Forest Garden Wales

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Forest Garden Livestream

Wednesday 16th September, 10am BST

Diversity in the forest garden

Forest gardening is all about growing crops in a sustainable way. As the subtitle to Martin Crawford’s seminal work Creating a Forest Garden states ‘Working with nature to grow edible crops’

For me, nature is at the very heart of the forest garden and I always encourage people to use native plants where possible, as they have co-evolved with local wildlife to provide food for insects, which are a huge part of the food web.

Also, a forest garden feels so right because not only are you engaging with sustainable methods of growing food, you are also creating habitat (and food!) for wildlife. You are literally creating an edible ecosystem, and diversity is essential for the stability and resilience of that ecosystem.

An unexpected side-effect of all this is the amazingly supportive community that is evolving around forest gardening, in all manner of ways. And diversity (of ideas, backgrounds, ages, gender, ethnicity) in this community is just as important.In this week’s livestream on Wednesday at 10am BST, I’ll be talking about diversity in all its forms, and there’ll be a Zoom chat afterwards. 

A rather beautiful example of diversity, munching on a rose leaf

Livestream

• Time: 10—10.30am

• Livestream: twitch.com/forestgardenwales

Zoom Q&A

• Zoom link

• Time: 10.30—11:00am

• Zoom password: habitat

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Climate Justice

The Ecological and Climate Emergencies are also emergencies of justice, Climate Justice. Centuries old economic and social inequalities need to be acknolwedged, re-evaluated and addressed if there is to be any progress in healing people and the planet. 

In my very small way I am aiming to redress the balance by offering 10 free places every month to BAME people, students & unwaged to my online course ‘The Backyard Forest’. Just send me an email to [email protected]. There’s no need to send me any proof or make any explanation, this is all done on trust.

Long haul perennial vegetables

Slowly we are transitioning to perennial vegetables, many bought from The Backyard Larder. Pictured on the left are some Potato Onions which behave like shallots, and on the right some Elephant Garlic. Both of them “replant perennials” ie you harvest them, eat most of them and then plant some of them.

However, it's quite costly to get started, I think I paid about £5 for 6 onions. So it’s taken a couple of years to get to the 50 onions in the photo. We’ve only eaten one, the rest are for replanting! Next year we should have some more for the kitchen.

And I think this is the lesson, that setting up a new perennial food system takes time and it pays to be patient.

Harrap’s Wild Flowers

Last week I was bemoaning the lack of a book on ornamental gardening with UK native plants. This week, I’ve bought an excellent field guide to the wild flowers of Britain and Ireland and I’m planning to go freestyle. The book is Harrap’s Wild Flowers, as linked to by the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I think native plants are essential to any garden, a forest garden included. And I also think that there’s a vast amount of fun to be had by experimenting with native wildflowers in an ornamental fashion. 

The book is lovely, the perfect size, with clear colour photos, just enough detail and crammed with mildly recognisable plants. My new bedtime reading 🤓.

Forest Garden Gallery

We (that is, me and some forest garden friends) are setting up a Forest Garden Gallery. It will feature photographs of different forest gardens, plants and features. It’s all done voluntarily (ie zero budget and lots of favours) so I imagine progress will be slow but I think it would be fantastic to have a showcase of just how beautiful forest gardens can be. It’ll be hosted by a friend of mine and based on the Open Source Piwigo.

I might set up a Patreon to cover the running costs 🤔

The Backyard Forest

I’m due to start recording the practical walkthroughs for the course this week, starting with creating a CAD map from a satellite photo. The videos will also be uploaded for free onto my YouTube channel.

Some really positive feedback about the course, a big thank you to everyone who has taken part 🤗

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