A damp day and a small group, but we got plenty done. We focused on the mini food-forest today, adding plants to it and tidying the paths. You might remember we planted the food forest up earlier this year, putting in the apple and crab apple trees, the service berry tree, raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, blackberries and more.

Since then, we’ve kept the nettles and comfrey down (we haven’t taken these out, we ‘chop & drop’ the comfrey, because the leaves are a brilliant natural fertiliser, and we’re just keeping the nettles under control – by eating them and/or selective weeding) but apart from that we haven’t done much on it as we have been concentrating on other parts of the project.

Today we marked out the paths with flexible hazel twigs harvested from the trees in the community orchard, and gave them another layer of fresh woodchip, which has really made a huge difference visually in defining the pathways. This also made it simpler to see where to put in some of the other plants donated by plot holders!

Donated so far, and planted today: strawberries, mint, lemon balm, sorrel, salad burnet, stridolo (an edible relative of native wildflower bladder campion), globe artichoke, jerusalem artichoke, perennial kale and pot marigold (edible flower, calendula officianalis).

The idea with a food forest is that, because it is made up of perennial plants, rather than annual plants, it is more climate resilient – it needs less watering, is more able to adapt to changing weather and therefore more likely to provide a harvest.

The mix of layers in the Food Forest is the key thing – the plants all support and complement each other – and there will be food produced from ground level to the tops of the trees. Herbs and flowers attract pollinators and other beneficial insects, ground cover crops like strawberries, sorrel and salad burnet help smother out other weeds. We’ll write more about this as ours develops!

Elsewhere on the project plot, the pond is looking great and the water tanks are all full. Wishing we had more tanks as there is more rain on the way!