Permaculturing!

Last Sunday the guys from www.maidenlanece.org popped in the garden and they were helping to build the raised beds. I was a bit (a lot) late and now I regret because after reading a lot of stuff about Permaculture, I wish I had been there on Sunday to ask a lot of things!

family portrait!

I am planning to write something else about Permaculture and what it's all about, but I am still learning about it so what I can say for now is that it's a discipline whose main principles are:
 1) taking care of the Earth
 2) taking care of the people

 and 3) sharing the surplus (don't panic, this means humans have to govern our own nees and set resources aside so that we can further the other two principles). 

I have been doing my homework and reading about this but I am still learning AND I find it quite interesting so I will try to keep up with it and with the help of David and the guys from www.maidenlanece.org I will write more about it :)

Correct me if I am wrong but this on the left would be a good example of Permaculture application, wouldn't it? Instead of using a tap, we are going to use water from the rain as a natural resource. 

For more info about Permaculture you can check http://www.permaculture.co.uk/ or check this project http://www.maidenlanece.org/ or if you see David, he will be very nice and answer any question, if he can answer mine he will answer yours hahaha 

SEE YOU NEXT SUNDAY AT 11 AM!!! AT PRIORY ST! GREEN FINGERS POWER! 

Raised Beds

 

Here you can see the raised beds, the first ones in the garden! It's being a bit of a hard work for David, Gary and Simon so we still ask for help! We meet on Sundays at 11 am but the truth is, David and Gary are always there so give us a call or just pop in! :)

David and Gary on a rainy day working in the raised beds

 I can't help it, I have to show you this pictures of Gary working with the wood, the made a shelf for the plants and, of course, the box! He's the only person I know that puts on the hoodie to pose for a photo. 

Wildlife area improvements!!!

Remember our first steps on how to get a Wildlife area in the garden? Wehave improved it! Check this out! The obvious changes are the wood on the walls that will allow plants to "climb" all over and provide a home for insects, the blue thing is a pond that will be a home for insects as well and as a water source for bees :) The changes you can't see (yet) are the new seeds planted there: Wild Marjoram, Field Poppy, Oxeye Daisy, Red Champion, Selfheal, Wild Carrot, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Cornflower and Wild Red Clover. David chose Snowdrops, Puschkinia libanotica, Iris reticulata and  Fritillaria meleagris (David loves to learn the latin names of the plants) because the are the first ones to bloom in spring or late winter. He promised the Snowdrops will bloom in January, so I'm going to wait for that! 

On the left, the new pond for the wildlife area, you can also see the wood on the walls.

 
David got the seeds through The Friends of the Earth and their  campaign called "The Bee Cause", if anyone would like to get some seeds, check their website: www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do

Plants Update!

And here's the Hamburg Parsley growing up! Slowly but surely! We just hope this amazing British Winter don't kill them. To avoid the tragedy we will have to cover them with something, I am sure David will have an idea...

And here you can see the lettuce plants growing up, quite fast! And, yes Gary, THE BOX!!! Gary made a box with wood and he would like to plant a tree in it, I suggested Lemon Tree, let's see what we will have in there. For now, the lettuce looks amazing on top of the box. 

This thing here is what became a real struggle for me, a kind of surgery work. This is chinese celery or kintsai and I had to split them and replant them. It was hard, I felt pressure everytime I had to separate roots because they were entangled...who said it was easy? 

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And hereunder you can see the task for next sunday, the pot on the left is the next challenge for me...