the day of the nasturtiums….

Triffid-like, the nasturtiums in our small back garden have taken over everything and have been threatening to swamp the whole of Southville. They’d re-seeded themselves from last year.
Well, yesterday was the day that they met their match (well, until they pop up uninvited next year); I spent an hour or so hunting them down (not difficult, they’re everywhere), stuffing them into sacks, taking them down to the local re-cycling place and waving them goodbye. In an ideal world, despite its small size, we’d like to grow some food in our garden. A couple of years ago, thanks to our GrowZone friends, we made an initial effort to get things rolling… not particularly successfully (some strawberries, chard, lettuce, tiny potatoes, small green tomatoes and the odd squash), but at least it was a start. THIS year has been pretty disastrous: we decided to grow fruit and planted (last year) gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes, rhubarb and an espaliered(?) apple tree; plus tomatoes, potatoes, chard, chives, beans and garlic. All we seem to have produced from this is the odd tiny green tomato, more small potatoes (even for perhaps three meals?) plus some chard, chives and some small garlic specimens (and nasturtiums, of course!). If ONLY we’d decided to concentrate on cultivating slugs and snails, we’d have been quids in, but unfortunately we didn’t.
This coming year, we’re going to try again. After our previous disasters, we’re setting our sights pretty low. But I promise to be make daily slug+snail dawn patrols and I will endeavour to water stuff regularly as necessary.
Other suggestions gratefully received!
Photo: the view from our kitchen window (before!).
PS: yes, I know you can eat nasturtium flowers, but….

bruce+sara's big adventure

This time, some two years ago, Bruce+Sara were trawling the English and Welsh countryside in the hope of finding a suitable property and, crucially, some land on which they could continue to explore and develop their ideas for permaculture living. They finally discovered their new home (a dilapidated barn in some 17 acres) in Llangurig, Powys in mid-Wales – within 300m of the river Wye - and exchanged contracts in January last year. Like us, friends of Bruce+Sara will have been following their progress via Bruce’s lovely FB photographs – but, this weekend, Moira+I were able to experience a little of their big adventure for ourselves. Of course, Bruce+Sara were the perfect, generous hosts and it was absolutely lovely to see them again, but it was also encouraging (and somewhat inspiring) to see how far they’d progressed in a such a short time (not to mention producing the adorable Gracie along the way!). They’ve made a wonderful job of converting the main barn (there are three other smaller barns, plus two massive open sheds!) and incorporating lots of eco-friendly design principles; they’ve created lots of raised beds immediately next to the main barn; they’ve started to convert another barn; they’ve got their own chickens; they’ve moulded some of the higher land to enable them to erect a large poly-tunnel, plus more vegetable-growing space; they’ve planted nearly 5,000 trees…. oh, and they’re also well on their way to establishing their own herb tea business!!
Moira+I are full of admiration and have returned home to Bristol feeling incredibly lazy….
We had a lovely time – lovely friends.
Photo: Moira, Sara+Bruce (+Gracie) walking "their land" – it doesn’t include the vast acres on the other side of the valley!
PS: I didn’t take very many photographs (but here are some) and especially regret not doing so (due to the drizzle) during our beautiful Sunday forest walk.
PPS: Bruce+Sara first introduced us to the concept of permaculture in the garden of their rented house in Bristol in March 2009 (as part of GrowZones).

the shed

We now have a shed.

Sounds impressive doesn’t it? I’d like to say that I was typing this from the aforementioned shed, but that would a bit of an exaggeration. Actually, the photograph above makes it look quite grand (remember, the camera never lies?). Well, if I tell you that its door is only 1120mm high, you’ll realise that it’s just a glorified “wendy house” (in plan it’s a mere 590x1055mm - you might recall that our garden is only a little over 5m square)! But, I have to tell you, it’s BEAUTIFULLY constructed – by Alan+me as part of our GrowZone morning. The other images tell the whole story (from left to right): this is the mess that used to occupy “shed corner” (I think Moira’s just been dumping stuff to emphasise that we needed a shed); when we unpacked the shed, we discovered that the “back wall” had a large piece hacked out of it (“invisible” from the way it was packed and clearly damaged in the factory as there was no sign of any broken bit – our lawyer is working on the case as I write); the giant shed; slightly worrying – this is the stuff that’s SUPPOSED to be going INTO the shed (I’m currently checking the manufacturer’s details as to whether or not it possesses “Tardis qualities”).
PS: the shed is so flimsy that I’m anxious that it IS filled with stuff – because it’s likely to be the only way to stop it being blown away in anything more than a light breeze!

growzones

Moira+Gareth+Alan+I joined Niall in his garden this morning on the first of this year’s Growzone Saturdays - essentially, getting people together to grow (and eat!) local food along permaculture principals. I’m NOT a gardener, but even I found last year’s sessions hugely enjoyable – and educational. Today was another really good morning – starting at 9am and finishing just after 12 noon (with a brief stop for coffee and biscuits), then a delicious shared lunch together. An amazing amount of work was completed in three hours: with old suitcases being used to plant out potatoes and a previously-felled apple tree cleared and cut up (ready for making charcoal).
Photos: suitcase planters; coffee break and some of the neatly-stacked bits of wood.

eating from the garden… or not

We’ve really enjoyed working with our EarthAbbey friends on various GrowZone projects during the course of this year. This has included modifying our tiny garden to include various areas for growing food. Moira+I have little experience of such things so, as you might imagine, it’s been a huge learning curve for both of us. We’ve been growing/trying to grow the following thus far: lettuce (of various types), strawberries, chard, sprouting broccoli, peppers, shallots, potatoes and tomatoes. The lettuce has been pretty good; strawberries were fine (but really hardly enough for more than a couple of meals); the chard is just about ok (but fighting a constant battle with the slugs/snails); the peppers and shallots were a failure; the potatoes produced a pretty paltry crop of rather small vegetables; the broccoli seems to be doing ok (thus far).
What about the tomatoes I hear you ask (actually, I feel sure you won’t be asking such questions!)? You may have read my previous blog about dealing with our army of slugs and snails (in order to protect our ripening tomatoes)…. well, I’m afraid we’ve now discovered that all our tomato plants had “blight” and so we’ve had to strip off our tiny unripened tomatoes (see photograph) and Moira’s currently in the process of making green tomato chutney!!
It’s all hugely disappointing.
Now, I don’t want to over-dramatise matters, but our experience has given me much food for thought(!) – for example:
a) Our experience put me in mind of people all over the world who HAVE to grow their own food (and this includes farmers in this country too). We just shrug our shoulders and go out and buy food from the local shops/supermarket instead. For a farmer in this country, a failed crop could mean that his/her business has to fold. For someone in the Third World, a failed crop could mean much, much more – ultimately that his/her family starves to death.
b) Maybe it would have all been different if we’d attacked everything with chemicals to avoid disease and infestation?
c) Food in this country is incredibly cheap (we might not want to admit this, but it is in relative terms). If you can buy two large punnets of strawberries for £3, you might ask yourself: “what’s the point of growing my own”?
But, then I snap out of this negative mindset!
We’ve only just started out….
We’ve really enjoyed the challenge of trying to produce some of our own food.
We want to produce our own food organically.
I think we’ve become far more “in tune” with the earth, the weather and the seasons (sounds a bit of a hippie thing to say, but it’s true!).
We’ve learnt an awful lot through our “mistakes” and we need to be educated.
We need to discover what food is most suited to our “plot” and grow it successfully.
We WILL make this work eventually!

slugs+snails

Our tomato plants have produced dozens of small green tomatoes. We’ve been waiting for them to turn red and yesterday Moira asked if I’d noticed that some of them actually had started to change colour.
Brilliant!
But then she added that the red ones had also started to be eaten by the slugs and snails… Horror of horrors! I quickly checked and instantly “removed” perhaps ten snails from the plants/adjoining wall. How dare they? Before going to bed, I was out in the garden again – this time armed with torch! I removed another 20 odd slugs and snails. I felt like the Victor Meldrew of the gardening world! First thing this morning, I’ve been out there again and “dispatched” another 20 or so.
Suddenly, our tiny garden seems like a training ground for militant slugs+snails….
Suddenly, I feel as if I’m George W Bush organising an invasion….
There’s got to be a better way!
PS: I felt uneasy about taking photographs of any of “our” slugs+snails, so have resorted to Google, I’m afraid!

garden

Our garden is tiny (5x5m) and unexceptional. Moira’s “into” gardening; I’m into sitting in the garden (eating, drinking, reading newspapers etc). Three years ago, we erected a timber screen at the back of the garden (we felt very exposed to our neighbours at the rear!) and since then it’s developed into something of a green wall (honeysuckle and bamboo). I’ve previously blogged about the amazing help provided by our GrowZone friends (was it REALLY only mid-May?). Largely thanks to them, we’ve started to grow some of our own food. They also helped us remove the dominating pyrocantha bush and, since then, we’ve managed to remove the ramshackle fence and replace it with another timber screen (which, hopefully, we can use as a planting backdrop). Bruce has put together a great short film about GrowZones on the Earth Abbey website – which is definitely worth a look!

grow zones

This morning Bruce, Sara, Chris, Bobbie, Elaine and Alan from Earth Abbey’s brilliant grow zone project (see previous blog) came round to help transform our garden. Our garden is tiny – just 5x5m. Despite its size, we wanted to grow some of our own food, as well as continuing to enjoy the space for eating, drinking and relaxing and to maintain some of the flowers and shrubs. So, something of a challenge then!
Amazingly, in less than 3 hours, the garden was transformed.
Following an earlier consultation with Bruce (one of the permaculture gurus on the team!), we’ve now erected three lengths of guttering, one above another on the kitchen wall - for growing lettuces, strawberries and the like; we’ve pulled up some paving (and re-used it to build a low wall) and formed a raised bed along the northern boundary wall/fence (Moira has subsequently planted this with chard, courgettes, tomatoes, peas and shallots); we’ve cut down a dominating pyrocantha bush (the shredded remnants will shortly be dug into the soil of what will become another vegetable bed on the south side of the garden); and finally, thanks to Chris, we’ve installed a water butt within the lightwell at the back of our basement (Moira now just wants it to rain so she can see it work!). We even found time to stop for coffee and doughnuts during a brief rain shower!
When we’d finished, we sat down and shared a simple lunch together. It might surprise you to know that I’m not fond of gardening, but even I’ve really enjoyed these grow zone mornings. They’ve been quite eye-opening to see what can be achieved in a short space of time by just a few committed people working, laughing and sharing knowledge together.
A wonderful time with lovely, generous friends.
Photo (taken through the window of Moira’s office): Elaine, Alan, Sara and Chris finishing off the new raised bed area.