Atumn Bliss

The May team at Deen City
Farms' harvest day

So after a challenging spring/summer period, we are now carrying on into the winter months. So far it's been cold, wet and very windy. But that hasn't dampened the spirits of the true eco worriers  We have had a steady inflow of visitors and volunteers helping us get our herb spiral, composting toilet and communal space built before next spring. Over the past month we have been focusing on winter planting and early spring harvest. We have been making good use of our neighbors garden and have planted loads of golden chard and broccoli. 

Broccoli under plastic soda bottle
greenhouses/slug barriers 

We are still fighting with the slugs and snails but have an ally in the form of miniature white spider creatures which we have identified as a type of nematode. We have been noticing the increase of injured sickly look slugs being found around the garden and on closer inspection observed that these nematodes were crawling all over the poor slimy creatures. Natures balance. However we are still taking precautions and have added extra barriers to help keep the pests away.  We had a slight frost a few weeks ago and all of our younger tomatoes we were hoping to have a late harvest off were damaged. Next time we will aim to build some sort of temporary weather protection from the later succession crops. In our garden we have planted out the salads we had sown back in September. Most of which we planted in the polytunnel and the rest in large pot indoors. We are hoping that we will be able to harvest grees all through winter. 

Winter greens and seed balls/
green grenades

We have also planted loads of chard, broccoli, leek, kale, parsnip and cabbage all of which were sown last month and are now incubation in the winter nursery in the polytunnel. They all seem to be doing very well despite the low temperatures and limited sunlight available. In the last post I mentioned the workshops we have been hosting and all the groups and organisations we had visit. Well we were invited to be part of our local farms' harvest festival and were featured in the local newspaper as a result. We had seed balls making workshops and had jams and cider for sale. It was a great day and we were received very well. We have been growing slowing in popularity and are now been seen by other, larger more established, organisations as potential beneficial partners. This is great for us as it means that we have the backing and resources of more experience ecological institutes. 

Mushrooms growing in the QR
composting heap

Another thing which has grown dramatically this year is our compost making capacity. We have created so much compost this year that we are slightly struggling to find places to store the excess. I still have to publish a post completely dedicated to our composting system.We have five different composting processes but my personal favorite is the quick return (aerobic) system. During this time of year (summer - autumn) there is almost always lots of excess fruit laying about. This year our apple tree didn't do very well (compared to previous years) but we were blessed with locating a number of neglected fruit trees, both public and private. We collected a great deal of apples, plums and pears and had juicing sessions, and made a selection of jams and chutneys which went down a treat. 

A selection of jams

We have also been playing around with planting crops outdoors to see how they will cope with the harsh change in weather. The spring onions recently got demolished by slugs, but the beetroots are still going strong even after the frost. Also the forest garden has been really living up to its' name. All the trees have put on a hell of a lot of growth this year. We restricted them from bearing fruit by prick out the blossoms as they began to form fruits which I think allowed them to concentrate on working on root and wood development. We have also been dividing up the comfrey plants we have and planting them up around each tree. This will serve as feed for the trees next season when we will allow them to produce fruit.  

Chard and leek beds

So it hasn't been all dull, wet and gloomy this season. Though the harvest wasn't as abundant as we would have expected, we still managed to form valuable connections, learnt valuable lessons and are now even more confident for the development in the coming seasons. We've got a compost toilet, communal structure, and herb spiral on the horizon. This season was all about creating awareness of the project, building up our network and developing the main focus of the project. This come season we will aim to increase the educational aspect of the project and step up community engagement. We always welcome new ideas and energies to the project so if you have anything to offer or just want to get involve and learn about ecology please visit our website and get in touch. Peace Love and Blessings.      

The challenge is carrying on.

The Challenge

This summer has been full of many activities. We have been holding regular workshops on ecological topic such as making wildlife habitat from recycled materials, wild food foraging, and composting. We had two groups of young people for the organisation called The Challenge come round and got involved in compost making, seed, firewood collection and apple pressing. It was a such a privilege having them over and seeing them get excited about their environment the potential they posses to make a difference. One of the groups went off and did a sponsored barefoot walk as a direct result of their visit. The other returned and built themselves a few bird boxes. It was great having the young people over but it was also challenging. We had to convince them that it was alright to get dirt under your nails and that worms were actually really cool creatures and have a very important role to play in the grand scheme of things. It took a while to convince them but at the end of the visit the vast majority of them were happy playing around in the soil and holding worms. So we now have a new member organisation to add to our network and for that we are thankful.

Courgettes (marrows)

Collecting straw and manure

Our bond with Deen City Farm has also grown stronger. For the past few months we have been helping them get their allotment space up and running and it's doing amazingly well. We have also been harvesting loads of courgettes from our little plot at their growing gardens site located at the farm and we often collect straw and manure from their muck pile. Deen City Farm is an amazing place and has a number of exciting programmes ongoing. We will be a feature at their harvest festival on the 29th September. Our theme for the event will be Permacultue and Guerilla Gardening. We will be engaging the public by making clay seed bombs and a wormery made from used tyres. We are very excited about it all. We have also been collecting straw and manure for mulching and compost making from the farm. This is an amazing resource to have just outside our doorstep and everyone gets involved in the process. 

So the rains have finally held off for a bit and we were graced with a long spell of both dry and hot weather. As a result we have seen the number of volunteers increase. Many came and helped out in the harvesting and maintenance of the garden. We had a good potato harvest this year, and we are picking tomatoes on a regular basis. We did loose a lot to blight and mildew but luckily we were prepared and had quite a lot of seedlings on standby, we always sow about a third more than we think we might need. The excess can be given away or planted out on a disused site. 

Volunteer digging for potatoes

Golden sunrise tomatoes

We have also been harvesting peppers, aubergines, beans, sweet corn and beetroot. Our onions didn't do well this year, many of them were repeatedly attacked by slugs and snails and as a result did not get very big. Our garlics on the other hand were a success and were surprisingly strong flavoured this time round. We lost the majority of our pumpkin crop but managed to save one and she now lives in the polytunnel. During the hot periods we move our nursery outside the polytunnel. We used pallets to make a temporary table and this is where we keep our young plants. We are getting ready for winter and have sown the majority of our winter crops this year we are going for leeks, parsnips, broccoli, chard, cabbages and kale. We will also be trying to have some salads going over the winter period as well.

Roasting sweet corn on the BBQ

We have been doing a fair bit of salvaging over the past few months and have came across some really good finds. It's amazing what people throw out in a country where surplus is in abundance. A few weeks ago we found a cut little cast iron BBQ and a large heavy duty waterproof tarp which we used to waterproof the pallet shack we have been building since last November. The wormery we built a few months ago has been doing very well and was made using old tyres we found while out scouting. We recently harvested the first bit of worm castings and the texture is amazing, very light and airy. The wormery was made by attaching chicken wire to the bottom of each tyre and stacking them on each other. We then lined the inside of the tyres with straw and laid down a generous layer of absorbent organic material like newspaper, egg cartons, and dead leaves at the bottom of each tyre. The bottom tyre was filled with well rotted compost, leaf mould and some partially rotted organic material (kitchen waste, garden weeds, etc), then a few handfuls of worms which we collected from our already existing composting systems. This was then covered and left for two days to allow the worms to settle into their new home. The second tyre was filled with organic kitchen waste and two weeks later the final tyre was also filled with organic kitchen waste and the wormery was complete. The wormery was built in May and approximately four months later we harvested the first of the bounty. We refilled the harvested tyre (bottom one) then refilled it with organic kitchen waste and topped it off with the worms from the previously harvested batch.

Fresh tyre of organic kitchen waste(left) and topped off with worms and some compost(right)

Lots learnt this season. Though we had a very challenging summer we harvested loads and are hopeful for the autumn and winter months so we carry on.         

Rain, rain and more rain

Slug enjoying a strawberry

It's been very very wet this season. We've lost many crops due to the invasion of hundreds of snails and slugs. The case for ducks and/or chickens is growing. Being organic we would rather not use any form of chemical based pesticides. Despite the slugs and snails taking many of our crops we were still able to harvest quite a bit of produce. The berries are flourishing, and we harvested some of our first crop of potatoes and beetroot. We also have onions, garlics and chives and the apples are now staring to add a bit of colour to them. The sun has been making it's presence felt a bit more over the past few days and many of the crops are now showing their appreciation.

May Project Gardens Stall at NT's
Green Day Out

Tow major activities we had going on in the past weeks were the National Trusts' Green Day Out held at Morden Hall park where we were a participant with stalls displaying and advertising the goings on at May Project Gardens. It was wet but very exciting. Despite the wet weather peoples came out in support of their local community projects. We had a D.I.Y solar panel workshop on the go (weather put a stop that later on in the day), seedling transplanting sessions, Indian head massages, and a talk on mushrooms given by Kalindi Idy.

Kayleigh Doughty with her lovely
pen art work

Kalindi Idy talks about edible
and medicinal mushrooms

There was a fair bit of activities going on on the day with many local and regional projects attending to showcase their efforts to build and/or promote a green future. We had a lovely young lady doing a bit of live pen painting art. The resulting piece of art was later erected at the May Project Gardens site.The other major activity we had going on at the May Project Gardens was the laying of the foundation for our new communal space. We were generously donated some funds to complete the first stage of our communal space. We bought and laid some decking on gravel. This was done by our volunteers during one of out volunteer open days. We had lots of fun constructing the base and we were all happy with the results. 

Wooden decking foundation for
new communal space

The next stage would be sourcing some poles for the construction of the walls and roof. We also had our first Permaculture course delivered to our volunteers at the May Project Gardens site. It was a great success and judging from the feedback, everyone gained something as a result of the day. So all in all it has been a very busy and eventful few weeks. 

Courgette

While all these activities were going on we had to keep on top of the gardening side of things. The rain fell and kept falling and falling and falling. we had a few thunder storms and the pond had regularly overflowing. The frogs are loving the wet weather as are the mature trees, but the soft fruits and most vegetables are struggling as a result of slugs and snails not giving them a chance to get going. Also the wet and humid atmosphere have been causing rot and diseases but luckily the straw we put down as mulch earlier this year has helped keep this to a minimum. We have finally been able to harvest some strawberries but due to the lack of sun they weren't as sweet as last years' harvest.

Strawberries

This year we have had some new additions to our soft fruits harvest. Our black current and red current bushes have fruited this season and have been very productive. The little experiment we had going with the 2m x 2m polyculture bed is going very well. Again the only major issue is with slugs and snails. All the beans have been eaten and the cucumbers have not been given the best start due to both slugs and snails and the limited sun we have had so far this season. But overall the polyculture bed has been very successful and I would urge everyone to have a go at incorporating one into their gardens. It's a very efficient use of space and because it is a small space it is very easy to manage.

Black Currents

The only space in the garden that has not been too affected by the slug and snail population explosion is the polytunnel. There has been some damage but because the moisture levels under the polytunnel can be easily managed their numbers are greatly reduced compared to outdoors. We have peppers, aubergines, tomatoes, and melons so far in the polytunnel and lots of seeds and seedlings coming up in the nursery. The new sites we have acquired are slowly coming together. I will attempt to get some pictures and share in the next post. Until then enjoy the weather regardless of what it may bring and happy gardening.