A personality of its own - podcast
Our edible forest garden is taking
shape after three years, it has a personality and appearance which I did not
envisage in the beginning. It has grown to our needs, as well as the needs of
all the inhabitants we welcome, and we love it.
We enjoy the lush greens and
surprise plants and flowers which arrive in our garden every year. All of them,
even those which we cull. We do remove plants which are prolific and threaten
to take over the world, those that do not like to share space with other plants
or grow too tall and steal the light, but even these have their own corner
somewhere in the garden. Many of them such as nettles and dandelions are a crop
food, so they have earned a space to grow in.
Nothing is a weed in our garden,
they are all wildflowers with their gifts to the soil, insects, birds, and us
as many of them are edible, and we don’t pull out anything until we know what
it is.
June 2017, it used to take us at least two hours to cut all the grass. It was hot hard work. I couldn’t take an exact same photo today as there are plants growing where I stood in 2017 but no words are needed to describe the change. Now we only cut pathways and its takes maybe 20 minutes. Less time, less petrol, less noise pollution, more life.
June 2018 I traditionally dug, planted, weeded, and watered to grow annuals. Some years I had a good yield, but the soil is not the best and it was costly and back aching to dig in manure every year, keep on top of the weeds and water constantly. The same patch today has eight trees in it, three of which are edible, some bamboo, currant bushes, herbs, and space for some annuals too. There is no soil open to the elements, so it is improving rather than degrading and a wonderful network of mycelium has developed under the bark benefiting all the plants in the garden.
June 2018 we said goodbye to our large pine tree, it seems cutting down a tree is the opposite of what you would do in a forest garden but this tree was leaning towards our neighbour’s house, and although I was learning about forest gardens we were not then planning to make one here. However, now in it’s place are two elderberry trees, a medlar, a greengage, compost bins in a shed, wild honeysuckle, wild roses and a polytunnel. We have also created a bee hedge on the right from a variety of bushes, and built a fence for plants to climb along. And, as in a forest when a tree falls the wood breaks down, creating more habitats, and food for fungi so have all the pieces of tree trunk, pine needles, and branches been absorbed into the garden in different ways. The tree stumps around the garden look pretty too.
September
2019 and there was still vast swathes of mown grass compared to today. Now we
are using the land in a more productive way - improving the soil, capturing
more carbon, producing more food for us, insects, and birds, creating habitats,
and loving the life that grows with a little help from us. As you can see from
the discarded watering can, we do still water, but that’s mostly for newly
planted plants and any annuals that need a good start. The layers of cardboard
and bark help to keep the moisture in the soil.
One day the bark will vanish as spreading ground cover takes over and then we shall not be providing such good habitat for slugs who can munch surprising amount of annual plant leaves and some perennials too, although these tend to recover better. There will always be some slugs and that’s good as many creatures depend on them as a food source.
April 2020 I wanted some height and structure in the
garden (as the newly planted fruit trees will take a few years to grow) and
covered these hanging baskets with cord made from clothes and sheets. It’s been
hard to find any plants that can cope with the dryness and heat in the summer
in these baskets, so this year May 2022, I have filled them with Glechoma
Hederacea or Ground Ivy, which is not an ivy at all but an aromatic, perennial
creeper of the mint family. One of those plants many gardeners curse and
remove. It is edible and we let it grow where it wants until it interferes with
another plant, or we need the space for something new. Leaving it to grow means
the soil gains nutrients which other plants then feed on.
The difference in the greenness and life between these two photos is wonderful and it hasn’t taken too much graft for this change to take place.
Our garden is by no means a typical
forest garden, after all it hasn’t had ten to fifteen years to mature like many
of the forest gardens in videos and books. We are still learning which plants
like to grow where and which are hardy enough to cope with our minus twenty
winter temperatures, being blanketed in snow and ice for a few weeks and then
enduring up to 40 degrees in the summer. The trees and shrubs are slower to
grow here than in other regions of France and I often have forest garden envy
when I watch New Zealand videos.
We observe what grows in the forest edges as we cycle the region and have incorporated many of these plants into the garden via seed collection, we know they are hardy enough, and many are edible.
Our garden is unique and does not want to be restricted by a name, but an edible forest garden is acceptable and as the trees grow, the ground cover spreads, the perennials establish, and the annuals self-seed, it will resemble others of this name, but it will also have some quirky details other edible forest gardens lack.
There are some patches which are wild and other areas are tamed, there are two stone patches with ornamental grasses as a contrast, and no-dig raised beds for annuals, although many annuals join in with the grow anywhere frame of mind. We let some go to seed every year so it’s always a surprise where a turnip or parsnip appears.
There are pieces of machinery we found in the roof of our house, cleaned, and painted, enamel jugs, painted sticks, objects hanging from the trees, little woven fences, and metal structures created from left over building materials. Parts of the houses history and parts of us absorbed into the greenery.
Every garden has its own
personality.
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