Permaculture / Forest Gardening

I’ve been wanting to grow loofahs ever since my aunt gave me one as a christmas present, for use as a washing up sponge/scourer. I’d only ever thought of them as being used to scrub your back in the bath before!  I’d been looking for an alternative to the horrible sponge/scourers we use (I HATE buying them, but they seem to do the job best).  So … today I finally remembered that I wanted to buy some loofah seeds and got onto google, and found a link to a great article http://down—to—earth.blogspot.com/2007/06/harvesting-loofahs.html which tells you everything you need to know about growing, harvesting and storing loofahs.

The article also mentions Madagascar Beans. “They’re a traditional permaculture plant. Two seeds will grow a wall of beans that can be shelled and stored in the cupboard as dried beans.” Never heard of Madagascar Beans so definitely need to check them out!

The garden is so green in May, and every year looks more like a jungle!

O jardim é tão verde em maio, e cada ano mais parece uma selva!

I have not planted a lot of summer crops out yet. Some of the raised beds are still full of broad beans, lupins, poppies and other plants that will be coming out soon to make room for the main crop of summer vegetables.

Eu não tenho plantadas muita culturas de verão para fora, ainda. Algumas das camas levantadas ainda estão cheios de favas, tremoços, papoilas e outras plantas, que será a sair em breve para dar espaço para as principais culturas de verão legumes.

We do already have some courgettes, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, piri-piri, varied beans and cucumbers planted out – with lots more in trays in the polytunnel to plant out soon.

Fazemos já tem algumas abobrinhas, tomates, pimentos, abóboras, piri-piri, feijão e pepinos na horta – com muito mais em bandejas no polytunnel à planta em breve.

These are okra seedlings.

Estes são quiabo mudas.

Alec gave us some jerusalem artichokes last week.

Alec nos deu algumas Tupinambos semana passada.

I am trying to germinate two avocado stones, and I plan to try to cordon the trees within the polytunnel.

Estou tentando germinar duas pedras de abacate, e eu pretendo tentar cordão de árvores dentro do polytunnel.

Here’s a video from theproducegarden – it’s pretty much what we do when we plant trees to reduce the amount of watering we’d have to do while the tree gets established.

And here’s some photos of young trees planted here. The ridge of earth is very clear, and on sloping ground that ridge is higher on the lower side of the tree and almost non-existent above the tree. For most of the year it will catch rain, and hold it in the manure/compost filled earth under the tree. But in dry spells, and definitely July and August we have to water maybe once a week – depending on how hot it is and what type of tree. Our experimental drought tolerant trees need much less water than fruit trees, which may need watering occassionally for their whole lives.

RAINWATER HARVESTING
Author – Pacey and Cullis
Stuff on storing rainwater, building tanks etc., but with the addition of a good section on farming with runoff water in rural areas. Good for developing water strategies.

It looks like we are going to have a lot of fruit this year, probably because of the dry spring – the flowers didn’t get washed off the trees by the rain this year.

The plum trees are laden with tiny plums, including the row of plum suckers that we put in a few years ago not expecting them to fruit much if at all.

The two cherries in the gardens have some fruit for the first time, and we planted half a dozen more cherries each of the last 2 winters. Cherries are so good, and easy to sun dry for the winter, we should plant more trees this winter.

The raspberries that we transplanted into a bed in Sophie’s garden are covered in flowers. I wonder if we can take cuttings from them this autumn to make another bed. Raspberries must be one of my favourites.

And of course, the grapes are appearing on the vines now, as they grow, and strawberry flowers are starting to appear.

There are also plenty of other fruits appearing, nectarines, peaches, figs, apple and pear blossom, goji berries, cranberries, russian olives, loquats…. and I am bound to have forgotten some. Each year we get more fruit and more of the new ones come on stream for us. We must get a solar drier made, to make winter stores of all of this abundance.

CIDER
Author – A Proulx
New, revised and updated edition. Lots of information for the cider maker (includes vinegars and brandy).