there was a problem with supplies this year. I put them in a spare fridge which seems to have held them quite well. This is just an emergency measure as it's best to start with fresh stock each year.

I have however planted the Arran Pilots which I saved through. These early potatoes have gone into a polytunnel bed with a heavy compost mulch and should give me new potatoes way ahead of the outdoor plants.

Perennial Hope

The week's main excitement has been a steady stream of deliveries of growing supplies. Thank goodness for the internet during lockdown. and this year is seeing a flood of experimental new crops - the product of too much time on my hands during lockdown. The idea of trying a few trendy perennial crops such as oca and Caucasian spinach has rapidly expanded into developing a major new area of the garden. 

I'm no artist, but this sketched plan opens a whole new can of worms

So here are some of the crops which will be in this area:

Fruit and nut trees already present - apples, pears, plum, almond, hazels, sweet chestnut, mulberry, fig. Also small-leaved limes which can be used for fresh leaves and tilia tea.

Soft fruits already present - gooseberries, red, white and blackcurrants, Japanese wineberries, loganberries, blackberry, raspberries, strawberries, chokeberry, Japanese quince. There's also a huge mahonia plant and an area of buddleia and flowering currants.

Other crops already present - rhubarb, asparagus sorrel, horseradish. There's also the elephant grass I planted last year for biomass which has developed strong rhizomes.

Up till now these have been grown in quite separate areas, but a redesign of where pathways go should help link it all together. I plan to introduce more layers to include climbing plants, herbaceous perennials and perennial tubers.

I'll be adding in some herbs too, such as rosemary, oregano and creeping thyme. Comfrey too.

So here's a list of the new and wonderful additions which will pretty much turn the area into a fully blown forest garden.

Good King Henry - Also known as Lincolnshire Spinach. I am currently trying to germinate the seeds.

Caucasian Spinach - Hablitzia tamnoides - If I can get this growing, it should be a vigorous climber whose leaves can be used as a spinach substitute. If this works I won't need to bother trying to grow annual spinach each year, which always bolts ridiculously quickly.

Oca - Tiny little tubers. I've not tasted them before and at almost a pound a tuber I'll eat some of the produce and sell some for growing. Some of the tubers I received were frost damaged (should be safe outside if well mulched) but I have enough left. They are currently sitting in dry compost in a tub in a wardrobe in the garage. They are actually a type of oxalis and will provide a very attractive summer ground cover.

Yacon - I tried this once before but lost it over winter. However, the taste was great and the harvest huge. If I had saved the growing points properly in a frost free place I could have multiplied it a hundred times. I've started this off in pots in a warm room and they have all thrown up fresh green foliage. They will need potting on before they go outside later in the year.

Mashua - A perennial nasturtium whose tuberous roots apparently taste radishy. I'll probably just use this as a decorative climber to come back year after year.

Chufa (Tiger Nuts) - Actually the bulbs of a grass. These are harvested and dried for eating or replanting. I've tried a couple of the dried 'nuts' and love them. They are sweet and nutty, turning coconutty.

Day Lilies - Edible flowers and young shoots. They'll probably be a very occasional harvest, but will add splashes of colour in the understorey of the forest garden.

Perennial Kale - Taunton Dean Kale, Daubenton's Kale and Portuguese Walking Stick Kale. One survived from last year but the ducks or turkeys have demolished a couple of others, which is an expensive lesson for me to provide some overwinter protection. I'll make cages out of willow. I have ordered a couple of replacement cuttings of Daubentons which will hopefully root successfully. The walking stick kale will be raised from seed which came all the way from The Azores. In our cooler climes they shouldn't set seed so easily so will stay perennial.

Wild Garlic - I've purchased seeds. If they germinate, these will be going under trees as lush ground cover.

Wild Strawberry - the seeds have just gone in the freezer to simulate a winter. if successful, these will be used for ground cover to provide tiny jewels of flavour explosion!

Skirret - A very old-fashioned crop. A bit fiddly to grow and harvest but it will be interesting to try.

Babington Leeks - I purchased six tiny bulblets last year and five have come back over winter. These have gone into the new perennial area and should grow much more substantially this year. They start growing midwinter and will have died back down by June, thus offering a leek flavour at a completely different time of year to traditional leeks.

Bamboo - I discovered a couple of lost bamboos at the back of my herb patch. They've been there since we moved in and have just started to thrive. I have taken cuttings from a golden bamboo which grows really tall. This was something I found on YouTube but I had no hope of the woody stem sections throwing out new growth. But lo and behold one of them has. The other bamboo is much thinner but considerably denser. It has gradually expanded into a large clump hidden by a large bay tree. So I have been dividing it, not an easy task. 
I will harvest the bamboos for sticks and canes and might give the fresh shoots a try too. But really I am growing them mostly for their statuesque appearance and for the rustling of their leaves and stems in a breeze.

Siberian Pea Tree - I've just sown seeds so this is a long-term project. Siberian Pea Tree is a nitrogen fixer and will be an important addition to the forest garden.

Sorrel - non-flowering. I already have a large patch of sorrel, but it is quick to go to seed every year and looks messy. So I have purchased a non-flowering form which should give fresh leaves over a much longer period. If it grows well I'll propagate it and dig out the old stock.

A sorrel root division and perennial kale cuttings

Mushrooms - I cant wait to get going on these. I'm planning on growing shiitake, oyster mushrooms and winecaps. An exciting new venture and just perfect for the forest garden.

I am also trying some more exotic perennials which will get their own area in the polytunnel. I'll still have to lift and store every winter probably. So I am trying ginger, galangal, eddoe, apios (groundnut) and Madeira vine. 

The delight of perennial plants is that, once they've got a hold, they can easily be multiplied (sometimes too easily!)

Next week: Pruning the orchard fruits

2021 Week 2 - Bubbles, glitching, edible perennials, shallots and pilates.

Lockdown
Surely no-one can write a blog at the moment without mentioning lockdown. 

Covid-19 has become scary again. If I could I would be happy staying here on the smallholding sheltered from the rest of the world. But schools remain open. We have over a quarter of our pupils coming in daily along with the added complication of teaching the rest on Zoom and furnishing them with enough learning activities to keep busy and engaged.

To reduce the number of 'bubbles' within the school, we now have the school split into two halves. Teachers are physically in school every other week, teaching from home on alternate weeks.

If I hear the words "Mr Pegden, it's glitching" one more time...

The zoom classroom.
There's a problem on the board for you to solve!

 

We've had a couple of foggy days this week

A bit of sun, a bit of snow, a bit of fog, a lot of rain
And no English conversation can proceed without being preceded by the weather. The week started wet and the water still takes an eternity to drain away so we have puddles the size of small lakes. We are still in the middle of winter though, so temperatures haven't strayed too far from zero. At least the ground is not so slippery when it's frozen solid, but by midday it has usually thawed. This is the time of day when I can work most comfortably outside though I have now adapted to the cold and don't really feel it as long as I wear a few layers.

The dyke is full again and the puddles are back.
The hardy Shetland sheep don't really mind.

My Edible Perennial Patch
The big project in the veg patch at the moment is an edible perennial garden. The postie has been bringing me strange tubers and new seed varieties and I have been moving some of the existing perennials around. Now is a good time to move or divide them while they are dormant.

Many of the tubers I have received, such as chufa, apios, oca and Madeiran vine, need to be stored awhile before they go in the ground. Others, such as yacon, eddoe and galangal have been potted up and I am hoping they will begin to shoot so they can get a headstart for the year. I'll write more about these unusual food plants as the year progresses.

The perennial patch is starting to take shape. I have a basic plan so that it can incorporate the asparagus plants already there (I spent three days hands and knees weeding these to restore the bed to vitality) as well as sorrel and horseradish. An existing greengauge tree and  cider apple tree are at the centre of the design. The aim is to create a small forest garden. 
We shifted a rhubarb to the base of the greengauge, where I also intend to cultivate mushrooms later in the season. We dug up and moved quite a few of the elephant grasses too, filling gaps and creating a tall, swishy backdrop for the garden - the savanna bordering the forest! Dividing a bamboo was a trickier job than I had anticipated. There were several attempts by the bamboo to poke out my eyes!

Chinese artichoke
about to be transplanted

I also dug up my existing bed of Chinese artichokes which were sited where my greenhouse is going to go (I have put off constructing this for longer than I care to remember). They had been long forgotten and invaded by couch grass and willowherb, but the tubers persisted. I selected out the strongest tubers and replanted them in the gaps where the asparagus has failed.

The perennial patch will become a regular feature of this blog as it develops throughout the year.

Early seed sowing
The annual cycle of seed sowing has started too. Just a few crops for now and mostly those which will end up in the polytunnel. Mangetout and coriander are the first. But patience is required as there is no point starting seeds too early in the year. They will struggle without sufficient heat and light and will be held back waiting for correct conditions outside.

Seed sowing has begun!

As usual I am super organised and have now received all my seeds for the year. Many people don't even think about this until early Spring, but they may well be disappointed for a second year in succession. One of the good effects of lockdown is a renewed interest in growing your own which has resulted in some seed companies having to stop orders or limit quantities. Of course, staff sickness and fewer staff due to space is affecting the suppliers too. So if you're still with me and planning on doing some growing this year, best get onto those seed purchases without further delay.

Shallots
The shallots have been planted out this week too. I save the bulbs from year to year but I am never quite sure when to set them out in the soil. I think any time between January and March is fine. Some were beginning to rot though as I failed to give them enough air flow in storage, so it seemed a good time to sort through them. On average each bulb should split into between four and nine shallots. That's not a bad return. I know that with garlic a period of cold is supposed to help make sure they divide and don't just grow into one big bulb, so I wonder if the same might be true of shallots.

Pilates - an unexpected New Year Resolution
Finally it's back to school again. We still have a dance teacher come in for the children who are attending school - we also zoom the lesson into homes for others to join in. This week part of the routine was pilates. I had always dismissed this without knowing anything about it. But as I watched I was struck by the elements of yoga and some similarities with tai chi. I have been vaguely considering both of these as a bit of gentle lockdown exercise and mindfulness.
As I have gotten older, despite leading quite an active lifestyle, my body has started to seize up. I am about as flexible as a gnarled, stubborn old oak tree! I have been having back problems too. I have found myself having to limit what I do to accommodate the preservation of my body. My mind finds it frustrating.
But as I watched the pilates I began to notice how it focused on strength through the core of the body. I used to have very strong stomach and back muscles until some major internal replumbing when I was forty. Even watching from the sidelines I could see how pilates might just be the form of exercise I needed.Then along came an exercise which was exactly the same as one the hospital physio had given me to do.  When I got home I looked up pilates on Youtube and was in for more surprises. The second clip I watched was a perfect match for the first set of physio exercises I had been given for my back troubles. The physios had just nabbed everything from Youtube pilates!!!

So there is my new year resolution. Sue is keen to join in too so that will make it all the more enjoyable.

Anyway, I can't put off feeding the chickens any longer. We've had a little snow overnight followed by rain so the ground will be treacherous outside.

Next week I'll show you my latest seed storage solution. We'll be sowing spinach, lettuce, onion and aubergine too. And hopefully my kaffir lime seeds will have germinated.