Starting the Permaculture Garden

raisedbed1In the spring of 2015 I started working on the permaculture garden outside the appartment building I live in. The garden space is not in the most favorable spot as it is north-east facing. The ground is full of stones and we have some bedrock coming up to the surface. To top it up the earth is very hard packed and compact. And the area is full of trees and weeds.

I decided to focused on a small area that was the easies accesible, and then expand from there. I started by creating two raised beds. I collected some stones that had been dumped in another part of the “jungle” that with time hopefully will turn in to a permaculture paradise. Then I laid down some cardboards to make a small barrier for the weeds. Then I filled up with earth and started planting.

In one of the beds I planted mainly herbs, so that will be my herbal bed. I put in lemon thyme, winter sars, welsh onion, borage, mint, lemon balm and chives. I also planted in a very small green cabbage plant which mysteriously dissapeared over night.

In the other bed I mainly planted seeds. However that did not go so well. Nothing came up! We had an extremely cold summer, so I am thinking that had something to do with it. Then I put in some strawberry plants and some nasturtiums plants. I also added a smal lovage and a tiny peppermint plant that I received from a nighbour. Hopefully this will turn into a strawberry and peppermint bed for next year. Both plants spred like weeds, so I am guessing they will both do ok together.

rhubarbbedThen I worked my way to the end of the available space and made a triangular construction out of some branches. Then I willed it up with some more earth. The plan is to have some rhubarb growing in that far corner. It is the spot that gets least sun and rhubarb should be able to handle that. However my rhubarb plants were still small so I put in some annual flowers to fill the space. And I also tried putting in some peas (which the doves ate a lot of). Later on in the automn I did put my rhubarb plants in and they did ok. Now I am excited to see if they will come up again next year.

At the front end of this small patch there were some raspberry plants growing, and they are doing quite well, so I will keep them there. I just tidied them up a bit. Then I also bought two goosberry bushes and put in next to the raspberrys.

For next season I will have my focus on getting more plants established and growing here. I also made a couple of videos as I was working. You can check them out one of them here:

Here you can read how my garden survived the winter and how the plants were doing the following spring (2016).

 

 

 

 

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