Andrew:
Each year, the growing spaces we have been remediating change, and manifest new aspects of their emergent evolution.
Here are a few notes and thoughts about what is going on, what I am learning, and how we are going to be moving forward in the seasons to come.
When working in a temperate climate like here at Windward, what we do is incredibly seasonally dependent. There are narrow windows of time where certain kinds of plant propagation can take place.
LEFT - Sage is one of those plants that grows very well in our mediterannean climate. Not only is it beautiful, fragrant, edible, medicinal, and attracts lots of pollinators, but it's flavour goes really well with the goat and sheep meat. Complimenting and transforming their sometimes strong flavour. A perfect match :)
RIGHT - Potatos are a staple crop that grows well here. We have previously only tried growing them in the garden. I'd like to plant some out in the courtyard next year and see what happens.
Because we also have a long hot doughty late-spring/summer/early-fall period, we need to pay even closer attention to when we dig and transplant. If we were to try and plant something in July or august, we would need to nurse it heavily with large quantities of water in order for it to survive.
Better to plant it in the winter, or very early spring, and allow the plant to wake up from winter and take root in moist, cool conditions.
It strikes me that the land requires us to stop and observe quite a lot in the height of summer. This is the harshest time of year, and is perhaps the primary time of year we have to plan ahead for. It is through the lens of summer that we get the clearest image what works and what does not work.
LEFT- Alfalfa and Comfrey grow together under and apple three. Both serve to support eachother, and the tree. All are long lived perennials, food for bees, birds, bunnies, and ungulates. A wonderful duo that makes up a signisifcant portion of the perennial herbaceous layers of the Cortyard.
RIGHT - Salsify, or Oyster Root, an edible aster that happened to show up in our system. It is thriving, and we are encouraging it to continue to propagate itself. This is a good example of how, any living system will evolve in ways you can't predict. Welcome Salsify!
For instance, in our young "Courtyard" forest garden, I have observed that the “greenness” of the space, the amount of living top growth of plants, has been increasing every year. A few years ago, the only things that remained green through the drought were the trees. Now we have perennial herbs, comfrey, alfalfa, salsify, mallow, and lactuca that remain green into the fall.
In the main garden, we have been moving toward prennializing the space, utilizing the unique things that perennial plants offer to help aid and shelter the annual crops.
Garlic and Onions are two plants in the allium family that we have been interplanting with almost everything in the annual garden for many years. Because of their pungent smell, they are comonkly understood to confuse pest insects of plants like cabbage and beets who find their way to host plants by smell.
I hope to plant a lot of garlic and seed out onions into the courtyard for the next growing season to see how they do in a less sheltered environment.
There have also been some happy surprises over the years in the development of the main garden. Sunflowers have become a staple, self-seeding part of our garden. We will be trying to migrate them out into the courtyard for next year.
RIGHT - Some form of Amaranth also showed up this year in several places. We have not grown amaranth in quite a while, so it is funny that it decided to germinate this year, in multiple places. I welcome it, and will be collecting it's seed and encorporating it into my seed mixes.
It is one of my deepest joys to be able to understand and take lead in creating fertile spaces for perennial food-producing ecosystems to grow and flourish.
There are many many more plants and guilds, strategies techniques, designs and plans that are on my mind to try out over the next year and beyond. I am working on a more detailed outline of these, and will be continueing to post my thoughts as they evolve!