Introducing Our Soil

At long last, we've done it!

We have soil!



And gravel



and stoney patches



and some weird stained areas and lots of broken up bricks and tiles and even a crushed kitchen sink complete with taps. All exposed from their previous home under all that concrete.

And we made a massive pile of broken up concrete.



So what next for our soil? Well it's obvious some pampering is going to be needed and maybe a little soil transfusion in the really awful areas - a neighbouring farmer is by chance building a biodigester over the road from us, so we're hoping to be able to help him out by taking some of the topsoil he removes to build it.

As much as possible though, we'd like to improve what we've got on site with what we've got on site. Some relatively good topsoil has been removed in the process of clearing the concrete down, so we heaped this up and have used it to spread over the top of everything once we'd finished reshaping it.

The concrete from that pile pictured above has now been crushed down. We wanted to reuse it as much as possible to help build up the site. We've used it to create pathways, drainage and irrigation runs, as filler for a gabion wall and as a base to the foundations of our barn renovation. Surprisingly little is left over considering the huge piles that covered our yard about a month back. I think we estimated that we'd dug up around 400 tonnes of concrete and all we've got left is a little pile of around 35 tonnes. Pretty good going I'd say!

The final soil issue we're going to be dealing with is the compaction that will have happened from sitting under concrete for years and from having all this heavy machinery run over it since taking the concrete up. So I've been investigating tap rooting green manures - plants that will send down deep roots to break through any compacted layers, allowing water and the roots of future plants to penetrate down into the soil with ease. Being green manures, they'll also add some lovely organic matter and will start to build up a more healthy soil for us.

Unfortunately we missed the deadline for getting them in this autumn, so it's plan B time. Not sure what plan B is yet! Well, it'll be tap rooting green manures of some kind in spring, but possibly also a tractor with decompaction attachment will have to run over the site to get it properly sorted. I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that what we're doing here is no longer garden scale and so perhaps (disappointingly) we're going to have to resort to big machines to work it in these first stages at least. I just love this romantic ideal that we're going to do it all by hand and it'll be a labour of love and we'll look back and say 'we did all of that ourselves, aren't we great(!)', but with two kids under 3 and a massive project on the go, I suppose I've got to get real and accept that we're going to need to bring in the machines from time to time.

There is loads more to catch you up on. This post has taken me weeks and weeks to get around to putting up, so loads has happened since that first big wow digger arrived back in August. So keep checking back and I'll try and get some more news and photos up soon!

Oh yeah!

Need I say more?

Year Three In Review

So it's been just over three years now. This last year we've had some very exciting developments - we've become a trainee part of the Permaculture Association's LAND Learning Network and we have a new baby; but we've also had the ongoing disappointment and frustration at still having concrete over most of our plot. Not for much longer though!

Permaculture Plans
Last year I got some proper plans drawn up for our concrete covered yard, so it's easier to visualise what it's all going to look like. I used permaculture techniques to split the site into zones, with high maintenance areas near the house (vegetable garden, compost bins...) and lower maintenance areas further away (forest garden, coppice hazel...). These plans have evolved since I first drew them up and we now plan to add a new pond and wetland garden nearer to the house. This will mean we can get frogs and/or ducks closer to the veggie garden to help keep slugs down and we can grow edible aquatic plants.

Foraging Plants
The number of foraging plants around the site is increasing all the time. The only management technique I've used over the last year to encourage them is simply to let them flower so they self seed around the site.



As well as the hedge garlic, hawthorn leaf and sorrel I mentioned earlier last year, we've also got common mallow, which has lovely mild tasting leaves, bladder campion, self seeding chamomile, borage, mountain spinach (red orache), red valerian, fennel and dill. This is an area I'd like to work on this year - introducing more forage plants into our flower beds so we've got loads of easy to grab salads, herbs and teas.

Vegetable Garden
The vegetable garden was a complete disaster last year, something I'm blaming entirely on being pregnant! I just didn't have the energy to keep on top of the weeding or even on top of the harvesting! Lots of plants didn't even make it into the ground and guttingly died from lack of water in the greenhouse.

On the upside, I did manage to make two small salad beds right near to the house and near to our picnic table - ideally placed for summer meals outside. The mountain spinach I planted here looked gorgeous in tall red-leaved spires and this spring we had a wonderful display of flowering rocket in the same spot.

Having realised vegetable growing is going to be far too much work for me now I've got two kids to look after, I've made the decision to convert our vegetable beds to perennial vegetables, with a few self seeded additions as and when they come up. My initial plans have been embellished a great deal, since finding Martin Crawford's wonderful new book 'Perennial Vegetables'. I'll post something up about this when I get the chance.

Experiments
I did manage to fit in a few experiments last year, despite pregnancy energy crashing. I set up an experimental strawberry bed with half mulched by comfrey and straw and the other half with just straw.



Unfortunately, this bed became quite shaded by a nearby hazel and we barely got any fruit from either half, so this is an experiment I'll have to repeat.

I also experimented with growing chamomile alongside plants prone to mildew to see if its antifungal properties could be harvested either as a companion plant or by using it as a cut and come again mulch. The jury is also out on this one. I didn't get out often enough to cut it back as a mulch and - although the gooseberry was much less prone to mildew, I'm not sure if that was because of the chamomile or because I relocated it to a more exposed and less overcrowded position. It'd be nice to repeat this experiment too when I've got more time and energy to be out on the yard more often.

Something that did work well last year was my experiment with chop and drop clover - trying to see how well it works at creating soil where I had none previously. I sowed white clover seed over gravel, which came up as a thick stand of clover plants.



By cutting this back regularly and leaving the cuttings where they fell, I did start to find soil slowly building up under all the plants. This is a technique I'm thinking of trying over the whole yard to build up the soil there (depending on what we find under the concrete). I'll be using a range of plants including clover and will be chopping and dropping to help build up our soil fertility and humus levels.

We also had good results from using a heavy duty strimmer to keep on top of our extensive nettle patches.



I've found sheet mulches work well initially in killing off the nettles, but even if clearing a big patch this way, if it is still bordered by nettles, they'll quickly move back in. The strimmer can take out much bigger areas and so far seems to do a fairly good job at keeping the nettles at bay.

Looking ahead
Over the next couple of weeks, the concrete is coming up, terraces and ponds are being dug and the stage will be set for the forest garden trees to go in this winter! Very very excited that it's all finally about to start properly. Watch this space. And cross all fingers and toes that we'll find at least semi decent soil under the concrete!

Concrete Countdown!

 It's bye bye concrete time..

At last, I'm delighted to announce that a date has been set for the concrete to come up and it's two weeks from today! Wowzers, I thought this day would never come, so I'm utterly thrilled and very excited about what's coming up and at the thought that finally, we're going to be able to plant things in real ground with soil in it. And not imported soil over the top of concrete - real, actual, from this place soil. Hooray!

A little part of me is going to miss the yard the way we've always known it.

That funny seaweed stuff that grows over the top. The way the little stands of grasses that grow into that funny seaweed stuff waft in the breeze with the sun glinting through them in that tranquil way they have. All the fun we've had bouncing balls, racing pushchairs about and dreaming of beautiful gardens. But gosh, nothing compares with thinking we can actually start building the beautiful garden now! Watch this space as I promise I'll try and find time to post up the action as it all happens.

Wish us luck!

A New Dawn in the War on Nettles

Year two in our war on nettles has begun and we're looking at a vastly improved patch from last year.

It's been quite a fight to get it there though - after our initial nettle massacre last year and the elation that followed at the almost instant transformation of a nettle jungle to lawn-like conditions, we found that the nettles didn't give up easily! So we kept it up, with repeated attacks from our hardcore, nettle destroying strimmer and by the end of the year felt very optimistic that we were beating those nettles into submission.

This year, we've got so many more wildflowers than last year, including, amongst others, vetch (great to have on site due to its nitrogen fixing skills)...

...and edible wild plants - common mallow (photo below taken in May) and bladder campion (both have edible leaves - mallow when raw and bladder campion when cooked).

Contrast this with areas where we haven't been strimming (see nettle jungle in photo below) and you can see immediately why I'm so pleased with the difference we've made!

So we'll be keeping it up this year - more strimmer action to keep on top of any new nettle growth and then hopefully we can start using some of the newly nettle-free land to plant out some more useful plants.