Next years wood

No more gardening got done yesterday or today. Matt and Julia were out coppicing and asked me to help pull out the wood I'll be burning next year so I tagged along to give a hand.

I only managed to keep it up for a few hours before I couldn't do any more Matt and Julia are still out there. We managed to fill up Matt's truck though.

The wood will get seasoned for a year at least before we burn it. It's piled up in pieces left as large as possible but still be handleable by one person. Those pieces will be chopped to the correct size for whatever burner they end up in just before use. A lot of the land around here has been coppiced for hundreds of years so we're lucky to have a free and sustainable source of heating fuel. (Well not free, takes a lot of effort to extract and prepare it)

As you can see in the photo the tits found my feeder yesterday. I bought a bunch of fat balls from the pet shop but I'll have a go at making my own next year. Means I have to clean my window so I can get better pictures of the birds. The one I put up today looked so washed out I had to doctor it a bit in Gimp before using it.

The weather is drizzly and occasionally rainy but the temperatures are up around 6C As soon as I can afford it I intend to buy several Min/Max thermometers. I need to track the temperatures in the bender, outside, in the polytunnel and in all the hotbeds. As this blog is meant as a record of the gardens I'll be recording those here once we get going. I'm hoping to be able to get started on making the new beds in the next few days.

Signs of life in the sunshine

The first speck of green in my seed trays arrived yesterday, could be a weed seed as I didn't sterilise the compost but if it is something I planted it'll be the Chinese giant pepper. I took the day off because the weather was foul. Sleet and snow but not sticking fortunately.

 

Planted a quarter of a kilo or so of acorns that Matt gave me that he said came from an oak he wanted offspring of. He said it had a straight trunk and an open habit. 

 

Planting more later today.

The sun is now out in force so my batteries are recharging nicely.

 

I'll post again after the planting.

Preparing to make the hotbeds

This is one of the old hotbeds knocking around the farm. Mr Miles will be delivering a load of manure in a few days so it's time to drag them over to the area I'm working in and get them ready for use.Hotbeds are wonderful things. If you don't have central heating and a lot of window space it's about the only way you'll get a lot of your plants germinated in time.

You don't really need all that polystyrene, you can get away with making a big pile of manure on top of a pile of twigs, making some hoops of some flexible wood like hazel or willow and draping a sheet of polythene over the top.

Todays planting:

I'm still planting for the forest garden, many of these should have gone in in the autumn but I wasn't ready then. We'll see what comes up even if I get just a few things to germinate it will have been worth the effort and I can try again next year. Some of these seeds won't germinate until 2011 in any case. Some of the deeply dormant seeds need a year outdoors to germinate.

Ceratonia siliqua, Carob http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Ceratonia+siliqua Code L (Needs scarification I use an old fire brick to do that see picture above) This plant is frost tender and may not do well here but we'll see what happens.

Cinnamomum Camphora, Camphor tree http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Cinnamomum+camphora Code O (Not dormant) This will be germinated indoors.

Juniperus Communis, Juniper http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Juniperus+communis 
Code DD 36 (Deeply dormant I expect that these will germinate spring 2011)

Lyceum Chinensis, Chinese wolfberry   http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Lycium+chinense Code O

Morus Alba, White Mulberry http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Morus+alba 2 weeks at 16-20 C then 16 weeks cold stratification or in my case put outside after 2 weeks indoors and hope for the best. This is the plant that silk worms eat. If I successfully germinate some I intend to get hold of some.

Morus Nigra, Black mulberry http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Morus+nigra Same germination process as the while mulberry above. I love the taste of these but haven't had any since I was a child.

Olea Europaea, Olive  http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Olea+europaea Olives will grow here and they can live for 2000 years. As to whether they will fruit, well we'll see (Although I personally probably won't these trees grow slowly) DD 34

Passiflora Caerulea Passion flower or maypop  http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Passiflora+caerulea 1 week @ 4 C then 30 C during the day and 20 C at night. This one is going to be a challenge.

Rosa Rugosa Alba http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Rosa+rugosa DD39 I scarified these in an attempt to reduce the 2 years it an take for them to germinate.

Schisandra Chinensis, Magnola Vine http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Schisandra+chinensis Code O Another of the 50 Chinese fundamental herbs. I'm going to try and grow as many of those as will handle this climate.

My bird feeding station.

 

Out of pots

Went to the polytunnel garden to get some more pots to plant more seeds today and discovered I'd used them all. A couple of years ago when I was gardening in a couple of allotments in Manchester I discovered a wonderful resource. It seems that florists are often pleased to get rid of the plastic buckets that flowers come in but with a few holes drilled in the bottom they make very good plant pots. So it seems that one of my jobs for tomorrow is to locate all the local florists and see if they have any to get rid of.


The picture today is of the first few beds I made in the autumn last year. There are 4 beds of winter onions there, the rest are plants I brought with me to be propagated. 

I spent today doing house keeping. It takes quite a bit of physical work living off the grid. Water must be collected from the well, wood must be brought in and some of it gets chopped into kindling, rubbish must be taken to the dump (There's no conventional house here so we don't get rubbish collection) As I've only just started creating my gardens I'm still dependant on the supermarket. I'm astonished by the sheer bulk of plastic waste I produce in a couple of weeks. It'll be good when I need less from there. 

One of the tricks I've discovered about becoming self sufficient is not to try and do it all at once. You make yourself self sufficient in a few things gradually and then one day you realise that you haven't been to the shops for ages and you're nearly there. I'm not sure I could easily give up coffee though and the substitutes you can grow here like dandelion root or roasted acorns just don't do it for me. The process has begun though. The picture above is one of my garlic beds. It's looking a bit sorry for itself after all that snow but it'll pull through and it'll be ready by the end of summer so that's one more thing I won't have to buy at the shops.

The deer here are voracious and there are many of them. We don't have all the fences up yet so they're hammering my plants. They seem to particularly like strawberry leaves. I'm hoping that enough pull through to give us a crop this year. I have 2 beds of them so far but there's not a lot left of them at the moment. One of the main reasons for putting the nursery right by my bender is that they're less likely to attack my plants with my dog Star making the racket he does when they appear outside. Hopefully I'll have my camera with me when I next see them. If I get a picture I'll put it up.

Preparing the ground for the nursery garden

Today we started work on zone 1 or what I call the nursery garden. It was entirely covered in brambles and brush from the young trees we cut down in the area a few months ago.

This is where I plan to do most of the plant propagation and where I intend to hold my stock of medicinal herbs. All the things I do most frequently will be done here. 

When Danny turns up with the mini digger we'll double dig beds all the way down this area. 

This is how the area looked this morning.

As you can see with Bam Bam's help and a strimmer we made short work of clearing it.

No planting today but I think you can see we had a productive day.

Saturday's planting and musings on forest gardens

Today's planting was all for the forest garden. A forest garden is planted so that the structure of a natural forest is emulated as much as possible but where all the species used have a use. Most of the tree planting so far here at Brickhurst has been in the form of orchards and coppice. My approach to the forest garden I intend here is a little different. 








The forest has 7 distinct layers. 
1 The canopy
2 Secondaries
3 Shrubs
4 Herbaceous
5 Rhizosphere (Roots)
6 Soil surface (creepers and strawberry type plants)
7 Vertical (Climbers)

If you get the balance of plants right a forest garden will provide you with food, materials such as dyes and fibres, medicines and a host of other things.

Here's what I planted today

Betula Lenta, Sweet or cherry birch http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Betula+lenta PC4-6 used as a sweetener and for it's sweet sap. It's also a good medicinal plant.

Caragana Arborescens, Siberian pea shrub http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Caragana+arborescens Code L Requires scarrification I usually rub the seeds on a brick until the membrane around the seed just wears through. This plant fixes nitrogen and produces edible seeds and shoots

Humulus Lupulus, Common Hop  http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Humulus+lupulus

Needs a period of cold to germinate used in beer and as a mild sedative This will be part of layer 7

Liquidambar Styraciflua, Sweet gum http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Liquidambar+styraciflua PC 8 Mostly medicinal can be used to make gum. Canopy tree.

Mahonia Aquifolium, Oregon Grape http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Mahonia+aquifolium MD 16 Shrub layer edible berries and some medicinal uses

Phellodendron amurense Amur cork tree http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Phellodendron+amurense MD 12 One of the 50 main Chinese medicinal plants

Punica Granatum Pomegranate http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Punica+granatum MD14 Not sure how well this will do here, it's frost tender but I'll try it in some sheltered corners and see what happens.

Pyrus Communis, Wild pear http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Pyrus+communis MD16 Canopy fruit edible cooked or bletted, can be used as rootstock for large trees some medicinal uses.

Tsuga Heterophylla, Western Hemlock http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Tsuga+heterophylla 

PC canopy tree has a number of uses see the link.

I'll leave it there for today but back tomorrow and if the weather is sunny as promised by the Met Office I'll be clearing brambles for the medicinal herb garden.

Today's planting

Sharon Astyk http://sharonastyk.com/ says that you should plant something every day, harvest something every day and preserve something every day. As my kitchen isn't built yet preserving will have to wait but the planting needs to happen now.

I finally managed to get a barrow load of compost through a couple of hundred metres of slush so the planting has begun.

I'm focussing on two main types of thing that need to go in now. One are the seeds that need a period of cold and the others are members of the tomato family that need a long season.My bender stays quite warm as long as the fire keeps going and from now on the fire won't be allowed to go out until the weather warms up.

Here's what I planted today. Information about the plants comes from the Plants for a Future website. I use them a lot for information.

As I don't have a refrigerator I'll have to put seeds that need stratifying outside in pots and hope for the best.

Stratifying seeds:
Elaeagnus Angustifolia http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Elaeagnus+angustifolia 
MD12 (Moderately Dormant needs 12 weeks at 2-5 C)

Arbutus Unedo, Strawberry tree http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Arbutus+unedo
(Pre Chill min 3 max 10 weeks We'll bring these indoors at the end of February)


Celtis Australis, Nettle tree http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Celtis+australis
MD12


Zizyphus Jujuba, Chinese date http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Ziziphus+jujuba
MD12


Acer Saccharum, Sugar Maple http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Acer+saccharum 
MD12


Seeds planted in the warm

Araucaria araucana, Monkey puzzle http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Araucaria+araucana



Quercus Ilex, Holme Oak http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Quercus+ilex 

Pinus Pinea Italian Stone Pine http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Pinus+pinea



Carica Papaya (No plants for a future reference this plant cannot live outdoors here in the UK  but I thought I'd have a go at keeping a couple in pots indoors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaya )


Aubergine Rosa Bianca http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Solanum+melongena

Chillis Bhavnagari long, Black Hungarian,  G-4 Cobra, Yellow Scotch Bonnet http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Capsicum+frutescens 


Peppers Chinese Giant, Italian pepperoncini, Sweet Chocolate http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Capsicum+annuum 

Tomatillo Da Milpa, Physalis Ixocarpa http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Physalis+ixocarpa



Tomatoes Black from Tulsa, Black Krim, Black Pinapple, Bloody butcher, Carbon, Cherokee Purple http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Lycopersicon+esculentum


So there we are, the first seeds are in, not that it's made much of a dent in the seeds I bought this year let alone the other several hundred varieties from previous years that really could do with going in this year. Well, what is possible will be done.