ALOTTMENTS - SUMMER - HOT BEDS AND STUFF

We've had a truly amazing Summer and Autumn here in Perth, Scotland. I've been so lucky to spend a lot of it outside gardening and also lucky to have a great bunch of gardening clients to work with here in Perth, also in Fife and at an allotment site in Dundee. Here's a few photos of the Dundee site where there's maybe seventy or eighty allotments altogether, it's been fascinating working there getting an understanding of the politics of a big site and what kind of help people need, and lots of fun too. 

The weather had left this polytunnel with a bit of lean to one side, so we just made the door with a bit of a lean as well

GET GROWING!

I read today that 80% of our fresh food comes from the EU. How secure is that? It's not difficult to grow some of your own stuff, salad is really easy for example, you'll be surprised what you can get from a tiny space. It doesn't just taste better, it's fresher, so more nutritious, you'll save some money, it hasn't been bathed in chemicals, possibly reared by semi-slave labour, and you're saving plastic waste and food miles.
PLUS you get an insight into growing food and how a mini eco-system works, and you'll have taken that all important first step from which you maybe learn more than any other.

This is our tiny garden in the little courtyard behind our flat. We wanted to keep some of our special herbs going so have got comfrey, sage, mint, verbena, valarian, thyme, penny royal, yarrow and a vine growing there.

!! HELP SHARE LEARN & HAVE FUN !!

- OPEN DAY - PERTH COMMUNITY FARM -

- TUESDAY 10TH JULY -

There's going to be lots happening at this Perth Community Farm Open Day, check the main Facebook page to see what Craig and everyone is up to, also for directions.
I'm going to be setting up a wee demonstration RAISED BED, NO DIG and HOME FOOD growing area so people can see how easy it is to get growing.

Raised beds - no need to clear those weeds - just put down some cardboard, then compost, then get planting and sowing. We'll be making some beds on the day so you can see how to use handsaw, drill, screwdrivers etc.

You don't need much space, materials or equipment, and just basic hand tools. In a few weeks time you could be getting a delicious harvest of chemical free, plastic packaging free salad crops. Mainly you just need to set aside a wee bit of time and make a start!

This is another brilliant idea: square foot gardening - you divide up your space to get a succession of small yields rather than 1000 courgettes all at the same time and nothing else

Depending on time and who looks in I can also show people how to use and sharpen that wonderful gardening tool, the SCYTHE. There's also a brilliant orchard area and I'll be showing people round that and explaining how we plan to develop it into a full-on woodland garden area.

Craig becomes instant convert to the scythe

I'll be at the farm from 10 am to 1 pm then from 3 pm to 8 pm, so see you then!

PERMACULTURE!... Putting it into Practice

Maybe you've done some Permaculture study and reading and are now getting a bit overwhelmed by starting to put it into practice, or maybe you're well into a project but want to re-develop an aspect of it and have got bogged down in the detail... Or maybe you just need a bit of physical help with a daunting amount of work.
Either way, this is where Ruth and I love to help.
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE
We've spent many years living, visiting and working on eco/permaculture projects, farms and gardens all over the UK and in Portugal and have now got a wealth of practical experience. We've made loads of mistakes! which is a particularly good thing, because we can help you avoid some of them yourselves...

Mistake 99 - taking on more than you have energy for. Ruth and I were actually thinking of developing that whole field behind us. We did do some interesting stuff with the two strips in the foreground though.

LITTLE AND LARGE
No project is too big or too small. Our clients' gardens range at the moment from a 8 foot by 3 foot patch to a vast walled garden, and we've planned for and worked on 100 acre farms, eco-villages, orchards and community gardens.
WOODLAND - THE CORE OF SUSTAINABILITY
My special interest is the woody aspect of a project, from planting trees, to renovating and managing orchards and woodland, setting up forest/woodland gardens, to making the things we need from local wood - not just raised beds and so on but also low impact housing homes and furniture.

Me at work on the verandah for the LogCabavan - it made a HUGE difference to have somewhere to sit outside

The LogCabavan itself, a static caravan clad with garden fence panels and insulated with waste plastic. The trusses for the extra roof are local poles and bits of palette

PRESERVING
Ruth is the one with the deeper knowledge of plants and also with the skills and experience for food preserving. Here in the UK we will do well to relearn these skills as soon as possible. With so much of food coming from abroad and are our local food yields coming mostly in quite a narrow part of the year, our food security is terribly fragile.

A shelf full of delicious jams, jellies, chutneys, pickles and the best maramalade ever - reminds me of my mum's larder

They may not taste of very much on their own, but courgettes/marrows absorb flavours brilliantly so are great for storing bulk

GET IN TOUCH!
So get in touch and see if we can help:
ianecowatt@gmail.com
07450 332 430

NEED ANY HELP?

Ruth and I have been delighted to find that all the experience we've picked up in our travels and work over the years on eco/permaculture projects, farms, small holdings and gardens around the UK and in Portugal is proving so useful now in and around Perth. The basic patterns of Nature's way are of course the same here in the city as they are half way up a mountain in Wales.

Fruit and nut area taking shape in Dundee

We've been getting pleasantly busy helping people with gardens of all shapes and sizes, ranging from small town gardens, to an allotment, to village gardens, (which tend to be that bit bigger), not forgetting lending a hand with Craig Barnett at the excellent Perth Community Farm

Perth Community Farm - inspiring stuff!

NEED ANY HELP?
We are delighted to give you whatever kind of help you need in your garden, whether it's with some of the heavier work, eg clearing veg beds of heavy weeds which can be a bit daunting on your own, or with advice on techniques and design, companion planting, biodynamics and so on, or just chatting over plans and ideas. A lot of my own work involves trees, whether it's woodwork for gardens or looking after fruit trees and orchards, or managing larger areas of woodland. Ruth is the one who knows more about individual plants, how to propagate them and what ones grow happily together. So do please get in touch if we can help at all! Text me: 07450 332 430 or email: ianecowatt@gmail.com

Forest Gardens - Part 2 - Pics and Links

Here's a few photos of a some great examples of forest gardening, first the amazing roof garden at RISC, really well documented here: RISC:

The RISC garden is especially amazing because it's on a roof! Yes, everything is planted in just two foot of soil... here's a link to the list of plants in the garden: RISC plants - its a useful list of forest garden plants in itself.

Here's the RISC roof garden not long after planting

Detail of the planting and the different path materials: woodchip and reclaimed slabs

Loads of understory variety, including medicinals etc

Another forest garden, this one's at Seaford on the South Coast, planted and developed by Bryn Thomas

This one's at the Peat Centre

And this is Chris Dixon's project in Wales; more of an example of natural regeneration than of forest gardening but a fascinating project

Finally for now, here's a link to Geoff Lawton's site - lots of great free stuff on forest gardening and also on Permaculture in general: Geoff Lawton.

FOREST GARDENS - FOOD FOR THE FUTURE!

If there's one idea that will help people everywhere to ride out whatever environmental, social, health and financial storms are gathering, it's Forest Gardening - why? because it's...

• a way of growing food, AND medicinals, materials in patterns that mimic Nature and support the environment
• Forest Gardens are drought, flood, pest and disease resistant
• they produce a wide range of food with a minimum of energy input
• they produce a succession of varied yields
• they're friendly to the environment, bees, birds and build healthy, dynamic soil
• the principles work whether you have a tiny town garden, an allotment or a hillside
• they're four dimensional, rather than two dimensional

  

  The layers of the forest, and what's going on underground

The illustration is from the main reference work for Forest Gardening, "Edible Forest Gardens", by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier, and it shows the basic idea beautifully. The trees and plants copy the layers you would find in woodland that had generated all on its own: tall trees, smaller trees, shrubs, bushes, herbs, a ground layer, roots, mycelium and maybe some climbing plants and an emergent layer.
THE REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF IS GOING ON UNDERGROUND
People are often surprised to find out that fruit trees aren't all that deep rooted. The roots of the pear tree in the illustration are mainly shallow for feeding and sharing with other plants with a few deeper tap roots. Compare that with horseradish roots which can go sixteen foot down into the ground. This is really crucial to the forest system, those deep roots bring up nutrients that would otherwise be unavailable. We can chop up the foliage of horseradish and other similar plants like comfrey and use them to feed and mulch other plants wherever they need it, being perennial, it just grows back.

The unremarkable foliage of horseradish and its very remarkable, sixteen foot deep roots

FOREST: NO WASTE, NO ENERGY REQUIREMENT
If you have a look at some natural woodland, (we're very lucky here in Perth, Scotland to have Kinnoull Hill on our doorstep) you won't find a skip full of stuff that the forest didn't need, or plastic packaging left from stuff it bought. Everything is generated on the spot, and regenerated using dead and decaying plants. There's no electricity cable, the energy requirement comes from the Sun, wind, rain, and animals passing through. Compare this with industrial agriculture:

...it takes a tremendous amount of energy to produce a crop of just one plant, because that's not what Nature wants to do. It uses fossil fuel in each and every process, from the manufacture of those enormous machines through to harvest,  and tons of packaging too. Not only that, annual ploughing destroys soil fertility.
MORE SOON! It's a huge topic but it's relevant to all my gardening clients and friends and I wanted to get started on spreading the word.

Back at the eco-edge!

I've just started giving a client a hand with his allotment in Dundee, and what a brilliant experience it's proving to be.

Brilliant Scottish inventiveness to be seen in shed construction here

There's about 80 allotments on the site, all of a decent size. A feature that stands out straight away is the wild variety of sheds, clad with everything from reclaimed wood to floor tiles, like finding yourself at the centre of the recycleverse. The site has been established for a long time with a kind of leaning towards annual veg crops and less in the way of fruit or perennials. My client wants to develop his permaculture and forest gardens ideas, slightly against the grain of the site committee, but all very dear to me and Ruth of course.

It's wonderful for us to find that all the practical experience we have gained in our eco travels can now be put to good use at what, to me, is the real cutting eco-edge, helping people to grow food in a sustainable way right in the heart of the city. We can tell people what works and what doesn't work, how to make the most of your time, energy and money, give tried and tested tips on keeping pests at bay, drop the odd idea into the process that may open a whole new understanding of working with Nature, and just put in a bit of vital energy when you're faced with a daunting amount of work at the beginning of a project. I'm looking forward to seeing the plot here flourishing into multi layered, natural abundance.

A less regimented style on one of the other Dundee plots, rather frowned on by the comittee...

Get gardening!

The weather seems to have changed here overnight. The snow and ice have vanished and we've had some wonderful weather, time to get gardening again...

This is a garden I'm helping with in a village just outside Perth. My client there already has lots of great stuff on the go but just wanted a bit of help and advice to develop what she's doing further. I've been explaining a few of the ideas of working with Nature which Ruth and I have seen work so well during our eco travels: biodynamics, forest gardening and permaculture. It's brilliant that these can be applied at all scales - if it works for a farm it will work in your garden.

One area we are going to develop is the section down by the wheelbarrow in the photo above. This looks like a prime area to me, it gets plenty of light and has a handy stretch of fence to support climbing plants. We've started a narrow no-dig bed there for peas and beans. There's room for a fruit tree or two, I suggested planting a couple of nut trees further along as well. (I think nut trees will become more and more important at all scales as we move away from mono-culture grains through choice and necessity...) I've suggested that the area around the trees will be perfect for perennials such as herbs and fruit bushes, making a mini forest garden effectively.
Finally, I've been meaning to post up this photo of Ruth with a giant parsnip back at Barmolloch for ages.

It's always great to have Ruth on hand for advice. She's the one who does all the reading; she'll read three or four books about a plant before growing it, taking a kind of average of all the information and mixing that with her own intuition. Whereas for me, it's no doubt a man thing, but reading a book or a manual is absolutely the last resort...

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY 2018 TO ALL!

Ruth and I are happily settled in to our new home in Perth and looking forward to getting gardening in and about the Fair City.
JANUARY - PRUNING
If you're lucky enough to have a fruit tree or two, this is generally a good time to give them any pruning they need. I mostly come across trees that have been long neglected but find that even trees that haven't been cared for in years respond really well to the attention, coming back to abundant fruity life.

Pruning a damson tree back in the orchard we renovated at Treflach Farm - more about fruit trees and orchards here

In a year or two they can be providing you with crates of delicious, accessible fruit. Pruning can deal with any dead, damaged and diseased limbs and it's an opportunity to reshape and thin out entangled branches.
If you find yourself with fruit trees to look after I'd be delighted to work with you and show you what to do, the tools you need etc, or can just do some renovation work for you, do please get in touch.
MAKING A START
And January is also a great month to get started if you're planning to grow some veg and herbs. If you have a bit of turfy-weedy ground you're going to develop you can make life easier for yourself by laying down a cardboard mulch and compost in a no-dig system now and getting your patch ready before everything's goes crazy in Spring.

Starting a no-dig patch on my allotment down Brighton way. N.B. You still have to do some digging. Also, the carpet's just a temporary cover but the cardboard stays and rots away.

Then you cover the cardboard with compost and plant through it - this is used mushroom compost which worked really well. The sawn-off bottles work like mini greenhouses.

And here's one I did earlier... It's just magic to see the first shoots of your plants coming up

Again, I'd be delighted to show you what you to do and work with you a bit to help to get you going.
Just think about all that delicious, healthy, un-plastic-wrapped food you're going to be harvesting.... and do please get in touch :-)

mobile: 07540 332 430    email: ianecowatt@gmail.com