S for Survey, P for Plants...

I

To help with the design process for a permaculture garden I was taught a number of acronyms to remember what to do when.  The first one is SADIMET, which stands for Survey, Analysis, Design, Maintenance, Implementation, Evaluation, Tweaking.  So having done a base map of the garden in Rozovets, we are still way not ready to start any designing, let alone starting to do any altering work on the property. 

If you are intending to design a place, first take a step or two back, slow down, hold your horses!  The survey is the most important and time intensive part of your work, so it was good for us to spend some time on the plot for a while.  One of the first things you observe also follows an acronym: PASTE, which stands for Plants, Animals, Structures, Tools, Events.  So let's start with the survey of Vasko's plot in Rozovets with the P for Plants.  Another acronym is used to indicate how frequent the plants occur: DAFOR, which stands for Dominant, Abundant, Frequent, Occasional, Rare.  So I will put one of these letters after each plant name.  Here comes the list in no particular order, with some of their uses:

Broad-leafed dock (D in places) - edible and nutrient accumulator

Dandelion (F) - edible, nutrient accumulator,medicinal, ground cover
Mugwort (O) - edible, medicinal, nutrient accumulator
Stinging nettles (O) - edible, medicinal, attracts beneficial insects
Various grasses (D in places) - ground cover
Mallow (A) - edible
Wild raspberries (F) - edible

Rue (O) - medicinal, insect repellent.  This herb is actually native to the Balkans!


Vetch (D in places) - limited edible use, nitrogen fixing






Wild roses (F) - edible, bee attractant
Red clover (A) - edible, nitrogen fixing, bee attractant
Hemlock (O) - useful for knocking off you mother-in-law...

Something from the mint family that looks like lemon balm, but smells more pungent (O)
Bindweed (R)
Hollyhock (O) - edible
Tulips (F)
Periwinkle (O) - medicinal
Wood sorrel (F)- edible, nutrient accumulator
Burdock (O) - edible, medicinal, nutrient accumulator
Various walnut, cherry and wild plum seedlings (F)
Goosegrass (O) - edible
Sweet violets (O) - edible, medicinal
Wild lettuce (R) - medicinal, halucinogenic
Yarrow (O) - medicinal, edible, nutrient accumulator
Bugloss (O) - edible, bee attractant 

Bladder campion (O) - edible
Some white flowering brassica (R) - edible
Shepherd's purse (O) - Edible
Cornflower (R) - edible, attracs beneficial insects.

So much for the plant survey. What we cold start doing without the need of designing or planning was chop down some of the plants for mulch and adding nutrient to the soil.  Here is Susan in action with some great hoe-like implement we found at a local hardware shop.

We didn't get everything cleared during our time there, but about abthird is looking a lot more accessible for now.

 

Also many of the trees are diseased and we got going cutting out much of the dead wood:

 

Finally, I discovered that the local grocery shop in the village sells seeds.  We will now leave Bulgaria for a little while to come back in a month to finish the job, but we thought it would be nice to be able to harvest something when we do come back.  So I prepared a little bed near the fron on the lowest part of the land and sowed some beans and raddishes. 

I wouldn't normally sow in such straight lines, but the hope is that the beans will climb up the fence.  It's really more in hope that any serious expectations.  If it stays as dry as it has been during the month we've been here, it's not likely to yield much at all.  This is the variety bean I sowed:

We have managed to get our first harvest of cherries off the land before we left though and... The starlings nesting in an old street lamp above the land started flying just before our own departure.  A good omen?

Designing a garden in Bulgaria

 

After the initial set back of loosing Bart at the very start of this project, Susan, Eddie the Beagle and myself returned to the village of Rozovets to set up camp and start designing a garden.  The plan was that our friend Vasko let us use his land to camp on, work on, grow on, while him and his family were still in the UK.  This way we could decide if we liked the country and , if we did, they would come back to their native soil and we'd start a small community living off the land.  After what happened we were all over the place to start off with as you can imagine, but whatever else happens we decided to at least design a permaculture garden for Vasko and his family, who has been helping us a lot through the bureaucracy following Bart's death and also in memory of Bart, who died on this very spot.

So I will take you bit by bit through the design process. The garden is located in the small village of Rozovets on the egde where the Thracian Plain meets the Sredna Gora, right bang in the centre of Bulgaria, an area also known as the Valley of the Roses, because this area is responsible for 90% of the world's essential rose oil production.  Just now it is the harvest time

The garden is located at an altitude of just over 500m a.s.l. at almost the highest point of the village.  To the north, west and east the Sredna Gora hills rise, with no other villages until the northern flanks of these hills for some 20km or so.  To the south the vista opens up to the Thracian Plain with the city of Plovdiv visible some 50km to the south and on a clear day the Rhodopi Mountains can be seen in the distance.  The climate is therefore hot continental in the summer, with high humidity and some very cold winters, with severe frosts common.

Let me take you on a brief walk around the property if you've got 5 minutes to spare:

But first things first, I had to create a base map on which to base my design on.  This is it here, giving a nice idea.

The whole property consists of about 750 m2.  I have not yet drawn in the contour lines, but the north-eastern side is the highest point sloping down slightly towards the south-western. 

So much for today.  Next post I will put up the results of the PASTE survey as well the soil test and other factors which will help me make up my mind how to design this garden.

In fond memory...

Most new beginnings start with an ending.  This one was more dramatic then we expected.  On day 2 of our stay in in Bulgaria my cousin Bart, the inimitable 'Conspiracy Cousin', suddenly died of a heart attack.  He had lived with us for the last 2 1/2 years, worked with us, laughed with us, cooked for us, joked with us, admonished and adviced us, he became like a brother to me.

On the days that followed his death, as we struggled through the bureaucratic mess of having him cremated he kept sending us little messages.  I'll leave you with a couple of them:

At least I'm sure he would have agreed with our choice of funeral director:

R.I.P. Bart

A New Chapter... maybe...

Spring has finally sprung after a long and dreary winter.  The oldest resident of our village, a 100 year old lady, says she has never seen such a wet winter in her lifetime!  But last weekend the temperatures finally soared and flowers appear everywhere, the bees are buzzing and butterflies flutter by etc.

It's the time for a change for us too.  Tomorrow we'll be off onto new shores.  After struggling for years with the logistical problem of making the regular 10km journey to our land with virtually no money, battling landslides on our steep territory and earthquakes and various other disasters, we have decided to test the waters somewhere else.  A good friend of mine has offered us the use of his land in Bulgaria.  So the plan is to spend most of this summer there to design and start to implementing a permaculture design for this plot and at the same time test the country to see if we get on with another language / culture etc.  Prices for land are very cheap there and we are thinking that with our 'advanced' years we can make our life easier by having the place where we grow our food on our doorstep.  We also have various ideas of how we will try and make a living there, details of which I will reveal as they come.

As some of you may remember I visited Bulgaria last year, so I have already made some contacts, including within the permaculture community there.  The soil is incredibly fertile and the nature is amongst the least spoiled in Europe.

"So what is happening to your project in Liguria?" I hear you ask.  Well, for the time being we are keeping both our house and land and we have got a couple of guys keen to get their hands dirty looking after the place in the meantime.  One of them is no lesser personage then 'Il Presidente' of the Dead Rooster Society The participants of my permaculture design course called themselves the Society of the Dead Roosters for reasons too complicated to explain, and Maiemi was unanimously voted for president.  Unfortunately, he is also a little shy, so I haven't got a photo of him just now.

Maiemi will be assisted by another friend of ours Alex, who can be seen here doing his Tarzan impression

They are both keen to continue in the same vein as we have started the project, plus experimenting with their own ideas.  Here is a final farewell shot of our land as it looks now

So next time you hear from me should be from Bulgaria, but I will of course keep an eye out for this project too.  Now I've got to go and pack, so if you'll excuse me...

Forgive me Blogger for I have sinned...

It's been more than 2 months since my last confession...  I know there have been complaints for my lack of blog posts, I hope you haven't all abandoned me.  It's been a long, cold and wet winter.  We've had snow twice this winter (much enjoyed by Eddie the Beagle and his brother Full):

...and there have been at least 3 catastrophic rainfall events this winter, the last just this week with many landslides in the area.  Luckily there has been no major damage on our land, which shows we must have been doing something right.  Finally spring is showing signs of winning (almond blossoms):

and today we have been busy adding to the food forest.  On the soft fruit bed below the pond we planted 2 blackcurrants, 2 redcurrants and a white currant (all called John), 2 raspberries and a pink gooseberry:

The base of the bed is made up of my reverse Hugelkultur method, piling a load of old wood (mostly rotten oear and hazel prunings) on top of which we piled some soil from excavating the pond and some horse manure.  In between the fruit bushes I sowed some clover to add nitrogen to the bed, as they are quite nitrogen hungry.  The raspberries and the gooseberry are planted along the back of the bed as they prefer shady conditions in our climate.

Above the pond I planted Charity the mahonia "Charity".  She is particularly shade tolerant, doesn't mind poor soil conditions and produces edible berries:

Meanwhie down in the food forest we added Sally the service tree (sorbus domestica), which is a tall growing native tree producing small pear shaped fruit, some excellent wood and a strong root system.  She'll be the queen of the forest, once she grows up:

We also added two nitrogen-fixing plants: Mimi the mimosa, which attracts early pollinating insects with its profusion of yellow flowers in the spring (which according to some sources are also edible, although I find them bitter):

...and Gina the Tuscan broom, which also produces edible flower buds, has some medicinal properties, is useful for basketry and fixes soil, preventing landslides:

Not pictured is Jenny the self-fertile kiwi.  I'm hoping that she will shame Stud the male kiwi into getting the female hayward kiwis to produce!

Finally we added to the tree guilds around Jennifer the Rotello apple tree and Declan the winter pear.  Both had an artichoke added to their neighbourhood, which, apart from producing edible flower buds, makes a good ground cover and mulch. 

That's it for the moment folks.  I'll try not to leave such a large gap before the next post.  New ventures beckon for us and I'll keep you posted. :)

Creating a Forest Garden by Martin Crawford - a Book Review

First of all I hope that you all made it over the festive season and into the new year fine and wishing you all the best for 2013.

It is winter now, outside the wind is howling and the rain is lashing against the window, the perfect time to curl up with a book and plan the garden for the next season.  This one is one of my latter acquisitions, very relevant to my creating a food forest on our land at the time and I've been after this book for a while.

After Robin Hart, the father of the food forest in a temperate climate, Martin Crawford is considered the authority on the subject.  This book is a large, beautifully presented book that deals with a hugely complex subject.  Like any book on gardening I have ever laid my hands on it has its shortcomings and you never quite find your exact situation described or find all the answers to your questions.  It shows that much research still needs to be conducted on this particular subject as well.

But to its contents first.  Part one deals with how a forest garden works.  A long chapter goes on to argue about climate change, something which in my view does not need to be discussed in such detail in this place.  Crawford first quotes evidence of climate change and then goes on to argue that, as a forest garden is a long term project, the effects of global warming need to be taken into consideration when choosing cultivars and species.  I don't think that anyone in their right mind argues that climate change isn't happening, but in my opinion the consequences are far from predictable and simply assuming that it's going to get warmer soon is too simplistic a view.  Individual micro-climates and local trends need to be taken into consideration and climate variation within a specific site.  Looking at where we are for example, in just the 9 years that we have been here we have observed an ever increasing amount of extreme events, in particular catastrophic rain and more frequent frosts.  If I'd be thinking I'll soon live in a semi-tropical climate my banana trees (had I planted any like one of my neighbours) would have died of frost bite one of these winters.

In this part Crawford also engages in the native versus exotics debate and he argues that exotics should be introduced for a healthy and divers system.  I am very much in agreement with that.  Without 'exotics' we wouldn't be eating potatoes, tomatoes, corn, rice etc.  The list is endless.  We should take whatever is useful to ourselves and our systems as long as they don't push natives from the scene completely.  Plants have always followed migration routes of animals and humans.

Part 2 deals with how to design your forest garden.  As any book on permaculture will tell you, this also tells you to start with making an accurate map of your plot, including existing trees and shrubs, structures etc.  Now I have learned how to make a map at the Permaculture Design Course and have practised this skill in the meantime.  What yet no one has been able to tell me, how can I make an accurate 3D map of my property, because this is the only way I can think of presenting the 18 odd terraces that make up my land.  Officially I have just under 2000m2 of land, but that only talks about the horizontal parts.  In addition I have some 700m2 of vertical land.  And this vertical land is by no means useless.  Some of my trees grow out of the verticals including a couple of apple trees, an olive and most of my cherry trees.  In addition there are numerous useful herbs growing on those parts.  But how do I represent that on a 2-dimensional piece of paper?  Contour lines don't really show that.  So what I'm basically doing in my case is virtually skipping the whole design step, just concentrating on local plant guilds and hoping for the best that it will eventually grow into a whole.  However for those with less challenging conditions, there are many useful tips on optimising the various levels (canopy, shrub, ground cover, climbers) for ideal light conditions, wind protection, companion planting etc.

As first design steps he talks about finding land.  In another part of the book he already mentions that the books is primarily written with the British climate in mind.  He goes on to say in this part that, whilst land in southern Europe is cheaper to buy then in the overpopulated UK he says, quote:

"the further you get into regions with hot Mediterranean summers, the more difficult it is to grow a fully layered forest garden of the type this book is concerned with: the dry summer soil conditions cannot support the lush growth of perennials that you expect in the UK unless you irrigate."

I disagree strongly with him on that point.  My plot of land in Italy within sight of the Med has an all-year-round green ground cover.  We have greater average rainfall than some parts of the UK, even if it is greater in winter and tends to come in big outbursts rather than in the continuous  drizzle you tend get in western Europe.  He also describes what the ideal plot of land to plant a food forest would be, but doesn't take into consideration that you might already have a plot of land with little option but to plant a forest to prevent soil erosion on a massive scale.  Arable land is becoming more and more scarce, so we have to make do with whatever is available and design around that.  I feel this book is not giving me the tools for that.

Saying all that this part also has an extensive list of useful plants with their uses and needs neatly described and separate sections on how to design the various layers in the forest garden.  Many of the plants I hadn't heard of before and shall try to get my hands on.  There are some tips on how to design slopes, although nothing as steep as mine, a lot on mulching propagating plants, part 3 has chapters on the role of fungi and mushroom cultivation, about harvesting and preserving your food.

In conclusion: I'm glad Crawford didn't call the book "The Complete Guide to..." as complete it isn't in my view, but it has much really useful info in it and I shall refer to it many more times.  It is too UK-centric for my liking, but maybe once my experiments have come to full fruition I'll write a book on food forests in the Mediterranean climate... :)

Another Book Review

This is just a quick update about another very kind review I have received from a fellow blogger, from the Wildcraft Diva over at the Wildcraft Vita.  She blogs about foraging and life in the countryside in Italy on the other side of the Appenines from us.  Do pop over and have a look here.  I know it might be a bit late for your Christmas shopping, but I believe there are still people out there who haven't bought my book yet!  :)