Permaculture

Doesn’t look very exciting does it – but I am very excited about it!

The problem in The Morvan is the heat (up to 40C in July/August) and the lack of water in the summer.  The spring vegetables mostly do very well but come summer it is a total struggle.

So I am going to try permaculture.

There are many websites that give advice on how to build a permaculture bed so I took the best of several and, based on what I had available, this is what I did.

First I dug out the topsoil and saved it in other beds.  I then laid a first layer of newspaper, on top of this I put wood chips.  On top of the wood chips I put a layer of leaf mold and then a layer from my compost bin.  On top of all of this I put back some of the topsoil.

I will now leave all this for the rest of the winter, just adding some more topsoil.

What I will plant I have to decide, bearing in mind that it is the squash and courgettes that suffer in the summer.

I plan to do a couple of the raised beds as they dry out far too quickly to be truly productive.

I will update this page as the year progresses to show the results..

I haven’t updated this page since I first wrote it, a couple of years ago!  So how has it all gone?

totally mixed I would say!  Does it do better than the regular beds, yes.  Have I added more beds, yes.  Does it do as well as I would like, no.

each year I have added topsoil and I would hope that the stuff underneath has now started to decompose and will continue to give a good feed.

Will see how it al does this year.  It was so dry last year that it would have been a miracle if it had all done well.

This year the plan is to out the sweetcorn plus some broadbeans in.  Last year it was the onions,  garlic etc,  the garlic and shallots did well, the onions not so good.  The year before lettuces etc which did well.