Agroforestry/ forest gardening.

[LynherTraining]

Just realised the link above is Martin Crawford's. There are other authors too though.

[LynherTraining]

Some good blurb on the Tapeley Garden website about permaculture gardening and plants to use.

 

Tapeley Park and Gardens

[Paul in the woods]

Are you mainly looking for food crops or are you also looking for other ideas such as the various coppice products (for example, withies for weaving?)

 

I have a couple of Martin's books, and they are good for what they are.

 

Having tried adding some basic food plants into my woodland I've hit a big problem and that's the wildlife! Simple things like apples are stripped way before they're ripe by a huge range of critters. I think there's a big difference btween starting a forest garden from scratch and adding a garden to a forest.

[wrsni]

Tapeley Park and Gardens

 

That's an excellent link, thank you.

 

Primarily interested in edibles at the minute and specifically perennials. Woodland is four years old and starting to flourish nicely so I'm now concentrating on looking at ways to enhance it and as the whole permaculture ethos holds great appeal to me anyhow, agroforestry/forest gardening seems a logical step.

[Paul in the woods]

One book I would recommend is Plants for a Future, I think all the details are available online: PFAF with some useful searches here: Explore PFAF.ORG I've just seen they have a woodland gardening book out as well although I've not seen it.

 

Have you seen Permaculture magazine? We've subscribed for several years and occasionally it has some useful ideas. I wouldn't suggest it's worth subscribing but it is worth having a look at its web site, especially the articles: https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles

 

I had a quick look to see if there were any other new books about and this one caught my eye. It would seem ideal if only it was written for the UK: https://farmingthewoods.com/ (Some of the reviews also say it's a bit wordy).

 

Is your woodland fenced off? I've planted most of my perennials in a deer fenced area and as soon as they grow through the fence they're munched by the roe. I also assume you have read some of Martin's books? Many of the edible plants need light so are more suited to woodland edges or clearings. Worth remembering as even something like comfrey that's regarded as invasive has struggled because of low light where I've planted it.

[wrsni]

So far I've found two books which seem fairly relevant to the UK and I think that's one of them. I marked them on Amazon and they should by magic turn up here as presents at Christmas. Much, much, more stuff available specific to America which I'll leave for now. Experience with the planting and species selection for it has let me see that you don't need a lot of books if the ones you have are good books!

 

I can also get access to our Dept of Agriculture Library which I'll go to for a day in the new year and see if there's anything there that grabs me, they've quite a lot of research papers and such as well so there might be something useful in that too. They also have a lot of the books that I seen on the net and I can check them out in more detail.

 

Normally I would probably have had at least one of Martin Crawfords books but I've had other dealings with him and he ultimately didn't conduct himself in a very decent or professional manner so I would prefer not to support him any further.

[Paul in the woods]

Well, if you have any specific questions you can always PM me and I'll look them up in his books.

 

Without wishing to sound arrogant I tend to find it a fair bit of it is common sense. One problem with books is they tend to make you want to buy all sorts of expensive plants when there's more suitable and tastier ones already about. I did try and buy quite a few seeds from ART with variable success.

 

Now I'm concentrating on common plants, blackberries, raspberries, blackcurrants (one thing deer don't nibble), blueberries etc. Perennial veg you would expect to find like ramsons and sorrel and then other useful plants such as hops. Currently growing on other things like bamboo.

 

Finding reasonable suppliers has been hard, but more places are starting to stock some of the more unusual stuff. Even my local garden center is now stocking oca and yacon for example.

[wrsni]

Good man, thanks for the offer.

 

No, I get what you mean, books are only a guide and it's up to yourself to take from them what's suitable and apply it to your own circumstances.

 

Deer isn't an issue for me nor is it likely to be as where we live is landlocked by quite a major river and our main north/south railway line, but they're plentiful around an estate about 10miles away and apparently they can be extremely destructive.

 

So far I've added blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants, gooseberries, wild strawberries and wild raspberries propagated and transplanted from the surrounding area and damson and victoria plums which have been elsewhere on the farm for years. Several varieties of pears, apples, and cherries, but I also have newly planted wild pear, wild cherry and crab apple which I hope to graft on to from the productive varieties so they can grow larger and compete better for light in the future. I'm not worried about having fruit high up, we'll get to it OK! I also added sweet chestnut which shouldn't do well this far north but so far is doing very well. That's on top of the hazels, rowans, guelder rose and such like which were part of the original planting.

 

But I want to take things further as it develops and look at more perennials. As it was a new planting I was able to design in a few southerly facing corridors to catch the sun but but what's more fascinating is how some unexpected places are developing their own wee microclimates within the woodland and these could be used to target particular things.

 

It's actually much more interesting than intensive farming ever was!

Edited December 18, 2016 by wrsni

[Coximus]

Im in the process of doing something semi simlar on 15-20 acres - steep south facing pasture, of which half is too bumpy for machines... Planing apples and sweet chestnuts at 20m spacings, in 50m rows accross the land to create grassland thats still productive but with a good shade and timber layer to diversify - sheep will eat the windfall apples to boot, and any I want can be picked.

Also thrown in a few italian alders for Nitrogen, some E.Nitens for firewood in 5 years and some willow for the same.

[agg221]

Im in the process of doing something semi simlar on 15-20 acres - steep south facing pasture, of which half is too bumpy for machines... Planing apples and sweet chestnuts at 20m spacings, in 50m rows accross the land to create grassland thats still productive but with a good shade and timber layer to diversify - sheep will eat the windfall apples to boot, and any I want can be picked.

Also thrown in a few italian alders for Nitrogen, some E.Nitens for firewood in 5 years and some willow for the same.

 

Sounds like a cross between the way orchards used to be managed and a wood pasture. There are still a few vestiges of both of these around if you look carefully.

 

I am trying some experimental things too, within some very specific constraints. Our total site is 6.5 acres, consisting of a 4.75 acre arable field bounded by roads, ditches and a river; two small areas of around 0.4 acres each and the balance the house with two patches of garden - one more formal, the other more wild.

 

One of the 0.4 acre areas is now planted up as an orchard on stocks which allow a 12' spacing with a grassed in sward, which I am trying to improve by adding clover. I also mulch down around the trees with woodchip and cardboard to suppress weeds and encourage worms to build the soil structure. The other 0.4 acre area we have just bought after renting for several years so are now free to use - I am planting cider apples as standards and possibly a few walnuts. The more wild garden area I am gradually allowing to become more wooded, mainly with nut trees.

 

The main challenge is the arable field. Being this small, we can't justify any agricultural plant so it is contract farmed, which limits what we can change. However there are some things which I can do. Firstly, I am putting in a boundary hedge which is a mix of standard hedging material and some more unusual edibles, if I can ever get anyone to actually sell me them! This includes everything from goji berries to juneberries and cornus mas, all of which will lay well enough in with everything else. Along the riverbank I am planting willows - we already have cricket bat willows but I am interplanting with basket weaving varieties, grown as 4'6" pollards to keep them above the deer. Still having trouble with something stripping the bark though. The main change is to the soil structure which I am trying to improve by throwing as much woodchip as I can get hold of at it and then adding biochar. The latter is a recent step so no results yet - it also needs a staggering quantity overall (around 100 cubic metres) so making it/getting hold of it is a long term plan but I am adding it systematically across the site so if it works I should start to see some results next season. Always open to more ideas though - I tend to think of it that, because I don't depend on this for a living, I can afford to take risks that a farmer can't but if it does work out it should be useful for the future.

 

Alec