We've had some rather cool nights and early mornings recently with remarkably beautiful, sunny days and the occasional wet, wintery nights of showers. All in all the plants are doing their thing and making the most of it. The perennial food forest has come on in leaps and bounds with very few casualties. It's a bit rough round the edges but nothing a tidy up wouldn't fix.
Most of the plants are established enough now and will just need the odd bit of maintenance.
In the Seed Sanctuary plot we have planted out a small crop of broad beans (Aquadulce) just to keep us going with some fresh seeds. Interestingly enough there does not seem to be any other plots in the garden this year that are growing broad beans.
There are also a few patches of field peas donated by Lorna which we are growing to test and to multiply our quantities to make available to the Seed Bank. There are also borders of garlic which are well suited to the Albany climate.
The gaps will be filled in with other varieties over the coming weeks.
The wood-chip mulch has broken down beautifully and there is earthworm activity everywhere. We were also kindly donated a worm farm which has been positioned near one of the sugar cane clumps. At this point we are mainly using it to accomodate the few clumps of grass and weeds that we remove from the plots.
So, our patience is paying off and this area that was a field of rampant grass about 18 months ago is now ready to explode this coming spring.
Soon we will be placing extra signage up as we've discovered it is important to help people realise that our maturing fruits are not for picking but for seed collection and that at times our garden may look somewhat untidy but it is for good reason!
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