Category: Ecology

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Agriculture Community Ecology Food Growing Organic Spirituality

The Apricot Centre

This is the seventh and final post picturing my trips to Biodynamic farms in 2023 and 2024.

The background to these visits is the research for my forthcoming book “The Garden”, which is due to be published by Repeater in 2025. There’s a very thoroughly researched chapter on Steiner, agriculture, and the Hippies at the front of it.

I was extremely fortunate to meet, beforehand, director of the Apricot Centre Rachel Phillips. Visiting Devon this summer for my tiny 5-day yearly holiday, I took the opportunity to drop in and see the market garden and CSA she runs with legendary Biodynamic grower Marina O’Connell. I came across Marina’s work some time previously when, visiting Steiner House, I was recommended and bought a copy of her excellent book Designing Regenerative Food Systems.

Nobody was around when, this time with the beautiful Mrs Ingram, we dropped under invitation to see the exquisite site. The pollinator garden of flowers was particularly special and welcome to see. My aunt recently remarked to me that a visit by car to Devon in the sixties would leave a car’s windscreen thick with dead bugs – and that today there will be practically none.

Everything was bursting with life, though there were the telltale signs that the year’s growing season was coming to an end.

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Agriculture Community Ecology Growing Organic Practice Soil Spirituality

Ruskin Mill

This is the sixth instalment of the seven posts on Biodynamic farming.

I came across Jason Warland online – reached out to him – and so when travelling back from a conference in Wales arranged to drop in and see him. He works in the gardens at Ruskin Mill outside Stroud as a therapist helping young people. He’s astonishingly knowledgable about the history of Steiner’s thought, and also on the topic of growing – entirely self-educated as far as I’m aware.

Jason is something of a superstar in his own right, as he contributes a column on Biodynamics to one of Rick Rubin’s channels. I didn’t know this before we met in person, and it was funny when Jason told me, because I suspect I was the first person he’d ever mentioned it to who knew who the world-famous record producer Rick Rubin was.

It was a beautiful evening on Sunday July 7th and we walked up a narrow valley past vegetable gardens, fish ponds, flowforms, past a wood and a pottery workshop. Then we turned left up a steep hill through Park Wood to Gables Farm. This is the main growing centre with whole fields, the characteristic attendant livestock, poly tunnels, and composting site.

Thanks so much to Jason for showing me around. I am so grateful.

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Community Ecology Practice Spirituality Therapy

Forest Row #4: Emerson College

The climax of this Biodynamically-packed day was a visit to Emerson College itself. I had a little snoop around, checking out the bookshop, where I found a few reduced-price bargains in a box on the floor.

The previous day I had discovered that the celebrated author and herbalist, Kirsten Hartvig, who is resident at the Rachel Carson Centre at Emerson College, was running one of her amazing nature walks.

Kirsten took us out into the countryside around Emerson College, where we nibbled and chewed an amazing range of local wild plants. In many respects it reminded me of the blogger’s walks we undertook twenty years ago along the Lea Valley (with K-punk and Heronbone), but somehow occurring on a more profound level as our group were truly integrated into, and understanding, the surrounding nature – not just observing the city’s dislocation and rewilding at the periphery.

The star of the tour was the Yarrow which Kirsten swears by and drinks in an infusion many times every day. I bought three plants from her and put them in a large pot on my roof garden. I think one might have been enough because their growth was out of hand, and they ended up choking each other. I’m hoping next year, when it grows back, that I can manage it better.

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Ecology Urban

Caterpillars

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Ecology Urban

Cracks

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Agriculture Ecology Food Practice Soil Urban

Agnes Denes

(This post courtesy of our roving reporter Lulu)

Wheatfield (1982)

Link

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Ecology Growing Practice Urban

Seeds

You are supposed to pick seed from the strongest plant. None of my “Giant Yellow” sunflowers were very spectacular – but that’s not going to dissuade me from replanting it next year. Maybe its progeny will have a better handle on Old Street?

Once the Velvet Queen sunflower has dried out, I will do the same with these seeds.

Buckwheat
Yarrow
Limanthes
Borage
Calendula
Phacelia

In the past, I’ve grown more buckwheat. Mainly because as a household we eat a lot of the stuff which we buy, and it’s interesting to see how it grows. The takeaway is that you’d need an awful lot of acres to grow enough to be able to use it as food.

The Yarrow, I’m uncertain if the seed of this will work. I picked it up as a pot from Kirsten Hartvig, so I don’t know about its germination etc.

The Limanthes, Borage, and Calendula are now in their third generation from home-saved seed. The Phacelia? Lord knows whether this will work but it was lovely this year, smells fabulous and the bees adore it.

Nigella
Poppies

Nigella (second gen) and Poppies are drying from shelves. And the Nasturtium from Findhorn will give me plenty of plants. I might even sow some of these now. Note to self, sow thinly.

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Ecology Growing Urban

Bugs

Grasshopper
Bumblebee
Bee #1
Bee#2
Fly
Hoverfly
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Ecology Food Growing Organic Practice Soil Urban

Compost in 2024

Unlike with last year’s batch, temperatures in my HotBin have been solidly in the green on its dial. It’s been steaming away. I’ve been filling it up with uncooked vegetable kitchen waste since February, when I set it up after the scaffolding had come down. I’ve been mixing these GREENS with BROWNS, these fine wood chips, and paper waste. If anything, I would say I need a higher proportion of BROWNS in future, but it still smells good and aerobically composted.

The cats were pretty fascinated as I prized off the lid and scooped out the very bottom later from the HotBin. It looks pretty disgusting, I’d agree.

The first thing was to sieve the composted material. Because it’s a HotBin, and by its very nature moist, the result is not a fine tilth, but more like a cakey sludge. That’s a problem I was determined to solve.

Because I’ve found that my own compost is too much like a Black Forest gâteau, I’ve given a lot of thought as to what to add to it to give it some lightness and also the ability to drain better. In the past, I’ve used Perlite, but it’s not really doing anything in the soil.

So, after I’ve come across it repeatedly in my research for “The Garden”, and I’m a huge fan of the Carbon Gold range of compost mixes, I thought I would try amending it with biochar. In the past, I have used Carbon Gold’s own biochar amendment, but I need larger quantities than the small punnets I can get from them.

Then for good measure, and because I’m a little concerned about the possible acidity of my mix, I added a handful or two of Moorland Gold which I’ve been trialling. Really, I’d like to be making all my own compost. I bought too much this year. It seems crazy to be buying compost and throwing away organic matter from the household.

Because I only scooped out the bottom layer, this process only resulted in four small pots-worth. I moved four Lemon Tree seedlings into these pots, which I have grown from pips. There’s a lot of light on the roof garden, so I’m hoping these thrive.

Categories
Ecology Growing Urban

2024 Flowers #2

Nigella
Mint
Buckwheat
Clover
Oregano
Echinacea
Honeysuckle

Part #1