December in the food forest

I’m taking the time while I have Dylan around to shake off the thick layer of digital dust my photo archive has been gathering. I have so many moments to share it’s hard to pick what to tick off first.

Baby is in a feather light sleep next to me which involves a lot of dummy sucking and arm flailing, but let’s see if I can finally post these photos of what was happening in the food forest as spring turned to summer. Today a scorching hot day, so I imagine it will look a lot different when we next visit. So glad we have a watering system!

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Things were too hectic with the new baby to capture the apple blossom in all its powder pink glory, but we were organised enough this year to net the apricot and peach against fruit fly and the red apple against the birds. The billowing white nets are actually quite beautiful in a way,  they float above the thick carpet of yarrow like a mist of benign ghosts.

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Last year the feijoa had its first two, maybe three flowers. Now it is covered in red Christmas bauble blossoms. The jar of parsley seeds I saved from home and lazily broadcast months ago has also come good. The umbels are beautiful under the trees and promise we will have parsley this coming year too without having to resow. The nasturtiums and pepinos had withered in the late frosts, but their massive amount of regrowth following has smothered all competitors. 

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The food forest was looking a bit grim in November and I thought it just couldn’t cope without my attention, which had been elsewhere while I was pregnant. Turns out all it needed was a good water after a dry winter and a broken timer on the watering system. Drip irrigation operational and some heavy downpours saw the food forest lush and green in a matter of weeks. The weeds also awakened though and we had to do quite a lot of grass pulling.

The silvanberry fruit are ripening and unlike the thornless bramble we have at home birds seem less willing to grasp their stems to feast. 

 

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food forest stages

Sharing perfect red apples, sweet and crisp. The littlest apple tree repaid us this year for building a food forest around it. The runt of the litter, this little guy secretly had the tastiest fruit of all our trees with mysterious ancestry. It is amazing how quickly everything has shot up this year with drip irrigation on the dry edges and the understorey established. Nurturing these stunted little trees was the original goal of developing the Food Forest, but it’s not time to hang up our gardening gloves, it’s time for the real work to begin! This year we had the most bountiful harvest from the smallest tree in the forest, but how could that be? Simple, the smallest tree was the only one we could net with a donated mesh curtain. Now that the trees are happier than ever and have never had more fruit, we have competition for the spoils! No time for complacency, we’re moving from STAGE 1 SAVE THE TREES to STAGE 2 SAVE THE FRUIT! It’s quite an education. This Food Forest business might be low physical maintenance, but it a constant work out for the brain.

After a brilliant harvest year last year, this year the apricot was heavy with fruit fly infested fruit. It is truly heartbreaking to have to fill two garbage bags full of fruit to be solarised and discarded. The Granny Smith Apples too have befriended a flock of Lorikeets which look darling bobbing on the trees tops , but leave a real mess. So what do we do? It’s time to make a plan. Do you have any tips?

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When I started blogging about my ramble into permaculture it was tempting just to post the Instagramable photos and hide the ‘challenges’, but I have tried to keep everything transparent. I believe sharing mishaps can be as valuable as triumphs, let’s not call them failures, they are sour lessons, but a lessons none the less. We can look to nature, we can look to human agriculture and we’re falling somewhere in between, so looking back at our own experiences is our best guide forwards. If you’re ever feeling discouraged, just read the One Straw Revolution and you’ll see that even the great Masanobu Fukuoka killed two acres of mandarin trees when he started out and a further 400 trees before he discovered the “natural pattern”. Those 400+ trees were his gift to us, because by sharing his mistakes we don’t need to make the same. His “do nothing farming” is not about actually doing no work at all, but not doing “unnecessary work”. The further you diverge from the natural way the more work you have to do. When I discovered these apple and apricot trees they were already over 5 years old although you wouldn’t have known it from their stature and barren branches, they were planted very closely together, were grafted , roughly pruned, swamped by grass and nearly ring barked by whipper snippers. They will always need more maintenance than the new trees I plant with low initial interference resulting in less maintenance in the long run, or as Fukuoka put it “meddling”. If I left them to themselves their branches would tangle and they would be attacked by insects just like Fukuoka’s mandarins. I have even learned that I had to pull the bushy underplanting of the apricot tree right back to almost the drip line as any fallen fruit left to rot would perpetuate the cycle of pest and bushes made this anti-treasure hunt too difficult. The olives have been by far the easiest trees to deal with only requiring harvesting and the occasional heavy prune just to keep its prodigious growth at bay. Nasturtiums and “prostrate” salt bush squirreling around their trunks and blossoming in their canopy have not bothered them one bit. STAGE 3 will be more about exploring the best low maintenance edible trees and companions for the marginal edges of the park with no irrigation and minimal “meddling”. It will be interesting to see how Fukuoka’s principles for natural farming work in a small scale urban setting.

Stage 1

Save the trees

Challenge

    • Trees being damaged by lawn maintenance
    • Trees stunted by stress – insufficient water + food, injury
    • Trees planted close together
    • Trees roughly pruned

Plan

    • Create paths by digging out 20cm of soil, lining edges with cardboard and filling with free woodchip mulch
    • Sheet mulch running grass around trees with free cardboard and hessian sacks
    • Lay drip irrigation around trees connected to water tank
    • Add 10cm mushroom compost over sheet mulch, mound 20cm deep around new seedlings only (cost saving), protect soil with straw or other light weight mulch
    • Plant strong understorey of woody perennials around path edges
    • Plant perennial ground covers and self-seeding annuals
    • Mulch initially, then chop and drop

Lessons

    • Sheet mulching was surprisingly successful. The only problem areas are near the chainlink fence where grass grows under from the communiuty garden. Need to sheet mulch this edge and add woodchip path as this barrier has been successful on oval edge. Any grass that grows into path is easy to pull out due to the air pockets and the high density woodchips suppresses plant growth.
    • The woodchips and mulch were not clear enough for some people, some plants were trampled, adjusting paths to desire lines rather than being uncompromising
    • Reduced tripping hazards – removed brick edging and ensured garden stakes had tennis balls on end or were lower than tree guards
    • Originally tried just hand watering but in summer many small plants on the edges got burnt and some died so a couple of lines of drip irrigation on an automatic timer saved a lot of time/money for the long term. Wished we installed at the beginning.
    • Many small plants from tubes got trampled or burnt, tree guards are essential around path edges or growing plants to a 20cm-30cm pot size would have saved losses. An adopt a cutting/seedling scheme would be helpful to share the maintenance of looking after the plants too small to planted out can be shared.
    • Fruiting plants are much more high maintenance and nutrient hungry than those grown for their leaves, waiting until the garden is really established and protected until planting these has been vital for their survival – will concentrate more on this for stage 2, keeping these plants in pots at home and planting out when they are more established and ready to fruit.
    • Mulch with fallen street tree leaves and chop and drop to recycle nutrients as plants grows
    • Now ground covers are established a new plants can be planted by clearing a patch of ground cover and planting in the now rich soil, have had some problems with planting fruiting annuals in damper areas due to snails. Seeds sown direct early in drier edges has surprisingly been more successful or plants grown on in milk cartons until stems are thicker then transplanted with a tree guard and a few pet friendly snail pellets.
    • Aphids attached the wattle plants when they were first planted due to stress, but as the plants were nourished and lady birds came to clear the aphids the plants have thrived without intervention
    • Chop and drop and only minimal harvesting have meant that no soil amendments have been thus required, except a handful of compost when a new plant is added, as harvesting increases this may change, looking at growth and leaves for signs of deficiency
    • Sunflowers don’t self seed because birds eat all the seeds, but kids love them so worth planting every year – seeds easy to save it orange net bag put over finished flower head
    • Involving community in harvesting and preserving olives was a lot of fun, hope to have more of these days as the trees mature
    • Shallow rooted bunching bulbs like garlic chives thrive around the bases of fruit trees without disturbing their roots

Thriving starter plants

  • Tough shurbs such rosemary, sage, curry plant, wormwood, lavender, feverfew, lemon verbena, mugwort, wattle have been the most success shrubs and have been easily propagated
  • Ground covers such as yarrow, pigface, mint, warrigal greens, saltbush
  • Self seeding annuals such as nasturtiums, parsley, calendula, wild rocket, chard, radishes
  • Fruiting shurbs – native raspberries, elderbery, pepino, caperbush, alpine strawberries, cape gooseberry,
  • Herbaceous plants – jerusalem artichokes, tansy, pineapple sage, yacon, lemon balm, catmint, sorrel

food forest stages

Stage 2

Save the fruit

Challenge

    • Fruit being eaten by birds
    • Pepinos eaten by rats or mice?
    • Fruitfly in apricot
    • Curly leaf on nectarines and peach
    • Apricot has a lot of suckers from the plum root stock, either from damage by digging to close to the tree or from stress
    • Plant more fruiting understorey plants

Plan

  • Create exclusions bags for bunches of fruit
  • Sew curtains from the op shop into exclusion nets for whole trees, net after petals fall – new nets are $55 so will try and make where possible
  • Cut trees right back in summer to fit into nets
  • Keep picking up all dropped fruit to avoid spreading pests
  • Spray nectarine and peach with lime sulfur at early bud swell, pick off all infected leaves and bury in deep hole far from trees to prevent reinfection. Feed infected trees with nitrogen to encourage new leaves.
  • Remove suckers at their base as soon as they appear, don’t plant near apricot base to reduce stress
  • Last year I rooted some of the plum suckers and this winter I will graft the apricot on to these root stocks as back up plants
  • Now the garden in more established I can plant some more delicate, but more delicious understorey plants – currants, raspberries, strawberries, chilean guava, feijoa, strawberry guava, globe artichoke
  • Take more cutting of the hardy plants to fill in the gaps
  • Add more mulches as harvesting increases – seaweed, leaves, grass clippings
  • Plant more dynamic accumulators, nitrogen fixers and green manures

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Building community

Big thanks to the volunteers and Nola for her amazing photos from the day!

The food forest has flushed green after a harsh summer that stripped the ground bare. The survivors: those born hardy or who retreated to the shadows of apple trees.

It was clear that we hadn’t quite gotten the balance right in terms of perennial plants, I blame the nasturtiums, they make everything seem so lush in spring but when it gets hot they are gone over night abandoning their companions to bake and burn. The same thing can happen in winter when a icy wind dislodges the last of the orange leaves and herbaceous plants tick their faces under the soil until next spring, it ends up looking like a forest of twigs and dirt, not ideal. That elusive perfect blend not only of the 7 layers of a food forest but of evergreen, deciduous, semi-deciduous, herbaceous and annual, a continuous dance of seasonal succession.

But thanks to a surprise donation from some nuns (I just love the randomness of that sentence, thanks ladies!) we were able to have a “take two” with our planting plan. And what a turn out! Despite our number limit, facebook invites are always a game of chance – is a yes a yes? what does maybe mean? This time Yes Yes Yes. Overwhelming at first, but once we got into our groove everyone worked together so well and we got so much done. We cheekily extended our boundary into an overgrown tree planter that the council’s gardening henchmen had neglected, it was a nest of grass and my hat goes off to the brave souls who bravely hacked back the jungle.

The most exciting part of the day was seeing our special flip top signs oiled and installed. Tom and Pat are the superstars who made my sign designs a reality.
Next food swap/permabee will be 2-3pm on Saturday 27th June! I hope to see you there to finish putting up the signs and adding the laminated “treasure hunt” style plant descriptions! It’s going to be so much fun! Check out the Flemington Food Swap facebook for information. (No facebook? Just comment on this post and I’ll add you to the mailing list) We will be having a potluck afternoon tea/food swap afternoon tea afterwards at 3pm! Hope to see you there!

The food forest a month earlier in need of some drought tolerant plants!
The food forest a month earlier in need of some drought tolerant plants!
Drought tolerant plants are concentrated around the edges whilst moisture loving plants are sheltered in the "natural swale" of the land near the fence which is supplemented by drip irrigation.
Drought tolerant plants are concentrated around the edges whilst moisture loving plants are sheltered in the “natural swale” of the land near the fence which is supplemented by drip irrigation.
Hardy indigenous bush tucker that was once eaten by Victorian Aborigines
Hardy indigenous bush tucker that was once eaten by Victorian Aborigines and is accustomed to our harsh, dry summers.
Signs are made from off-cuts from Tom's renovation! Can't get much more sustainable than that!
Signs are made from off-cuts from Tom’s renovation! Can’t get much more sustainable than that!

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Sign posts in! Thanks Tom!
Sign posts in! Thanks Tom!
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Taming the jungle! It is important to control grass at the edges especially fences and under trees where it is hard to remove once the garden grows up.

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Running grass gone! Looking so much more spacious!
This was a beautiful, fun and productive day. Activities like Permabees are a fantastic low stress way to build a sustainable community. I’ve tried organising other social community building events like picnics and food swaps, but when the main attendees were my friends and my family I realised two important facts: strangers are shy and won’t show up to “social” events without a “pack of friends” as a buffer, I’m shy and organising these things stresses me out too! You just can’t force these things. And after repackaging the food swap as a permabee, it made it clear if you make it attractive they will come and if it involves and activity rather than talking you’ll have 30 people there without even trying and it will be a blast! We’re already planning our July Food Swap as a documentary night. I’ve learnt my lesson.Below is a little brainstorm about the highs and lows of building a community, the things that make it worthwhile and the pitfalls to avoid. Maybe you can help me add to the list! At the end of the day if it’s stressful and isn’t fun for you, the organiser, then it’s time to rethink the path you have taken or perhaps you just need to find more people to support to make the going easier. A highlight of the last Food Swap Permabee was that one of my uni classmates showed up who I hadn’t seen for about five years! We hadn’t actually spoken much at uni, but we soon found out we had SO much in common and it was exciting to discuss possible joint ventures and remember that Architecture can be holistic if you can shake yourself free of all that convention spouted as truths.

Attractive

  • Activities and workshops where you can meet like minded people without social pressure.
  • Sharing knowledge, learning a new skill.
  • Swapping tools and food
  • Supporting each other, banding together for or against an important cause
  • Making hard tasks easier by delegating and utilising individuals’ strengths
  • Building friendships, combating the loneliness of the city and the isolation one can feel when fighting the sustainable cause. Connection.
  • Being re-energised by other people’s passionate and determination
  • Having fun, celebrating and eating amazing food other people have brought along
  • Mentally and physically healthy alternative to sitting alone on the computer or watching TV.

Unattractive

  • Awkward social situations
  • Burning out because everyone relies on you (or a small group of you) to take charge and organise everything
  • No one showing up to your events
  • Stress of organising events where a lot of people come
  • Insurance and oh&s associated with community events
  • Pressure to come up with ideas
  • Pressure to instigate other people’s ideas
  • Lack of privacy when you have one of those yuk days when you don’t want anyone to recognise you and you run into about 5 acquaintances on the journey. (don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean)

Sustainable community links:

The Flemington Food Swap
Cultivating comunity
Flemington Neighbourhood Learning Centre
Permablitz Melbourne
Permaculture Out West
Ceres Environment Park
Racecourse Road Activation Plan
Flemington Farmers’ Market

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Dylan installing drip irrigation along the fence. We wanted to minimised irrigation so we have concentrated plants that need moisture like berries along the fence leaving outlying areas for drought tolerant herbs, shrubs and bush tucker.
Dylan installing drip irrigation along the fence. We wanted to minimised irrigation so we have concentrated plants that need moisture like berries along the fence leaving outlying areas for drought tolerant herbs, shrubs and bush tucker.

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st erth

Sometimes inspiration is best digestested through the eyes. Follow me through the garden of St Erth.

Hidden in the heart of the dusty, dry Blackwood bushland, there is a lush garden oasis. Our last visit was made all the more surreal because the surrounding bush was crackling with ‘planned burns’, smoke wreathing the town below. Climbing upwards we exited the smoke and found the normally placid place packed with cars winding down the hill. The nursery, packed with its normal smörgåsbord of rare edibles and ornamentals, was overflowing and the cafe too. We had accidentally, but providentially arrived on the day of their Spring Festival.

The nursery is usually the main event for me: Native Finger Lime Pink Ice, Purple leafed Elderberry, Kiwiberry Issai, Tomato Wapsipinicon Peach…the names alone enough to delight the fancier of unusual & heirloom, however the garden is a real treat. I had already seen it a number of years ago, but and it was still able to surprise me. Behind the box hedges and the espaliered fruit trees in flower there was a Food Forest! Winding paths banked with drifts of marjoram, arbours lazy with hops, currants dropping with fruit. It really is amazing, I hope you all find time to investigate, it’s worth the trip. Afterwards I also recommend a cafe and coffee at the Black Wood Merchant in town, they’ve got lots of local delights to take home too and an antique store next door.

What are your favourite nurseries?

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