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Posts from Forest Garden Wales Blog for 09/10/2020

By [email protected] (Jake Rayson) on Sep 09, 2020 11:51 am

Tired of sowing, growing & munching lettuce? A pollarded tree can provide you with a salad leaf crop

I love the Edimentals & Perennial Vegetables group. Facebook profits from division and disinformation but this group is one of the few plus points, a veritable silver lining.

I have one pollarded White Mulberry (Morus alba) and two Small Leaved Limes (Tilia cordata) in the forest garden. You can eat the delicate new leaves in a salad. However, I don’t get that much of a crop from the Lime trees, so I asked on the group if pruning throughout the growing season would help increase the crop of young leaves. The answers were mixed and interesting

  • Do some research online to see if constant pruning would damage the tree

  • It’s best as a spring crop

  • Give it a go and report back

  • Make sure to feed it nitrogen, either with a nitrogen-rich mulch or with a nitrogen fixing plant nearby

I also learned that American Basswood (Tilia americana) can be used in the same way but has much bigger leaves. So, I might have to buy yet another tree!

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