Post written by Jeremy Dawes...

What's not to love about seed saving? - Food for free and plants that are adapted to your own particular micro-climate  and soil. 

Seed saving was the topic of our last Permaculture Group meetup, and here are some of the things we discussed.

Saving seeds can be easy, but to develop really strong plants you have to be ruthless about quality

• Save seed from open pollinated varieties (Hybrids will not breed true)

• Save only seed from the best plants - this way your seeds will improve over time.

• Throwout seeds that don't look right and seedlings that don't appear to be growing the way you expect them too - an accelerated form of natural selection.

Some easy seeds to save are:

• Runner Beans - Leave a few pods on the vines till they go brown.  Take them out of their shells and dry them for a few days, then put them somewhere dry and cool till next year.  A few seeds go a long way.

• Lettuce - Let the plant bolt.  Flowers will be produced at the end of long spikes from the centre of the lettuce and these will produce masses of seed by late summer.  Remember to select the plants that bolt late otherwise you may breed an early-bolting variety!

• Parsnips - These require a second year in the ground to produce seed.  Select 3-4 good specimens and replant them straight away.  The next year they will produce long stalks like cow parsley, with flowers that the insects love.  They also produce masses of seed.

• Tomatoes - Put seeds and pulp into a jar and let them ferment for 3 days.  The viable seeds float.  Wash them a few time, then dry them before storing them for next year.

Some plants are more fiddly than others.  There are quite a few that are easily cross-pollinated with other varieties (carrots with Queen Anne's Lace, and broad beans with field beans) sorequire more care.  Others need quite a few of its kind to keep sufficient genetic diversity so need more space set aside for seed saving.

The Real Seed Company - www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html has good instruction on seed saving, particularly the downloadable leaflet on seed saving, which has specific instructions for many typesof vegetables.  Sue Strickland's book Back Garden Seed Saving is also highly recommended.

We are planning a seed swap at the Marlborough market in March.  Details will be posted on the web site in due course.

My back garden is on a steep, north-facing, chalk slope. The small front garden is a sheltered sun trap, however I like to grow lots of flowers there. The question was 'How could I maximize my vegetable production, without sacrificing my flowers and lawn?' The solution was to turn to a farming friend who has lots of unwanted truck and tractor tyres.... 

Step 1: In March, I arranged the tyres in an 'arty farty' way on the surface of the lawn and put a layer of carboard in the base, in order hold in the moisture:

Step 2: I filled the tyres with a mixture of well-rotted manure and Hills compost:

Step 3: I planted 3 sweetcorn plants (var. Lark F1), 3 French bean seeds and a squash/pumpkin seedling into each tyre:

Step 4: I started harvesting - so far I have 12 deliciously sweet corn cobs, several 'patty' squash, a modest amount of beans and some pumpkins are even beginning to swell!

This session was held at Jeremy's house in Froxfield. The front garden of Jeremy's house is actually part of a river bank and he is planning to use this space for his forest garden. So far he has planted several fruit and nut trees at wide spacings in order to create a 'seven level beneficial guild':

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Jeremy's fledgling forest garden.  

A permaculture forest garden mimics the architecture and beneficial relationships of a natural forest. Food forests are not ‘natural’, but are designed and managed ecosystems that are very rich in biodiversity and productivity.   Food forests are designed to meet several goals: 

• to produce food throughout the year
• to produce forage for beneficial insects, pollinators, chickens and song birds
• to create wildlife habitat
• to nurture for our bodies through herbal teas and concoctions
• to create beauty and sense of well being

You can buy seeds of perennial plants that are suitable for forest gardens, here...

We also watched this video about forest gardening by Martin Crawford:

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Shumei Natural Farm is sited in a large field on part of Yatesbury Biodynamic Farm, near Cherhill. It is a demonstation farm run by Shinya and Hiro who were trained in Shumei Natural Agriculture in Japan, before being sponsored to come to the UK.

This type of 'Natural Agriculture' seems to depend on the careful selection and planting of healthy seed so that the plants can adapt to their environment over successive seasons and improve their resilience to the changing climate. This means that this type of farming does not involve the use of any inputs (e.g. fertilisers, manure, pesticides, hybrid seed) but rather is the practice of building a balanced partnership with the soil, plants and other living things on and around a farm. Compost is rarely used and then only to 'condition the soil' in order to improve its water-holding capacity.

Shinya and Hiro also spend time meditating and giving thanks for the earth's bounty in their Mt Fuji garden.

Shinya explaining to Barney, how they select and store their seed 

This approach contrasts sharply with both permaculture and organic agriculture, which are concerned with the creation of a closed system in which essential nutrients are recycled via regular applications of compost and manure.

However, Natural Farming practitioners do recognise that Natural Agriculture cannot survive in the conventional farm economy—they simply can’t compete on a dollar-per-pound basis (Shinya and Hiro receive allowances from their sponsor and they pay their rent in vegetables). So in Natural Agriculture farming, consumers and farmers are invited to work together. They can organize cooperatives to produce and purchase local products. Working with the farmer, consumers can organize sales and distribution, and educate others about Natural Agriculture to attract new members to the cooperatives. They are also encouraged to alter their diets to eat locally, and help in educating the community on how to eat seasonally.

After the farm tour and 'question and answer' session, Shinya and Hiro arranged for us to take part in a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. We were also shown how to write our names in Japanese calligraphy.

  Lorna waiting for her bowl of ceremonial tea...

 Rachel and Lizzie learning how to write their names...

You can buy Shinya and Hiro's vegetables at the next Marlborough Communities' Market.

Last Saturday we visited Eastbrook Farm, near Swindon. This farm is managed by Helen Browing who is also the current director of the Soil Association. It covers more than 1,000 acres and sits astride the Ridgeway, with its magnificent views. We were shown around by Tim Finney who is responsible for marketing the organic meat products that are produced on the farm. He explained that most of their meat is sent to Germany because British meat processors are so difficult to deal with.

First Tim took us to see the pigs as they are the basis of the arable farming system. The pigs 'rotovate' and manure the land after the final crop in the rotation has been harvested. This activity clears weeds and restores soil fertility in time for the following cereal crop.

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Saddle-back sow coming to greet participants

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We then went to see a group of calves that came into the world so that their mothers can provide milk. The lives of these calves are extended to eight months, during which time they enjoy an outdoor life, before being slaughtered and sold as veal. Some of these calves are suckled by cows that are unable to provide milk for the farm's dairy. They all seemed very attached to their 'foster mother', Lesley.

Lesley explained that she uses homeopathic remedies, rather than conventional antibiotics and other drugs, for all the calves ailments.

The herd of Fresian dairy cows are grass-fed according to organic standards. Tim pointed out that as a result of pressure from supermarkets and consumers, a litre of milk now costs less than a litre of bottled water. 

We had lunch at The Royal Oak, which is an integral part of the farm as it provides a local outlet for its produce. I must say that the veal was delicious! We were all impressed by the fact that the pub's vegetables are provided by the local community, from their gardens and allotments. Is this something that could be replicated here in Marlborough?

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It was clear that the highest animal welfare standards are practised at Eastbrook and we are looking forward to seeing some of their products on sale at Marlborough Communities' Market.

You can find out more about Eastbrook Farm here and book a table for an organic lunch or dinner here.

Photos by Michelle Luck.

We all went to Amelia's place for this exciting session. Her friends Terry and Fee, who are professional bee-keepers enthralled us with a detailed account of the lives of bees: we learnt about the anatomy and life-cycles of the workers, queens and drones.

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Terry explained why we rarely see honey bees in our gardens, how bees share information about the exact location of an abundant nectar source, the damaging effects of pesticides and why it is important to buy local, rather than imported honey.  We were thoroughly convinced of the latter by the delicate taste of the honey that Fee had brought for us to sample...

We also learned why smoke makes bees docile and, as this was another hands-on session, we all donned bee suits so that we could look inside some of the bee hives.

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   Preparing to apply the smoke... 

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                                      and Lorna inspecting a honey comb

We saw workers feeding on nectar and regurgitating it as honey, large-eyed drones, egg-laying queens and even evidence of varroa mites. Amelia and Fee showed us how to remove additional developing queens in order to prevent the colony from swarming.

Hopefully, Fee's delicious honey will soon be on sale at the new Marlborough Communities' Market.

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Participants were each given a borage seedling to take home and plant in their gardens in order to attract bees and other beneficial insects.

"We, peasants and indigenous peoples, are the ones who are concentrated in the highest levels of poverty because we have been deprived of land and we have been constrained by law or by force so that we cannot cultivate and exchange freely. Nonetheless, we are people who have been resisting expulsion from the countryside, and still we are more than 90% of the rural population. Our forms of agriculture cool the planet, care for ecosystems and secure the food supply for the poorest.

Every real solution happens to impinge upon the unbridled profits of capital, put an end to the complicity of governments and supports forms of production that effectively care for the planet. Food Sovereignty is at the heart of the necessary changes, and is the only real path that can possibly feed all of humanity. Our proposals are clear and introduce real solutions:

1. We should exchange the industrial agroexport food system for a system based on food sovereignty, that returns the land to its social function as the producer of food and sustainer of life, that puts local production of food at the center, as well as the local markets and local processing. Food sovereignty allows us to put an end to monocultures and agribusiness, to foster systems of peasant production that are characterized by greater intensity and productivity, that provide jobs, care for the soil and produce in a way that is healing and diversified. Peasant and indigenous agriculture also has the ability to cool the planet, with the capacity to absorb or prevent almost 2/3 of the greenhouses gases that are emitted every year. 
2. The land currently in the hands of peasants and indigenous peoples is around 20% of all agricultural land in the world. And yet l, on this land the peasant and indigenous families and communities produce slightly less than half of the world’s food. The most secure and efficient way to overcome hunger around the world is in our hands.

3. To secure food for all and restore the earth’s normal climate, it is necessary to return agriculture to the hands of peasant communities and indigenous peoples. To do this, we must have urgent, integrated, sweeping agrarian reform that ends the extreme and growing concentration of land that affects all of humanity today. These agrarian reforms will provide the material conditions for agriculture to benefit all of humanity and thus , the defense and protection of peasant and indigenous agriculture is up to all of us . In the short run , it is necessary to halt all transactions, concessions, and transfers that result in concentration or monopoly control of land and/or the displacement of rural communities.

4. Peasant and indigenous systems of agriculture, hunting, fishing, and shepherding that care for the land and the food supply should be supported adequately with public resources that are not subject to conditionalities. Market mechanisms—like the sale of carbon and environmental services—should be eliminated and replaced with real measures like those mentioned above. Ending pollution is a duty that no one should be able to avoid by paying for the rights to continue the destruction.

5. The legitimate use of what international organizations and enterprises now call biomass is to feed every living being, and then to be returned to the earth to restore its fertility. The emissions that come from wasted energy should be reduced through saving and eliminating waste. We need renewable, decentralized sources of energy, within reach of the people.

Our goal is to bring back another way of relating to nature and other people. This is also our duty, and our right and so we will continue fighting and calling on others to continue fighting tirelessly for the construction of food sovereignty, for comprehensive agrarian reform and the restoration of indigenous territories, for ending the violence of capital and restoring peasant and indigenous systems of production based on agroecology..."

Read more at La Via Campesina and at Rio+20

This week the Permaculture for Transition participants met to get to grips with the actual permaculture Design Process.

Permaculture is primarily a design system, not just a collection of techniques; a framework within which many forms of knowledge are interwoven with the object of producing an edible landscape that mirrors a natural ecosystem, both in productivity and beauty.

It contains elements (trees, shrubs, ponds, dams, animals) which build systems to perform functions (food production, pest mangement, nutrient recycling, erosion prevention, creating sacred space).

A Design Framework S.A.D.I.M.E.T.(Survey, Analyse, Design, Implement, Maintaina, Evaluate and Tweak) was introduced- although this session limited itself to the first two of these.

The first stage of surveying is to stop and observe, observe the patterns of nature already using the land, what plants and animals already use the land, where are the shady spots?, how does the sun pass over it, both at midsummer and midwinter. Bill Mollison said that the observation stage should take at least one year.

Later in the session we learnt about analysing the data collected from the survey and some more permaculture terminology. We've already covered zoning in the first session, here we learned about sectors (what are the sun arcs in midwinter and summer, where are the frost pockets?, where is the prevailing wind? and much else).

We learned about trying to use elements having multple functions, for example if  a tree is needed for a hedge, use hazel as it provides nuts, can provide peasticks and recycles nutrients; this improves efficency and yield.

Then there were examples of multple elements providing a function, such as using water butts and ponds to gather water; this increases resilience.

Other areas covered were:

Increasing edge, using curves and keyhole beds

A raised keyhole bed, an example of inreasing edge

Using guilds, arrangements of plants that are beneficial, such as an apple tree with comfrey planted at its base to provide nutrients, and hoverfly attracting plants to help control pests

The above is also an example of stacking, making best use of a vertical space. The herb spiral is perhaps one of the best known permaculture examples.

All in all a busy morning and lots to take in.  Now the participants are off to develop their own designs...

The Permaculture group met on May 26th to discuss the vital questions of composting.  We looked at why we compost, from maintaining the health and organic content of our soil , to reducing land fill and its consequences, to having fun. 

We recognised that it a spontaneous process, and the composting organisms require four + equally important things to work effectively:

• Carbon — for energy; the microbial oxidation of carbon produces the heat, if included at suggested levels.

  • High carbon materials tend to be brown and dry: straw, sawdust, leaves,

• Nitrogen — to grow and reproduce more organisms to oxidize the carbon.

  • High nitrogen materials tend to be wet and green (or colourful, such as fruits and vegetables, grass cuttings, weeds).

• Oxygen (i.e. air) — for oxidizing the carbon, the decomposition process.

• Water — in the right amounts to maintain activity without causing anaerobic conditions.

• Warmth - provide a 'duvet' in winter...

Materials

The right mix is needed for good hot composting, and the most efficient composting occurs with a carbon:nitrogen mix of about 30 to 1. Nearly all plant and animal materials have both carbon and nitrogen, but amounts vary widely, (dry/wet, brown/green).  Fresh grass clippings have an average ratio of about 15 to 1 and dry autumn leaves about 50 to 1 depending on species. Mixing equal parts by volume approximates the ideal C:N range. Composting for dummies gives some relative values. 

Microorganisms

With the proper mixture of water, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, micro-organisms break down organic matter to produce compost.  The composting process is dependant on micro-organisms to break down organic matter into compost. There are many types of microorganisms found in active compost of which the most common are:-

• Bacteria - The most numerous of all the bugs found in compost.

• Actinomycetes (Actinobacteria) - Common in soil, fresh and sea water; necessary for breaking down cellulose/ chitin products such as newspaper, bark, etc. Mostly aerobic; few pathogens (mycobacteria of TB) and source of antibiotics.

• Fungi, Molds and Yeasts - help break down materials that bacteria cannot, especially lignin in woody material.

• Protozoa – microscopic,  motile organisms (amoeba, ciliates, flagellates; some serious pathogens); help consume bacteria, fungi and micro organic particulates.

• Rotifers – near-microscopic ‘wheel animals’; help control populations of bacteria and small protozoans. Parthenogenic reproduction.

In addition, earthworms not only ingest partly composted material, but also continually re-create aeration and drainage tunnels as they move through the compost.

Also mites (related to spiders), millipedes, sow bugs (flat, fat, segmented, eat debris), springtails, beetles, ants, fly larvae, nematodes and flatworms.

There are two main composting methods:  Hot (thermophilic) and Cold

The Hot method is aerobic, needs turning or tumbling, needs enough volume to maintain heat (a cubic metre or well insulated), good proportions of green/brown, more work, quicker.

The Cold method tends to be anaerobic if not turned regularly; also known as ‘dump and run’, allows worm access, may take more than 6 months

We considered the special forms of composting, including Grub composting using the black soldier fly larvae, Bokashi composting and the use of ‘Effective Microbes’ (EM), Compost teas, Hugelkultur and ‘hotbeds’, Humanure and compost toilets, and wormeries.

Then we went and looked at practical garden methods, the common boxed-in heap, the ‘Dalek’ cone , the ‘Green Joanna’, Tumblers and Wormeries. Most of the enclosed methods will take food waste.

Since this session, I have been able to get three good 50 gallon drums suitable for making compost tumblers cheaply and relatively easily.  If anyone is inspired to help, please get in touch and come and have a look.

This post was written by Barney Rosedale

This week participants visited the 100 year-old allotments in St Johns Close to search for pests and predators.

Discussion focussed on the need to grow a healthy plant. This is done by selecting seed that is resistant to local pests and diseases, ensuring that essential nutrients are available and manipulating the environment to promote natural predation:

Late blight is a common problem in potatoes and tomatoes, however there are a number of new varieties, such as potato 'Orla' and tomato 'Ferline F1' that are said to have high levels of resistance to this disease.  

Plants lacking in essential nutrients are more vulnerable to pests and diseases. Symptoms of nutrient deficiences can be clearly seen in plant leaves. Those in the picture are lacking in potassium (leaf margins dying), magnesium (yellowing between green veins) and phosphorus (green leaf turns reddish).

The use of barriers was recommended to exclude pigeons, carrot fly, codling moth, leaf miner and onion fly.

The need to increase diversity by planting fruit trees and insect-friendly flowers was stressed to encourge beneficial insects such as honey bees and bumble bees as well as predatory insects such as hover flies, lacewings and parasitoid wasps. The parasitoid wasp pictured here is shown next to a human hair and is just 0.3mm long. I collected several that were hovering around a flowering kale plant in my garden. These essential creatures feed on nectar and have larvae that parasitise aphids, leaf miners, white fly and many different caterpillars.

The allotment holders in St Johns Close said that slugs and snails are their biggest enemies. The main predators for these molluscs are chickens, song thrushes and hedgehogs. Unfortunately, song thrushes are in decline because of a shortage of nesting places - they need tall, thick hedges, while hedgehogs need safe places to hibernate and gaps in the fence so that they can travel easily between gardens.