really old style living?

ceridwen

ChocClare

Sounds like you could usefully borrow a book on Forest Gardening. I love the concept of several "layers" of plants - all looking out for each other with minimal effort from me - and with a lot of them being more unusual ones I'd never heard of - but all edible. Once its all up and running (which does take..errr...some effort <cough> then I gather it largely looks after itself).

Would love a decent size bit of land where I could set up a Forest Garden myself....

THE book on this is:

"Creating a forest garden - working with nature to grow edible crops" by Martin Crawford. That's the "bible" of forest gardening. Its for sale on www.amazon.co.uk right now - so you can read the description of it.

ceridwen

On YouTube there are various clips on forest gardening.

See the Martin Crawford one on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFbcn06h8w4

Goes off to have an acute attack of envy-itis.....

annie123

morning all, I'm up early today, even before the alarm!

ChocClare
you can also plant garlic, overwintering onions, turnips, spring cabbage or a green manure.
I too for the first time ever had 1 courgette plant that last week produced its first female flower after producing only male ones all summer long, very odd.
1/2 acre sounds like a good size of outdoor space, very nice I'm not a fan of chard but grow it, it hides quite well in some dishes but cant stand it by itself and its good for the compost heap too.

Weather should be nice today so am going to spend the morning painting the front door which looks really tatty, and the afternoon clearing the garden up. Got plastic pots all over the place thanks to the winds recently and peas and beans need pulling up so I have some clear planting space.

Birds have now stripped the holly tree of berries, which seems a bit early this year, swifts left weeks ago which is early for here, so I'm guessing that the reports of another cold winter for the south are a possibility.

Right, off for a cuppa.

ceridwen

Two other very influential people you might want to watch. See:

http://www.permaculturenow.com/video.html

Watch the Dervaes family on "Homegrown Revolution" and also see the "Permaculture in Austria" video.

Inspiration oozing out of their very pores.

....off for another attack of envy-itis...

ChocClare

Forest garden/permaculture/Dervaes family were all reasons we moved out here.

As you say, envyitis but have to start somewhere.

We have solar panels (not as much use on a thatched cottage as they were on our house on the cliffs, which faced due south and had little between it and France), wood-burning stoves and DH runs his car on waste vegetable oil which I get from my work and therefore save the chef from having to pay someone to take it away - community stuff, eh?

We looked at photovoltaics but are not convinced in our setup.

The orchard is laid out and the veg garden will get there - but it all takes time - and I'd better go to work!

Thanks for the welcome - chickens are fed, off to feed horse (who will have to come into her own come Peak Oil!!!) and go to work. Will keep reading/catching up - brilliant thread!

mardatha

:eek:You've put me right off my porridge ! you said the "K" word !!

mardatha

Annie, my neighbour was saying something about her holly berries and it being a bad winter, but I forget what the connection is. Its rowans here, we are COVERED in bright red rowan berries, the treees are weighed down with them. But the RV and I dont think they were like that last year - which might mean you get them after a bad winter and not before !

ceridwen

ChocClare wrote: »

Forest garden/permaculture/Dervaes family were all reasons we moved out here.

As you say, envyitis but have to start somewhere.

We have solar panels (not as much use on a thatched cottage as they were on our house on the cliffs, which faced due south and had little between it and France), wood-burning stoves and DH runs his car on waste vegetable oil which I get from my work and therefore save the chef from having to pay someone to take it away - community stuff, eh?

We looked at photovoltaics but are not convinced in our setup.

The orchard is laid out and the veg garden will get there - but it all takes time - and I'd better go to work!

Thanks for the welcome - chickens are fed, off to feed horse (who will have to come into her own come Peak Oil!!!) and go to work. Will keep reading/catching up - brilliant thread!

You've been reading the Totnes Energy Descent Plan then??;):D (tis free to read online for anyone wanting to) ...hitching posts and troughs for horses abound in the World of the Future (if everyone else's ones are half as comprehensive...though I've read the other one that came out so far - errr...Forest Gate I seem to recall - and thats not a quarter as comprehensive..). Waiting to see what everyone elses EDAP plans are like...

Didnt like the idea about joining up semi-detached houses and turning them into terrace houses and couldnt "square the circle" as to how housing was supposed to simultaneously house extended households/allow for more work from home and there was summat else as well (can't recall....). Still - theres a lot less joined-up thinking in the way the Government "runs the country" - so 90% joined-up thinking is a lot better than the 10% joined-up thinking Governments go in for.

seasalt_2

Sorry, Mardatha, am probably being thick (and hope you've finsihed your porridge!) but the "K" word?

Also anyone know anything about permaculture when you haven't got trees?

mardatha

KKKKK word, green stuff, tastes like sewage...