Chickens and guttering! News update.

Guttering and BBQ arrived today from Andy who is moving up North shortly. One of the next important jobs is to get the water harvesting started. The guttering for the summer house is gratefully received. As for the BBQ, it could be amazing. I just hope I will get lots of friend round for some tasty food this summer and we have a rain proof veranda, if it does rain. But do I really need a BBQ? It seems very indulgent.

Andy also brought a shed over for the other Andy who will need to come and get it quick before I take it over. It looks like a useful sort of a shed!

The ideas are starting to shape up. The front garden raised beds may be arranged as a mandala. There is space for at least another 3 fruit trees in the front and definitely a cherry and a peach in the back. I also have my favourite garden foraging must have plant...Lavatera. But where to put them (3). This week I hope to have some worked designs.

Clare has offered me two chickens. I have checked with the neighbours and they are DELIGHTED. Of course I have said yes. This is synchonicity! The very day Clare offered I was just thinking the area by the side of the house would make an ideal chicken run!I am a bit anxious, more about the level of commitment to being at home but I think the neighbours children will be pretty good at helping out.

Next Saturday will be session 3 of our 6 create a garden from scratch. We will be doing more on Permaculture design techniques.

Equinox Saturday

Another exciting session. In the learning bit we looked at Permaculture Design tecniques and how to apply ethics to each system we design and how it can be applied to our choices too. We explored some Permaculture principles. I talked through a previous workshop session in which we applied Permaculture design to the problem: what if the supermarkets run out of food? Using the principles a couple of key points become clear... local resources meet local needs. Our food needs to be local to be sustainable. We need each other, our knowledge, support and community. The problem was turned around into the goal: An abundance of food for everyone, everywhere all the time. We also looked at SAD, the design technique I learned as a Landscape Architect: Survey, Analysis and Design, we also looked at Zoning and sector anaylsis and I completely forgot to mention OBREDIM! Next time. I thought this was a juicy session.

With 10 of us and 5 children we achieved a lot. The work: A load of yorkstone slabs were moved round the back ready to be utilised in a patio, this was a big heavy job and a strong team of 3 tackled this with what looked like ease, I am sure it must have been hard work. More glazing on the greenhouse got done, although this seems be problematic. Most of the glass that has been stored does not appear to fit and some of it is broken and it is tricky to put in. One suggestion was to tear it down and erect a polytunnel! We will see. Meanwhile seedlings will find a place on a sunny windowsill. There was further cleaning of windows in the summer house and finally another team of 3 tackled the shed stuffed full of wood to be sorted. It seems rats or some creature has been using this as a toilet and was pretty disgusting. YUK! I had hoped to carve out space for the bikes and tools. Just the tools! Today I thought I would empty it and store everything under the wendy house as the shed is damp from the ground and there is a roof leak that needs attention. The shed may collapse if I take everything out though! One other job was to sort through the multitude of accumulated pots.

There is a seed collection building up. Sally contributed some herbs and seeds. just planted some lettuce. I have aspargus seedlings waiting to have a home too. My favourite quirky nursery in Challock turns out to be organic and sells loads of edible plants and seeds. Will take Andy there to get his fruit trees before the season turns.

Equinox Saturday

yields are theoretically unlimited

Just been reading Bill mollison's ideas about yields being theoretically unlimited. That awesome idea suggests that we can for example grow food and however complex and productive the system, it can be developed to be more productive. In his permaculture bible he describes examples of these unlimited yield systems in all areas of life. Stunning... We will be discussing this at session 2 tomorrow.

Next session this Saturday and strawberries are planted!

Well I got the strawberries planted in the planter, very exciting! A few plants have been dotted around the garden. The rest have been planted up to sell on the Permaculture stall I am doing at the Steiner school's Easter Bazaar. So big thanks to Alice for the plants.

i actually got my 2010 copy of the biodynamic calender last week. I have a terrible habit of getting them in March when I start getting desperate to know whether or not it is a leaf or pruning day. I thought I might make session 3 a wacky one exploring dowsing, earth geometry and biodynamics. I will see what the team want!

I have drawn up the survey so now have a base plan to doodle all over and hopefully make all the design mistakes on paper!

I am getting ready for the next session on Saturday and have to say i am incredibly excited and a bit nervous. I love sharing Permaculture I think it is such an awesome idea. Designing for someone else seems easier. So i will introduce some design skills on Saturday with which we will hopefully uncover some of the design for this garden.

Strawberry plants are coming!

Alice on Stone Street has been invaded by hundreds of strawberry plants and is glad to release a few dozen! I will go and dig them up in the next couple of days.

I never realised how much I wanted one of these strawberry planters. You know the large pot with about 20 holes for plants to be popped in. Strawberry plants are so versatile. Of course you get the lovely fruit. They are a great ground cover. They are beautiful plants, and every year they make more and more plants. If I get really hungry I can eat the leaves too, bit tough. that would be one for the stock pot!

I never made it to the beach yesterday. I did make it to Thanet by total mistake so ran up a few unnecessary carbon miles and was late for my meeting. I did however find time to look at the list of vegetable and apart from cabbages, I want everything!

So a vegetable order will be winging its way on Thursday! I may restrain myself!

Getting weirdly excited about what veg to grow.

Phew... Just getting excited about deciding what I will grow in the way of annuals this year as it is time to start seedlings off. Definitely rip them off the plants peas! Tonnes of salad. Just that sounds great. The usuals too: courgettes, runner beans, chard, spinach, tomatoes. Is it weird to get so happy just thinking about yummy things I can go and scavenge from my own garden? I am off to a meeting at St Margarets so may sit by the beach for 10 minutes with my veg book.

The garden seems much clearer today. Not as messy as it seemed yesterday.