Let's get our Shiitakes together!

Mushrooms Anyone?

 

 Me and my friends at Symbiosis are going to be growing lots and lots of mushrooms!

Shiitakes are an amazing way to turn dead hardwood into incredible living delicious and nutritious food. The mushrooms we grow will be used not only to sustain us but also to serve up at our beautiful little traveling cafe - 'The Peasant's Lunchbox'.

We're looking for volunteers who'd like to come and lend a hand in our project, inoculating oak, birch, beech and alder logs from our beautiful woodland in Mid-Devon. We'll be working over the next couple of weeks - until mid January, and we will try to arrange work parties at weekends.

In exchange for a fun day's work you will receive a delicious homemade vegan lunch, everything you need to know about growing your own mushrooms on logs (the same techniques can be applied to growing Oyster Mushrooms, Lion's Mane etc.) and your very own mushroom log to take home with you! (These are often sold for up to £20 each!)

The work will consist of collecting logs from the woodland, drilling, inserting spawn and waxing the logs. All ages are welcome and any help at all is greatly appreciated.

Of course forest garden plants will also be available from the nursery for donations as well. 

If you'd like to come along, please get in touch via symbiosisnursery@gmail.com or give Charlie a call on 07935906932.

Many Thanks and we look forward to meeting you soon on the farm...

Shiitakes are also being researched for anti-cancer medicinal properties

Regeneration, Us as Part of Nature

This afternoon, spending time with my inspiring friend Sagara of East Devon Forest Garden, we rode a wave of conversation that led us to clarity over our motivation in what we are doing for ourselves, for others, for nature, our planet.

We understood why we are still caught in the grip of fear, parallelised to proceed with what we know is so important. We understood that the task in front of us is so large that we prefer to cower and hide our eyes from what is really happening out there. We understood that great courage is now needed from all of us to face the size of this challenge with resolute Spirit and Will to Succeed. We can do it.

Regeneration is a scary word for humans. In our awkwardness and lack of confidence we prefer to compromise our goal with words like sustainability or even low impact. Is that really the best we can do?? Sustain a critically sick planet for as long as we can? or even trying to only kill her slowly rather than fast? Somehow we seem to have lost faith to our deeper calling to heal the wounds of Mother Earth, and to repair her desperately damaged systems of balance, harmony and symbiosis.

Is this task really beyond us? Like a self fulfilling prophecy we will surely fulfill our collective response to this critical question... At the moment our answer is painfully clear: we have no faith is ourselves whatsoever. Whilst all around us, signs of the Earth's distress become more and more alarming, our natural call to heed is ignored, to instead destroy her at an ever faster rate.

Our apparent suicide mission is so desperate, that, seen clearly, all who participate in it must not be labeled as bad or evil, but merely unwell and unconscious. If our reaction to somebody who is unwell is to anger and to humiliate, we must also realise ourselves to be unwell, and needing the same loving kindness to restore our sanity.

Nobody who is in their right mind would destroy their home, and anyone seen trying to would surely only invite compassion for the terrible sickness they must be suffering from.

Those of us who see the damage done to our home must surely seek to repair it if we'd like to continue to dwell there.

And so it goes, it is time to make this choice, and time to act upon it, right here and now, before the walls come crumbling down on us and our beloved family.

Let's find the courage to act now. To follow our natural inclination towards that which is good and right and whole. To repair the wounds in our Hearts and in the fabric of our Beloved Mother, whom we call The Earth.

Symbiosis Nursery - A New Nursery for 2018

Symbiosis Nursery will be officially opening in the next bare root season - 2018/2019.

I aim to provide top quality organic plants to those who seek to create edible landscapes and permaculture gardens.

But there is much more to the vision for this nursery - the nursery will be operated by Nature, and will be a service from Nature, going back to Nature. The vast majority of profits will go directly back to working with the land, to regenerate and heal the wounds that we have caused Mother Nature.

The plants from Symbiosis come with soul intact. Each plant is treated with great care and respect from the moment it reaches our nursery to the moment it is passed on to another loving home. These are the plants which nourish us on so many levels, and it is our duty to nourish them in return.

Therefore plants from this nursery will demand no price, only a promise to be cared for, and customers will be free to show their gratitude with whatever contribution they see fit.

For more information on symbiosis - please email - symbiosisnursery@gmail.com

Thank you.

Autumn Harvest 2017

Worcestor Pearmain - a taste to savour every September

At this time of year, despite the often restless swirling winds outside, everything seems to take on a strange kind of stillness. It's a stillness that's difficult to articulate, yet I think all who work with the seasons know it. A strange kind of nostalgia... the sweet smell of decay on the breeze reminds us that things are completing their annual cycles. Yet so gentle is this sense of completion, I think it serves to remind us also that in nature there is no such thing as death - only a graceful culmination of cycles, a harvesting if you like, of all that once grew and flourished. A great sense of peace and abundance can be felt, as with unconditional generosity, nature offers us the fruits of another year's effort.

We, alongside nature have worked hard and enjoyed the exhilarating energy of spring and summer, now it is time to enjoy the fruits of our labour. An inner harvest comes with the outer harvest. It is this feeling of harvest that brings us to stillness. It is time to rest.

How have you all done during the 2017 growing season? Nature certainly seems to have been expressing to us more than ever this year of her distress. Distorted and very unpredictable weather patterns are even more noticed by those of us who work closely with the land. The drought during the spring and early summer is still evident in local streams and rivers that are still only trickling much of the time despite the huge quantities of rain lately. The ground just keeps soaking it up, the Earth was clearly very thirsty.

All the sunshine and heat we had early on did seem to get things ahead though, and just gave the edge needed to lengthen the season for those crops that lie in the margins of what's viable to grow in our climate.

For those places that avoided the late hard spring frosts, a bumper crop of tree fruit has been enjoyed by many. Here on our farm, frost pockets became very evident - fruit trees lying in valley bottoms gave no fruit at all this year compared with almost branch breaking volumes on those higher up the hills.

Apples did brilliantly - our one hundred year old Worcester Pearmain faithfully delivering more basket-fulls of her delicious, sweet early apples.

An old Devonshire Damson tree delivers again...

Plums and Damsons also did well for many. As you can see we had such a glut of damsons, we just didn't know what to do with them all - so I'm trying something new. Inspired by my friend Sagara's brined sloes, I thought I'd give brined damsons a try. It's still early days but they already have a delicious juicy plummy olive kind of a vibe going on!

(Check out Sagara's amazing facebook page for more details on brining fruits and beautiful photos of his autumn harvest https://www.facebook.com/Eastdevonforestgarden )

Smaller than from the shops, yet much sweeter!

I was also very excited to get my first couple of pears from our old wild pear tree that I top grafted many years ago (before the days when grafting troubled me so!) - Doyenne de Comice, the Queen of pears, ripening really well against the south wall.

Grapes were also a success this year. My Brandt vine giving her best ever crop to date. The vine climbs up a stair case to find the warm haven of a south facing wall. Grapes growing against the stone ripening a good bit earlier than those left dangling in the open air.

Perhaps most excitingly of all fruit-wise though was my first proper crop of hardy kiwis - also known as Siberian kiwi, Tara vine or smooth kiwi - or in latin, Actinidia arguta. My self-fertile cultivar 'Issai' giving out generous lots of its tiny sweet delicious fruits. Once they soften, the flavor is almost identical to a really ripe fuzzy kiwi - and the best ones are even more aromatic and flavorsome than that. A real winner, and providing the foliage doesn't get hit by late frosts it seems quite at home in our climate. I can see many more people growing this crop in years to come. Perhaps it could even become commercial?

Brandt Grapes - very tasty once fully ripe!

All in all, a very fulfilling harvest is being enjoyed at Symbiosis. I wonder how this growing season has been experienced by the rest of you, and as always I'd love to hear back from you on your own successes and struggles in growing forest garden plants in our funny old fickle climate...

So write in! symbiosisnursery@gmail.com - I look forward to hearing from you.

Keep enjoying the harvest :)

Charlie


 

Yes, I'm very chuffed to be growing kiwis!!!

 

Sultry Solstice Soup!

It's Solstice Season, and there's an air of climax around - plants around just seem to exude an aura of vitality and vigour, a celebratory fiesta of these long balmy sunny days that we've been so blessed by. It's a great joy of the forest gardener to feel so connected with the flux of the seasons as we work with these remarkable transformations that faithfully deliver our food year after year.

I've just come back from a two month trip abroad and so am astonished at the transformation here in Devon. Of course, I should know by now, but somehow nothing can prepare you for a change on such a scale! One thing I love about forest gardening is that I can go away for extended periods and return to find all my crops growing wonderfully, albeit often among a jungle of weeds!

This is more jungle gardening than forest gardening! But I'm always amazed by how easily one can retrieve such a situation, as long as care has been taken in the design, and one has not left things too long... and it's not just a chore, because many of these weeds are in fact yummy vegetables in their own right!

Three of the main contenders for me, and many other forest gardeners around are Hogweed, Cleavers and Nettles... but rather seeing them as a bore, lets harness their natural qualities to make nutritious and delicious dishes!

Why not make a solstice soup combining all three?

Common Hogweed, Heracleum sphondylium is to my mind one of the most underrated of wild vegetables. If it wasn't already growing so prolifically in my garden I would certainly plant some, as it one of the tastiest cut and come again vegetables I know...

Though young leaves and seeds can be gathered through other times of the year, this is my favourite season to harvest Hogweed, as it's now that the broccoli-like flower buds are just unfurling. Check out this especially juicy one - just begging to be picked!--->

Anyone who's tried Hogweed Broccoli knows what a treat it is! Succulent and tender with a very unique flavor, I recommend trying this one to all.

As always, exercise caution when foraging - Hogweed's North American cousin Giant Hogweed Heracleum Mantegazzianum is toxic and will even burn skin when cut. The two can be differentiated mainly by the sheer size of Giant Hogweed, which can reach 4 meters tall, whereas our native friend H.sphondylium is normally around head height. Always be sure before ingesting any wild plant!

As nettles and cleavers are already a little tough and stalky, we'll only be using the tips of these which will nevertheless impart their powerfully medicinal qualities to the soup...

So then the recipe! Serves Two Hungry People:

Sultry Solstice Soup

12 heads of Hogweed Broccoli
One handful of Nettle Tips
One handful of Cleaver Tips
One handful of Allium leaves or two cloves of Garlic.
One cup of Red Lentils
Tablespoon of Oil (Cold pressed Sunflower Oil is wonderful!)
Three Cups of Water
Salt, Pepper and Nutmeg to taste...

 First harvest all of your ingredients. Pick only the most tender top two inches of nettles and cleavers.. For the Hogweed - only harvest flowers before they have opened. These have a much finer taste and texture than mature blossom.

Heat your oil gently, ideally in a casserole pan. Add finely chopped allium leaves from your garden or alternatively use garlic cloves.

Babington's Leek leaves make a fantastic perennial garlic substitute - and are available for most of the year. In a forest garden buying onion and garlic can be a thing of the past!

These herb scissors pictured take five cuts every time you take one. Gifted to me by my friend Clare, highly recommended for the forest gardener!

Peel the outer skin off the Hogweed flowers if they are still unopened and throw them in whole (if you have no blending facility, chop them up).

Fry gently for a few minutes.When garlic is beginning to brown, add water and red lentils to the pan. Bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes.

Remove pan from heat and add nettles, cleavers, salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Blend the soup well, cut yourself a couple of slices of bread and you're ready to go! If you're looking for a tangy twist try adding some Sea Buckthorn Juice to the bowl to give it that forest garden edge! Bon Appetite! :)

Mulberries - in Bulgaria and in the UK

I've been travelling around Greece and Bulgaria for the past couple of months, helping out with projects of regeneration and sustainability. As always, along the way I've been checking out the local wild flora, horticulture and food culture for interesting new species, and local customs of growing or cooking plants that I may be able to learn from.

One species that I've been especially drawn to lately is the Mulberry - here is Bulgaria they appear to grow mostly Morus Alba - the White Mulberry, and less commonly Morus Nigra, or Black Mulberry. The two can be distinguished by the hairy underside of the leaves of the Black Mulberry, which make them less palatable than the pleasantly smooth leaves of the Morus Alba, which are great in salads!

As I write this my hands are stained black by their juice and my tummy full to the brim! In this village of Vishovgrad street after street are lined with beautiful old specimins, most of which have been pollarded - here in Bulgaria Mulberry trees can grow very large indeed! I came across this veteran pictured below in an abandoned village in one of the driest regions of Bulgaria in the Rhodope Mountains.
It is clearly a tree that feels very at home in dry regions...



I wonder how old this one could be? I'm sure it would have at least lived through Bulgaria's war for Independence against the Ottoman in the 19th century...

The locals here call the fruit Bobonka - derived from the same root as 'Bonbon' - little sweets hanging from the trees that are so abundant in quantity that grown ups here tend to leave the bulk of them for the kids to eat! I'm obviously still young at heart since I've been gorging myself on mouthful after mouthful of them for the past few days.

The fruits of Morus Alba can ripen white, pink or dark black, depending on the tree. Here the birds are simply overwhelmed with fruit, and would never take more than a fraction of the crop, but back in the UK I wonder if these white fruited varieties would be less tempting to our often over zealous feathered friends. It certainly works well with white currants, cherries and strawberries, so I will see if I can extract some white fruiting mulberry varieties to bring back to my nursery too.

In the UK we know that Morus Nigra fruits prolifically... So much so that they fell out of favor as street trees because the falling ripe fruits would stain the pavements underneath!

I wonder if any readers have experience in growing Morus Alba, or any of the hybrid mulberries in the UK? If you'd like to share any of your experiences in growing Mulberries in the UK, I'd be very interested to hear from you. Please do write in to the usual email address - symbiosisnursery@gmail.com

As well as having my eye on some Bulgarian strains, I will be propagating three different cultivars of Mulberry in my nursery, including the esteemed 'Illinois Everbearing' and 'Italian' - available by 2018.

Symbiosis Nursery - Fruit Trees back on their own roots !

For years I've been fascinated with the idea of growing fruit and nut trees on their own roots.

Sunset - a truly delicious apple

The process of grafting has always seemed a little brutal to me - cutting off the top of one plant and surgically binding it to lower body of another. I think if I were a young fruit tree I might have something to say about this method - and if we look closely, the trees are trying to tell us!

Isn't it frustrating how often our beloved fruit trees seem to succumb to disease, or generally seem a little 'poorly' - giving fruit that doesn't somehow feel full of the health and vitality that we hope for...

Experiments conducted at Brogdale suggest that own root trees are a good deal healthier compared to their grafted counterparts and provide crops of optimum quality in terms of yield, storage and flavor.

But more importantly than any kind of scientific backing, I think many of us are joined in knowing that something just feels right about trees growing on their own roots, surely the trees will be happier.. Enough human intervention now, let's go back to our roots. Nature knows, so let's let her quietly express herself in her own unique and mysterious way...

Some say these trees may take longer to fruit, and I say Great! Let's not hurry Nature.

A young fruit tree's branch breaking for bearing a crop that it's not mature enough to support is the perfect metaphor for our strange want to always rush forward with things too quickly. Just look how branches we've broken in our mad rush for fruitfulness in our short time on this incredible planet!

 As Uncle John O'Donohue put it -

"The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival."

If we can learn to humbly work within the natural rhythm of things, our patience will be rewarded a thousand fold with bountiful crops of peace, harmony and happiness - making the luscious fruits that follow just a delicious bonus!

Enjoy taking your time.....

The process of getting varieties back on their own roots also requires patience,

Own Root Fruit Trees will be available here by 2019.