Greenhouse

This is a photograph of the greenhouse after clearing it of the intrusive vine, installing the wire shelving, and attaching the shallow shelves for salad vegetables to the potting table (not visible). On the L side of the greenhouse in the picture, against the sun- facing glass I affixed 3 A-frames made of bamboo and secured with twine. The A- frames were used as a surface against which I grew several varieties of tomatoes. 

 Above: Shallow shelves in operation, planted up with salad seeds. Cultivating salad leaves in this way is successful in preventing insect damage because (i) fresh compost is used each season, (ii) the soil is not contiguous with any other source of soil bourne contamination, (iii) the bed is raised and difficult for insects to encroach, (iv) being inside the greenhouse, adequate sunlight, moisture and insulation permit good growth.

Making use of the margins: The strawberries pictured here receive some runoff from the greenhouse roof, and so are less labour intensive in their water requirement.

Using the plasticised wire shelving permitted free circulation of air, water percolation and drainage, and vertical storage for a variety of plants in their germination stage (and for some low growing plants and herbs for the duration of the season). The shelves were found in the garage in a dismantled & twisted state and required some ingenuity in putting back together to the required size/ shape.

Green Pepper seedlings.

Hawthorn (Crataegus oxyacantha)

An English tradition exists whereby it is understood the calendrical celebration of Mayday is not as permitted until the appearance of Hawthorn flowers, such is the magical  importance of this small wizened tree. The flowers have an almost quixotic fragrance which serves as an aphrodisiacal medicine in itself, when the meadows and hillsides come alive in spring. (As an aside, I have been observing the coincidence of Hawthorn blossom with calendrical Mayday for over 20 years, and have noticed an uncanny punctuality to this blossoming nearly every year, notwithstanding the weather). In English folk custom, the Mayqueen maiden of the village wears Hawthorn blossom in her hair.

 

The diversity of growth form has been utilised by humans for centuries: constant pruning and clipping produces dwarf forms which are turned into hedges to contain livestock. Out on the hillsides, single trees stand bent and gnarled, known as “flag trees” and used istorically as way markers. Hedges are maintained by hedgelaying, a purposeful cutting of the trunks which leaves a strip of bark & cambium in tact, and bending over of the tree which encourages vertical shoots to form and makes it stock- proof. In this way, a hawthorn hedge could be kept alive indefinitely, and certainly there are many examples of hedges many hundreds of years old, which only stand a few feet high. As its name implies, Hawthorn carries thorns which “seal the deal” as an aid to enclosure. Getting stabbed by the thorns is a more forgiving experience than its sister tree, Blackthorn (which has an unpleasant toxic effect). .

Hawthorn is therefore a significant tree of the woodland edge, and provides microhabitats and “wildlife corridor” for an unlimited array of wildlife. The destruction of Hawthorn hedges is a matter of grave conservation concern. Apart from the habitat destruction, the functional importance of wildlife corridors results in limited adaptive response of the landscape to change, reducing genetic diversity in isolated populations of plants, fungi, mammals, and insects. 

Finally, the berries of hawthorn, which are a vivid red colour and quite beautiful in autumn, attract overwintering birds to the garden. The berries can also be used as a gentle, safe cardiovascular tonic in herbal medicine. They increase the strength and volume of the heart beat, and do not interfere with any known pharmacological heart medicines. This is much safer than using the alkaloids of foxglove, which have an effective dose which is unnervingly close to the fatal dose. 

Hazel (Corylus avellana)

Hazel makes excellent dense cover for birds, and is often used as an understory in conservation woodlands for that purpose. It has been used since prehistory as a coppicing tree, and provides roundwood poles which can be used for wattle fencing, shelters houses, and gates. Coppice poles are suitable for use from age 3- 4 years, but anything up to 7 years can still be useful. Coppice woodlands using hazel for roundwood are often split into zones, and a rotation is employed to provide a continual harvest of poles (for 7 year poles, seven stands of hazel are necessary). Thus coppice woodlands represent a kind of age diverse succession which permits a variety of light, vegetation, cover and water scenarios. They are excellent for wildlife.

Hazel nuts are easy to harvest, and may be eaten as roasted nuts, but are otherwise difficult to utilise, on account of their toughness and tannin content. They may be successfully used as flour after cooking and pulverising. From the point of view of “obtaining a yield” making flour is quite labour intensive. Kentish cobnuts seem to be the easiest and most tasty variety of hazel nuts for roasting. 

Elder (Sambucus nigra)

The flowers are fragrant and provide an uplifting splash of colour from mid spring through the summer. Elder is known as ‘the medicine tree’ and all parts of the plant can be used as medicine: root, bark, leaves, flowers, and berries. Whilst the different parts have different medicinal effects, the properties of Elder range from a mild diuretic, to a strong purge to the bowels, which was used frequently in the ‘heroic age’ of herbal medicine. The flowers are an excellent diaphoretic (sweating agent) which can be employed, along with yarrow and mint, during fever. The berries make a delightful ‘rob’, which is a type of runny jam. It can of course be thickened by the addition of pectin, and contains large amounts of Vitamin C.

Elder produces large white umbels which attract a host of insects and pollinators, and thus birds, into the garden. The bark is rough and provides micro- niches for fauna. Often Elder is seed dispersed through bird droppings, so it is not unusual to find a tree by a fence. It propagates vegetatively quite easily. The wood is pulpy and not very good for burning. 

In folklore, the Medicine Crone, or Elder Mother (Hilder- Moer) inhabits the tree. This quote is from Glennie Kindred (who in turn probably discovered this information from Mrs. Grieves: A Modern Herbal):

There are very strong superstitions about not cutting down the elder. Maybe a fear of releasing that malevolent spirit or maybe a deep respect for this tree, which gives so much by way of medicines, food and drink. Early European folk tales tell of a dryad, Hylde-moer, The Elder Tree Mother, who lives in the elder tree and watches over it. Should the tree be chopped down and furniture made of the wood, Hylde-moer would follow her property and haunt the owners. Similar tales tell that if a child's cradle were to be made of elder, Hylde-moer would pinch the child black and blue and give it no peace or rest. Thus it is considered unlucky to make a cradle out of elder wood - birch being the property wood for a cradle, signifying a new start or inception. 

The association of the tree with death is palpable. I accidentally chain- sawed an Elder tree down when I was felling in the woods, and the stench of (presumably), valerianic acid was quite enough to send a shiver down the spine. This, coupled with the formidable 'heroic' herbal medicine applications (encouraging emesis, purgation) during the pyretic phase of fever, and its connection with Halloween and the dark side of the year, are more than enough to instill a supernatural respect.

Red Clover (Trifolium pretense)

Red clover is an excellent permaculture plant, because it has several beneficial uses which occur simultaneously. Red clover can be used as a 'green manure' or cover crop which enriches soil in the cooler months. They can also be grown around and in between vegetable without negative effects. Clover flowers are edible, and the herb is a valuable medicine in its own right.

Clover adds organic matter. A primary reason to grow a cover crop is to increase the amount of organic matter in the soil. Adding organic matter improves the soil's structure, increases its water retention and drainage, and improves aeration. It also provides necessary food for earthworms and microorganisms that increase biological activity in the soil. Increased biological activity in turn helps keep the soil healthy by enhancing decomposition; well-nourished beneficial microorganisms also compete better against disease-causing organisms.

Clover controls erosion. Traditionally, cover crops were used to "cover" the soil during the winter. This prevents erosion and topsoil loss, especially in areas with high winds and inconsistent snow cover.

Cover crops loosen compacted soil generally, and can over time increase aeration, and improve drainage, especially on clay soils such as those encountered in the study area.
 
Clover balances nutrients. Legume cover crops, such as red clover, form a symbiotic relationship with the rhizobia bacteria on their roots, convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form plants can use to grow. When the cover crop is tilled under, the nitrogen is released for the next crop.

They help control weeds. Some cover crops are good weed blockers.Clover is particularly good at this owing to its growth habit, close to the floor, and its somewhat smaller stature compared to other cover plants.

They attract beneficial insects. When native cover crops, such as red clover are allowed to flower, they attract bees and beneficial insects that help with pollination and insect control in the garden.

Red clover as medicine. The blossoms may be dried and used in a pleasant tasting tea. It is often used in combination with other herbs to nourish pregnant and breast feeding women, as well as to treat skin conditions, coughs and blood infections. Red Clover gently purifies the blood, helping to eliminate heavy metals and other environmental contaminants, while nourishing the body with its abundance of trace minerals. It is also mildly antispasmodic, which means it can ease nervous excitability, twitching and spasm. It is gentle enough to give to children who have recurring respiratory problems, such as colds, hay fever, asthma, ear infections or congestion.Traditional Chinese medicine believed that it was a good tonic for colds, to purify the blood, and at one time they burned it as incense. Native Americans used it as a salve for burns, as well as for bronchial problems. Many cultures have traditionally used red clover to treat whooping cough, respiratory problems, psoriasis, eczema and even cancer. Red clover is one of the herbs in Essiac, and grows in many areas around the world.

Edible parts: Although leaves can be tossed into a salad or used in a tea, the preferable part of this wild edible is the flower. Red clovers are the tastiest of all clovers although it is recommended not to eat too many of these as some people experience bloating.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)

Chickweed is exceptionally abundant in towns and country during the spring, autumn, and winter. It will occasionally be found in shadier spots during the summer, but it doesn’t enjoy hot sunshine.This preference, coupled with shallow roots, makes it an ideal understory plant for a vegetable garden. The cover provided by chickweed will competitively exclude other 'weeds' and provide a delicious crop of salad vegetables.

This plant was one of the Victorian’s favourites. The earthy succulence, and soft yet crisp textures, go really well in any salad. When we talk of foraging for alternatives to expensive, nitrate-soaked, plastic-packed salads - then this plant, which grows freely for us, screams out to be used rather than treated as a pernicious weed.

Chickweed also has a long history of traditional uses as an emollient for the skin, helping cases of eczema, psoriasis, ulcers, boils, and abscesses. It can be administered through poultices, compresses, baths and through its consumption in tinctures, fluid extracts in capsules, and as tea. Internally chickweed can be used for rheumatic and respiratory conditions, especially where excessive mucous is present. The17th century herbalist John Gerard recommended it as a remedy for mange. I also make a chickweed ointment in addition to comfrey which is excellent for skin.

S. media contains saponins, which can be toxic when consumed in large quantities. Chickweed has been known to cause saponin poisoning in cattle. However, as the animal must consume several kilos of chickweed in order to reach a toxic level, such deaths are rare. Many such potentially toxic compounds are mitigated against by other factors and phytonutrients in most plants (for example tannins prevent stomach bleeds using White Willow Bark, a main source of salicylic acid (Aspirin)).

The acclaimed Juliette de Bairacli Levy, observed that this plant was employed around the world. She also saw a resemblence between its uses and that of slippery elm: a prized, and also mucilage-rich, digestive and emollient plant. As such, Bairacli Levy rated chickweed as one of the most valuable weeds in the garden. Slippery elm does not grow wild in Britain and is an endangered plant due to the ravages of Dutch elm disease, so we may come to use and cherish chickweed more and more in a post-peak-oil society.

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is a wonder plant. It is a dynamic accumulator, drawing minerals out of the soil and into the roots and leaves, a compost accelerator, a fine ingredient in liquid manure (comfrey tea, similar to nettle tea below), beneficial insect attractor, mulch, weed suppressant (it can be used as a border around vegetable plots to stop the paths getting overrun with weeds, biomass accumulator, livestock forage, edible, a wound healer and it was traditionally called 'knit bone' by herbalists as it helps heals fractures and soft tissue injuries (owing principally to its allantoin content). It's an ideal permaculture plant.

Even though comfrey has long been esteemed as a vulnerary, it has come under scrutiny owing to its safety in recent years because of the discovery of the pyrrolizidine alkaloids. These are believed to be hepatoxic (toxic to the liver). Using comfrey externally as a poultice or as a compress has always been safe. However recent scientific studies indicate that comfrey, when ingested in large amounts and over long periods of time will cause liver damage. This is because of the pyrrolizidine alkaloids it contains. These pyrrolizidine alkaloids occur in a number of other plants as well, including ragwort, borage, and coltsfoot. In the 1980s there was a research paper that reported liver damage in laboratory animals that had varying doses of these alkaloids injected into them intravenously. This came as shock to the herbalist community because comfrey has long been regarded as one of the safest herbs. I make a comfrey root and lavender ointment, which I have successfully used to treat bruises, greenstick fractures, cartilage, tendon and ligament wrenches, and skin problems. It is also very good for deep tissue massage as it provides a viscous, healing medium which also contains beeswax and olive oil. Whilst the leaves can be used for a great tasting tea internally, the root is best used externally for safety reasons.

In the permaculture design, I have identified a marginal area which would benefit from comfrey cultivation (see above). The soil is damp, rich, and suitable for harvesting roots. Growing comfrey would eliminate other less useful plants owing to its vigour and the size of its leaves. The area is otherwise a 'neutral' space which would be hard to cultivate other plants owing to the low light intensity, and proximity of the greenhouse.

Comfrey has become an important plant for the organic gardening movement. It has thick, far reaching roots which access minerals deep in the soil, making it rich in potassium and nitrogen. The fast-growing leaves can be cut several times a year to make an organic slug control, liquid fertiliser, leaf mould and compost activator.

Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)

Stinging Nettle is one of many commonplace plants which are both good for the wildlife garden, and serve as a food & medicine. They are therefore doubly welcome in a permaculture design.

Nettle tea has been used as a medicinal herb for centuries in Europe. An easily made green tea from fresh or dried leaves, nettle tea is loaded with antioxidants and other nutraceuticals that bring benefits to every system in the body. For two weeks in spring while the nettles are young and tender, a cup of nettle tea each day serves as a spring tonic. The vitamins, lutein, lycopene and iron in nettle tea are restorative to the system. Herbalists refer to nettle as an adaptogen, alterative, depurient, or a blood purifier, and it had found a place in many useful formulas, including more recently for hayfever.

Nettles can be used for food, and make an excellent soup although the location of the plant and its growing conditions should determine whether or where it is chosen. I spoke to my landlord once, who had been out on the moors wild- crafting some nettles. He said that evening he made a hearty nettle soup with his wife, and quickly fell into a deep 12 hour sleep from which he felt very refreshed but could remember nothing of the night before. Such reports of mildly sedative properties are not uncommon from wild plant foods. It did lead me to question where he might have picked them from.

As nettle tends to grow around human settlements, and concentrate sometimes toxic residues, care should be taken. In my study area, the nettle stand is next to a farm wall where it appears pesticides are loaded on to tractor booms, so I don't use them for medicine or food, or as fertiliser. They are instead being used as a detoxifying buffer against the wall, and to benefit wildlife.In years to come, and in the absence of any pesticide use at the farm, I would resume using the nettles for food and fertiliser. On the compost heap they supply plentiful ntirogen and silica. Medicines have a higher standard of purity, especially if they are to be concentrated into tinctures or fluid extracts, and I would wait somewhat longer to establish purity of the herbs before making medicines.

Stinging nettles support more than 40 kinds of insects, for whom the sting can form a protective shield against grazing animals.Many nettle patches hold overwintering insects which swarm around fresh spring nettles and provide early food for ladybirds. These same aphids are eaten by blue tits and other woodland birds that dart around the stems. In late summer the huge quantity of seeds produced are food for many seed-eating birds, such as house sparrows, chaffinches, and bullfinches.Nettles are also a magnet for other insect-eaters like hedgehogs, shrews, frogs and toads, at all times of year. Certain moths like nettles, as do many of the UK’s most colourful and best known butterflies, such as the Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock Butterflies. Their larvae feed in large groups in silken tents at the top of the nettle stems.My nettle stand is conveniently out of sight of neighbours who might feel inclined to complain about their untidiness, so can be left to overwinter without a mowing or scything regime.

Nettle can be used as a natural fertiliser in the form of a tea. Fill a bucket with nettle clippings (particularly tops). Add rain water to about 3/4 full. Chop the mixture with hedge clippers. Stir the mixture thoroughly every few days (some say once a day, every day). After about two weeks it is ready to use.When using this mixture, filter out the debris and use only the clearish liquid. The solution is mixed with water in a proportion of 1 : 10 (one part nettle solution to ten parts water). Pour the solution directly at the base of the plants where the roots will have quick use of it. This "tea" is meant as a supplimental feeding for plants that have a high demand for nourishment, such as tomatos, leeks, brassicas, cucumbers and courgettes. Other plants that will appreciate stinging nettle tea include fruit trees and bushes, roses, annuals and perennial flowering plants. It is not really meant to supplement such plants as onions beans and peas.

Wind Speed & Frost Days in the Study Area

Waterways in the Study Area

The diagram shows a schematic of the main waterways of the study area. The picture is of The Washes not untypically flooded.

Geology & Pedology of the Study Area

Topographic Map of United Kingdom

Annual Rainfall & Sunshine Duration, UK

The Fens

Location of Peterborough, UK

Two Interviews with David Holmgren

 

These two interviews with David Holmgren, co originator of the Permaculture concept (along with Bill Mollison), were amongst the first videos I watched on Permaculture, and I still find them inspirational and motivating.

Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”

“Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry.”

“The problem, then, is how to bring about a striving for harmony with land among a people many of whom have forgotten there is any such thing as land, among whom education and culture have become almost synonymous with landlessness. This is the problem of conservation education.” 

The Biophilia of E O Wilson

“Each of these [bacterial] species are masterpieces of evolution. Each has persisted for thousands to millions of years. Each is exquisitely adapted to the environment in which it lives, interlocked with other species to form ecosystems upon which our own lives depend in ways we have not begun even to imagine.”

 “Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms — if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.”

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

E F Schumacher: Small is Beautiful

“If greed were not the master of modern man--ably assisted by envy--how could it be that the frenzy of economism does not abate as higher "standards of living" are attained, and that it is precisely the richest societies which pursue their economic advantage with the greatest ruthlessness? How could we explain the almost universal refusal on the part of the rulers of the rich societies--where organized along private enterprise or collective enterprise lines--to work towards the humanisation of work? It is only necessary to assert that something would reduce the "standard of living" and every debate is instantly closed. That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, monotonous, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of of "bread and circuses" can compensate for the damage done--these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence--because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity.”

~ E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

 

Wes Jackson: Becoming Native to this Place

“Our task is to build cultural fortresses to protect our emerging nativeness. They must be strong enough to hold at bay the powers of consumerism, the powers of greed and envy and pride. One of the most effective ways for this to come about would be for our universities to assume the awesome responsibility to both validate and educate those who want to be homecomers -- not necessarily to go home but to go someplace and dig in and begin the long search and experiment to become native.”

“We have become a more juvenile culture. We have become a childish "me, me, me" culture with fifteen-second attention spans. The global village that television was supposed to bring is less a village than a playground... Little attempt is made to pass on our cultural inheritance, and our moral and religious traditions are neglected except in the shallow "family values" arguments.”

Gerrard Winstanley, True Leveller

Gerrard Winstanley (1609 – 1676) was a Quaker reformer and political activist during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Winstanley was one of the founders of the English group known as the True Levellers or Diggers for their beliefs, and for their actions. The group occupied public lands that had been privatized by enclosures and dug them over, pulling down hedges and filling in ditches, to plant crops. True Levellers was the name they used to describe themselves, whereas the term Diggers was coined by contemporaries.

For libertarian socialist scholar Murray Bookchin there is a coincidence of political projects between German Protestant revolutionary Thomas Müntzer and Winstanley. For Bookchin "In the modern world, anarchism first appeared as a movement of the peasantry and yeomanry against declining feudal institutions. In Germany its foremost spokesman during the Peasant Wars was Thomas Muenzer; in England, Gerrard Winstanley, a leading participant in the Digger movement. The concepts held by Muenzer and Winstanley were superbly attuned to the needs of their time — a historical period when the majority of the population lived in the countryside and when the most militant revolutionary forces came from an agrarian world. It would be painfully academic to argue whether Muenzer and Winstanley could have achieved their ideals. What is of real importance is that they spoke to their time; their anarchist concepts followed naturally from the rural society that furnished the bands of the peasant armies in Germany and the New Model in England."

from "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" Lewis Herber. (Murray Bookchin).

Cover Design from the remastered 1976 film Winstanley

"So long as the earth is intagled and appropriated into particular hands and kept there by the power of the sword......so long the creation lies under bondage."

~ Gerrard Winstanley Fire in the Bush 1650

"England is a Prison; the variety of subtilties in the Laws preserved by the Sword, are bolts, bars, and doors of the prison; the Lawyers are Jaylors, and poor men are the prisoners; for let a man fall into the hands of any from the Bailiffe to the Judge, and he is either undone, or wearie of his life."

"Buying and Selling is an Art, whereby people endeavour to cheat one another of the Land.......and true Religion is, To let every one enjoy it."

~ Gerrard Winstanley A New-years Gift for the Parliament and Armie 1650

Last Child in the Woods

Richard Louv, author of Last Child In The Woods, provides a well researched account of how children and young people are becoming estranged from nature, and how this is affecting their physical, psychological and social health. He coins the term nature deficit disorder to describe the maelstrom of problems we are building up by cooping up children for long hours in the classroom or their bedrooms with computers. In addition to epidemic obesity, immune, sensory and poor musculoskeletal development in the manner of battery hens, Louv shows how giving over green space to corporations for malls and retail parks is causing psychological and social impacts far beyond those anticipated, including alienation, mental illness, crime, drug addiction, and inability to communicate effectively.

The Guggenheim

With the news that teachers are increasingly being surveilled in the classroom, it is worth noting how the structure of many new build academies is based on an eighteenth century prison designer Jeremy Bentham.

Bentham first proposed the idea of the Panopticon in 1791. The concept of the design is to allow a single watchman to observe all the inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether they are being watched or not. The fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched or not means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour constantly. The name is also a reference to Panoptes from Greek mythology; he was a giant with a hundred eyes and thus was known to be a very effective watchman. This is the principle behind CCTV and IT surveillance, sometimes called the Information Panopticon.

Bentham always conceived the Panopticon principle as being beneficial to the design of a variety of institutions where surveillance was important, including hospitals, schools, workhouses, and lunatic asylums, as well as prisons. In particular, he developed it in his ideas for a "chrestomathic" school (one devoted to useful learning), in which teaching was to be undertaken by senior pupils on the monitorial principle, under the overall supervision of the Master and for a pauper “industry-house” (workhouse). Thus the human touch of "teachers" or "prison wardens" becomes a much reduced necessity. The lasting psychological effects on academy children (who incidentally are not even allowed outside to play in one Panopticon school) remains to be seen.

Here is a montage of academy and prison designs all mixed up. At first glance they are indistinguishable. And the last word is left to Foucault.