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

MAPS, PLANS AND DRAWINGS

A good image can be so helpful in explaining your ideas, quantifying and specifying materials, or in simply getting your message across. If you need any help with maps, plans, drawings, logos, posters or help with Photoshop, Sketchup and CorelDraw please get in touch. See the separate page for more about my graphic work.

The Cwm Harry Community Garden, Powys - very helpful to have a scale drawing with so many elements packed into a small space and easier to see how one thing can support and flow into another from an aerial view of the whole space

My re-working of the logo for the Dragon's Co-operative, Llanrhaeadr

Sketchup - brilliant for 3D impressions of your building or garden project

Why gardens "PLUS"?

Why the "PLUS"? Because I want to help people explore and develop the bigger picture of their gardens.
What do you think of when you hear the word "garden"? You might think straight away of growing some tastey fruit and veg, or you might think of a patch of grass and you relaxing on it with a restorative drink - whilst enjoying a beautiful view with flowers, bushes and trees. Or you might picture yourself playing with your kids and having fun with family and friends. I think these are all great aspects of gardens and gardening and I would like to help you to develop your own garden around your own vision.

There's almost always bees on the clumps of borage at Barmolloch Farm

The point of the "PLUS" is that with a little thought, understanding and planning you can achieve not only much more of what you knew you wanted to achieve but also some things you didn't know you could achieve but are really cool. And again, with a bit more thought and planning you can get the maximum of what you want for whatever time, energy and money you have available.
For example, say you would like to have some apple and other fruit trees. Brilliant, and you could just go out and buy a few trees and pop them in the ground. The "PLUS" here might be to clear some space around the base of trees and to plant it up with bee-friendly herbs, like borage,

ICE CAPS AND GARDENS

It's no surprise if you missed the minimal reports in the mainstream news of this massive iceberg, three times the size of London, splitting from the Larsen C shelf in Antarctica. It gives me the heebie-geebies though, as the Larsen C shelf may be acting as a dam, holding back much more ice...

Roll on to July 2017, and the A68 iceberg, 12% of the Larsen C shelf, is on the move. Easy to feel powerless against a trillion tonnes of ice but in fact our individual attitudes and actions ripple out and change the whole world.

It was reports of vanishing ice back in 2006 that made me get off my backside and start exploring the eco world.
"SO WHAT'S A SUSTAINABLE WAY OF LIFE LIKE?"
Looking for answers to that question set me off on a journey to Portugal and around the UK,

Gardening at Barmolloch

Ruth and I live and work at Barmolloch Farm near Lochgilphead on the West coast of Scotland. We've been helping Helen and Stewart Wright look after and develop everything here, especially the gardens. Here's a bit about it all:

There's a large polytunnel which Helen and Stewart already had well established. Apart from the extra warmth for the plants, it's a brilliant thing to have so there's somewhere to work when it's raining... which seems to be most of the time at the moment...

HELP FOR YOUR JUNGLE OR CONCRETE SLAB!

Do you have an unkempt jungle or a bare concrete slab?
Don't worry! However overgrown or barren your garden is we can help you re-plan things, set up new areas and disentangle old growth to help you to get the most of what you would like from your garden - based on the time, energy and resources you have to put into it.

The polytunnel at Treflach Farm before and after our renovation

Maybe you have a grassy-weedy patch of ground and would like to grow some fruit and veg - but haven't a clue where to start? Maybe you would like to let in more light, to create somewhere for the kids to play and somewhere to sit and relax? You don't know how to thin it out, what to keep, what can be cut right back?
Maybe you're concerned about rising food prices, food security in general or maybe you just want to grow some chemical free, really fresh, healthy stuff. What's a raised bed and is it a good idea for you? You've read about Permaculture, Organics or Biodynamics and they seem a good idea but how do you put it all  into practice?
PLEASE GET IN TOUCH TO SEE HOW WE CAN HELP:
TEXT: O7450 332 430
EMAIL: iancwatt@hotmail.com