March 24

Perennial vegetables for the wildlife plot

I have two goals this year for the wildlife garden on the allotments. The first is to sort out the bed under the apple tree.  It has become overrun with vinca, which has run half way down the plot and will run down the other half if I don’t take action now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I was digging it up, I had the company of a red-tailed bumble bee proving that the flowers are very useful early in the season for insects. This helped me make the decision to leave a reasonable sized clump but to keep it strictly under control. Once some of the vinca was removed I found a gooseberry, 5 strawberry plants, potentilla, mock orange, acquilegia and a large clump of geranium.

The second action is to plant perennial vegetables on the plot. I haven’t got the time to sow and look after more annual crops but sow and plant perennials once and they are then there for good.  I have some cuttings from my perennial kale that I took in the autumn which have taken so one or two of those can go in but I need more than that.  Below is a list of veg that I will start to collect:

  • Asparagus – why wouldn’t you have this?!
  • 9 star perennial broccoli which is really a cauliflower, go figure
  • Globe artichokes – I have sown some of these and they are up but tiny
  • Jerusalem artichokes – an acquired taste but I do like them and I have lots of them already.
  • Sea beet – sometimes known as wild spinach and supposed to taste very good
  • Sea kale – there is a bit of a maritime theme going on here.
  • Narrow-leaved plantain, sometimes called a weed, with lots already on the plot!

On most of the sites that focus on perennial vegetables the flower day lilies appears with everyone saying how lovely the flowers taste.  I have day lilies in my garden so will divide them and bring some to the plot and try them this year.

Do you grow any perennial vegetables that you would recommend I grow?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category: march, wildlife, wildlife garden | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 14

Using nature’s patterns

In nature there are a limited number of patterns but an infinite number of variations. Take a snowflake: there are no two snowflakes that are the same although they are all formed in a similar way.

The air temperature and the humidity, to some degree, determine the basic shape of the snowflake. We get needle-like crystals at -1.6°C and flat, plate-like crystals at -15°C. The shape of one arm of a snowflake is determined by the atmospheric conditions as it falls; the temperature or humidity might change as it falls and this affects how the water crystal grows and also explains why the six arms are identical. They all experience the same conditions at the same point. Anyway, these patterns are symmetrical and fascinating, so what about others.

In nature we can find waves, lobes, spirals, clouds, branching patterns and scatters all of which are patterns of growth, and nets which are patterns of lateral tension, distribution of weight, storage of energy and shrinkage.

I am going to look at three patterns in a bit more detail: branching patterns, explosion patterns and spirals.

Branching patterns

Orchid flower

Alocasia sanderiana

Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’

 

 

 

 

 

 

With thanks to Meghan Rocktopus

Branching patterns (sometimes called dendritic or fractal patterns) can be one of the easiest patterns to spot. They can be found in leaves, roots, rivers and our circulatory and nervous systems to name but a few places. Looking closely at the three photos taken of plants inside and outside my house, I can see that they have slightly different ways of branching. A little research on the internet suggests that there might be 19 different branching patterns. The Alocasia looks more like a distichous or pinnate branching with the orchid more of a dichotomous branching and the Cornus a trichotomous. This isn’t really important knowledge for permaculture purposes, just of interest to me.

Branching patterns are found where there is a gathering and dispersal of materials or energy. At a micro level they are essential for the efficient exchange of  gases and fluids with the environment due to the maximised surface area.

So how could we use these as permaculture designers? Branching patterns are well-suited to roads and paths where something needs to be distributed across a wide area. Branching patterns can also relate to the organisation of people such as a large, hierarchical company where who line manages who is depicted. For an example of a branching pathway (cervicorn – branching like antlers) used in a permaculture design see p11 of Mobile home garden design by Aranya. Look on the right-hand side of the design next to the decking.

Exploding patterns

Weeds in my garden!

Back to the snowflake patterns which would fit into this category. The image shows two weeds in my garden that both have an exploding pattern in 2d with the leaves lying flat on the ground. You can see how they layer over each other in the weed on the right (I’m not sure what it is called) and in fact it is almost symmetrical with 10 leaves on the lower layer. It is obvious how the arrangement of leaves allows it to gain maximum sunshine and I do wonder if it does well in slightly shady spots where this photo was taken. There is a very direct route between the central point and each external point  in complete contrast to a spiral where the central point is a long way away from the end point if you follow the spiral around.

This explosion, however, is the dried flower of Allium x ‘Globemaster’ with some seeds left in the seedheads. The flowerhead is made up of hundreds of little flowers in a beautiful purple during late May early June.  It is an excellent example of a pattern within a pattern within a pattern because it is an explosion making a sphere with some branching at the end of each individual flowerhead. You get a really clear picture of how the seeds are dispersed all around the plant, some near and some slightly further away.

 

Some towns and cities have an explosion pattern built up over time. They may well have started off as a nucleated settlement but then have grown over time, spread out along main roads finishing with some isolated housing which eventually becomes part of the main settlement. Lisbon is one city that shows an explosion pattern of settlement.

 

So, how can we use this pattern in design? This is an image of La Ferme du Bec Hellouin in Normandy, France. Below the polytunnels can clearly be seen an exploding pattern set of beds all coming off a central point. Often in walled gardens there would be a well or water store in the centre of this type of pattern, making it quicker and easier to water the beds – or nowadays a tap on a standpipe from a gravity-fed reservoir on higher land. This link gives a closer view of the bed.

And finally, spiral patterns.

These are another type of fractal pattern frequently demonstrated through a snail shell, sunflower head, climbing tendrils on sweet peas and in weather systems.

Euphorbia myrsinites

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The euphorbia above has a spiral in a spiral. First the leaves spiral around each stem and then each stem spirals out of a central point. I did wonder if the whole plant was an example of an explosion but the stems curl round rather than being straight so I am putting it in the spiral group, not unlike weather patterns. The spiral arrangement of leaves on a plant is to ensure maximum exposure to sunlight and for the seeds. Spirals are able to capture and slow down energy such as in a herb spiral, that ubiquitous permaculture plant bed. To be fair, they are space-saving and allow for different types of herb to be grown, making use of the different amounts of moisture in different parts of the bed.

 

Photo from Olds College, Flickr

https://www.tomatocages.org/tomatocage/tomato-spirals.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So how else can we use spirals?

I have a number of spiral plant supports which I use for tomatoes in particular. They are tall, narrow spirals which you can twist the stems around as they grow. But there are also other spirals that can be used as plant supports. The third image shows a support that allows climbers to go up and the final one supports flower heads. I use one of these on a peony.

A vortex is a spiral where the air or water swirls around and anything caught in the motion is pulled into the centre. One place where this can be used in the garden is in free flow water features to aerate the water. They are based on an idea from Rudolf Steiner and shown through Drop Test Pictures developed by Theodore Schwenk. Water moves in patterns down a river and creates patterns when a drop is released. Pollution in the water will change the patterns formed so tap water gives a different and lower quality pattern to water fresh from an unpolluted stream. The free form fountains mix water and oxygen together providing support for organisms to break down pollutants and is reported to increase and stimulate plant growth.

Do you use any patterns from nature in your garden?

A book I have bought to read as a result of this module on patterns in nature is Patterns in Nature: Why the natural world looks the way it does by Philip Ball.

Category: Design from pattern to detail, Geoff Lawton Online Permaculture Design Certificate, march, PDC, permaculture | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 5

What’s in the local environment – permaculture activity

Having finally decided on the space for my online Permaculture Design Course activities, today on my walk I focused on the plants, including the big trees that I missed.

I have already mentioned the grass that is growing on the land which is doing a sterling job of preventing erosion and stabilising the soil but there are a couple of other things as well.

 

 

The first plant is yarrow, Achillea millefolium, wrapped around one of the fence posts at the west end of the land. The picture of it demonstrates how it creates more soil as the leaves that blow around and get caught in it rot down along with the plant stems. The Wildlife Trust website states that this is a plant that can help to restore arable land to grassland which it is doing here as well as stabilising the soil.

This next plant I am less sure about.

Again, its clumping form helps trap soil/sand, leaves etc. At first I thought it was a crambe which edible seaside plants but the leaves don’t look quite as kale like as most crambes do.  I wondered about dock, it looks like horse radish that has gone wild on the allotment next to mine. As there are no flowers it is hard to say. However, after using PlantNet I think I agree with them that it is Sea Beet, and edible coastal plant.  I will be more secure with the identification when it flowers.

On the other side of the road around the new development, there has been some planting and I thought it might be worthwhile noting what has been put in and look at how they do over time – you never know. There might be something that would do well on the bit of land I am looking at.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First we have a cistus and what I think is a cotton lavender, Santolina chamaecyparissus. I’ll be able to tell more when they flower but here the landscapers have dipped into Mediterranean plants. They are planted someway behind the buildings and so are probably somewhat sheltered from the southerly winds. The santolina can be used to create low hedges and that might be useful on my plot to trap leaves etc to build up the soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is also an eleagnus and a sisyrinchium which likes hot, dry conditions but will also tolerate some shade and damp and our winters are damp.

One plant has already died – probably the Beast from the East saw if off with desiccating, cold winds. It was some sort of fastigiate small tree – yew/pine.

It is still behind the buildings but at the edge and probably is just not protected enough.

As more plants appear, I will add them to this list.

 

Category: Geoff Lawton Online Permaculture Design Certificate, march, PDC, permaculture | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 3

Permaculture Learning Activities 1 – Exmouth seafront

Part of the the online permaculture design course I am taking are the activities to embed learning. We have been asked to choose a piece of land, probably not the one that we will use for our final design, to explore and develop the skills that we need.  I have finally chosen my piece of land – a strip of sand on the seafront opposite a new development of cafes, shops and a watersports centre. I pass it two or three times a week depending on the route I take for my morning walk so can track it regularly throughout the seasons. It isn’t a place of peace and quiet but it is a place that looks a bit sad and unloved and I have often thought that it needs a design to improve it rather than just planting.

Observation and reading the land are key skills in permaculture design. They are what we use as the basis for our work and these activities are designed to start to develop those skills.

What follows are my answers to the questions about the place, firstly using Google Earth.

What about this place stands out or draws your attention?

Mostly what stands out is the fact that it looks so uncared for. It is a scruffy bit of land sandwiched between two pavements, one lower down and one level with the road. It appears at the end of the fencing for a carpark. Parts of it are walked on frequently enough to stop anything growing and where plants do grow, they are not very tall.  As they start to landscape the new water sports centre across the road, this forgotten scrap of land looks more and more unloved and yet has the potential to be quite exciting and a visual attraction for what is a key tourist spot for the town.

The land is quite steeply sloped down to the pavement and the pavement has a slight slope towards the land. What this means is that when it rains, a large puddle builds up because the one and only drain fills up with sand over time. I am also pretty sure that the drain leads straight through to the beach and the water is not spread throughout the patch of land ready to be used by the plants that are there.

What doesn’t stand out when you are there is the large tree that is so obvious in the Google Earth images. I need to go and look at it next time I walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are there plants and animals in this place that you recognise?

There are plants although at the beginning of March, not a lot (apart from a great big tree I missed when I was there!).  One thing that has colonised the land where it is not walked on is grass which has probably stabilised the area due to the matting roots of the plant.  Where there is a fence at the end of the land, presumably to stop people walking on it, there are a cluster of plants around the posts. Soil/sand will have built up around the posts and so plants have found their way there and I suspect the posts also offer a modicum of protection from the wind. One of the things that I intend to do over time is look closely at the plants growing there, on the nearby car park and those that are being planted in the new development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What yields is this system generating already that most people walking by would never notice?

The yields are so invisible at the moment that I can’t see them! What I see in the land is a potential for yield but I am struggling with this one. At a stretch I could say:

  • Because the pavements aren’t wide enough, it provides extra space for people to walk side by side.
  • It is a water-collecting system even though that does get in the way of people.
  • I am not sure if you can have such a thing as a negative yield but one I think we have here is that it is a barrier to where people want to walk and there is nothing to stop them trampling all over it.

How is the system acting in ways today that will help it survive and thrive tomorrow?

This is really about succession, the idea that all land really wants to move towards a stable ecology, that is often a forest, and that there are steps to get there.

First of all there are the annual weeds that cover the land which when they die back, provide organic matter for the soil. This then encourages plants with net-like roots to establish, grass, to stabilise the soil and prevent erosion. This is the stage that we are at and is one that the patch of land may never really move away from because it is trodden on and because of the wind from the south and south west which blow through particularly in the autumn and spring. Other plants are colonising around the posts of the fence where there is more protection and build up of growing matter and this may prove to be one way in which we can support plants to survive and move out. They are creating their own windbreak which then allows other plants to succeed.

Design by map overlays

Design requires mapping as a way to share what you know about the land and what might have an effect on what you want to do. Below are a series of maps that show information about my chosen site.

First we have windy.com which shows the way the wind is blowing in real time. The plot being right on the seafront, wind is a real issue for the site.

This small chart shows that the wind we get is not just south westerly but can be from all directions, although the south and west make up the majority and October to the start of March is when it is the windiest.

Using Verge’s Contour map generator is not totally helpful because although it shows the contours, the slope of the land is against the contours.

The best mapping for the site is to draw it by hand because it is too small to map using apps.

Category: march, PDC, permaculture | LEAVE A COMMENT
April 1

Keeping busy …

Gosh, it’s a difficult time at the moment. I have been holed up in my house for about 15 days now and can see this going on for months and months – in fact, until we get a vaccine for Covid19. We are still able to walk around so I can get down to the allotment but have been thinking for some time about growing some vegetables in my garden. In the past, I have wanted to keep the flowers and vegetables separate but found myself wondering what would happen if we went into a ‘total lockdown’ like Spain or Italy and I couldn’t get to the allotment even though it is only 5 minutes away.

Over winter, I removed a hedge as I wanted to replace it with fruit trees and have started to plant some – a cherry bush Porthos and an apple, Christmas Pippin, which I am espaliering.  However, I have now decided to use the space to grow vegetables as well.  I have become more and more interested in saving my own seed and so have decided to grow only open pollinated seeds in the garden where they will not cross with F1 plants which I have on the allotment. I have started to create the beds and planted out my Ailsa Craig onions under fleece yesterday. I grew these from seed, sowing them mid February, and am hoping that they don’t bolt as easily as sets sometimes do.

The other thing that I have become much more interested in is Permaculture and its principles.  I had started to tidy  where the hedge had been but had three tree trunks that were quite old and starting to rot down and wasn’t sure what to do with them. I can’t take them to the tip now and one is too heavy to move. I thought about putting them behind another edge on the other side of the garden to rot down but really they would just get in the way there.  Then I read about Hugel beds.

These are made out of materials that are generally lying around the land but have a core of wood at the heart. The idea is that wood, leaves, twigs, compost soil and turf are layered on top of each other to create a mound which rots down slowly over time.  Vegetables and shrubs can be planted into them and are reputed to perform very well.

Being an impatient sort of person, I started straight away. I marked out an area where the bed was to go. The advice says to put it so that the prevailing winds hit it sideways on to provide some protection for what is behind. I have managed to do that and therefore protect the vegetable beds behind it.

You have to clear the grass and then dig down so that the trunk is buried a little bit. This helps it to act as a water soak and to be in contact with more soil which will help it to rot down.  As a no-dig gardener, this part is proving to be difficult. It just feels wrong to dig and because I don’t dig, I have managed to rub blisters in several different places on my hands just removing the turf.

Once the grass was cleared and I had dug down 1 fork’s depth, I rolled the trunk into the pit and then packed all around it with twigs, old grasses I had cut down and then weeds.  I trampled all over these until they had all squashed down and were quite compact.  Then I laid all the turf over it again but across to try and hold the ingredients in.

I watered it thoroughly and then started to put the soil I had dug out back on to of the turf. You can see both in this picture. I have to admit, it is starting to look a lot like a burial mound.  This is as far as I have got for now but intend to top it with home made compost and possibly pin some twigs the length of it down the sides to act as little shelves for the plants because I am worried that when it rains everything will just run down the sides.  Then I will plant into it.  The far side in this picture faces south-west so I will probably put lettuces this side and more sun-loving things the other side.  I am also presuming that it will be damper towards the bottom of each side and drier on the top so need to plant accordingly. More photos of this in the next post. I have to say that this has taken me days and in the meantime, I made two beds that are bigger than this my usual no-dig way in 2 hours this morning. Just cardboard and compost on top of the grass. And I didn’t get any blisters doing it!

What are you doing in the garden to keep busy?

Category: bed preparation, compost, hugel, march | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 5

A little bit of a harvest Monday 05/03/18

Oh we have had a cold time this last week. Snow and freezing rain and we are just not used to it. The whole country shut down and I had two snow days at home. Yes, it even reached us here on the south coast of the UK.

In 2010 we had a lot of snow and on Christmas day I went down to the allotment to harvest some veg for the meal of the year only to find that the weight on top of the polytunnel had meant that it had collapsed. I didn’t have crop bars going across for extra stability because who would have thought we would have that much snow down here! Anyway, I spent the next two or three years bent double in the polytunnel growing short vegetables whilst I saved up my pennies for a new one.  So, when it snowed, I went down and brushed it off the tunnel – several times a day! The best bit was the freezing rain as it coated the tunnel and made a wonderful sound when pushed off from inside. There’s a short video here of me doing that cracking ice-1ow8hpz.

I am still picking leeks and parsley and eating the squash we grew over the summer but do have one new vegetable that is just  coming in to its own and that is purple and white sprouting broccoli (no not stripey, two different plants). The white never seems as prolific as the purple and I do love sprouting broccoli. I have three plants of each but I am not sure that is enough.  The first harvest is always the best – I eat it like asparagus. Lightly steamed and dipped in mayonnaise. Yum.

I may not be harvesting much but the seed sowing has started. There are chillies and aubergines potted on in the propagator upstairs and tomatoes just sown in the propagator downstairs. I also have peas in the greenhouse but I am not sure whether the recent cold weather has seen them off or not. A week or two will tell.  I also sowed four types of beetroot: Boltardy, Bona, Boldor and Detroit 2. They too are in the unheated greenhouse but are quite hardy seeds.

How are your veg growing?

 

Category: harvest monday, march, sprouting broccoli | 5 Comments on A little bit of a harvest Monday 05/03/18