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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Year Round Vegetable Production with Eliot Coleman - DVD Trailer

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  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Year Round Vegetable Production with Eliot Coleman - DVD Trailer
  • Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 01:38:02 +0100


Our brambles, also called briars or just blackberries are extremely thorny and invasive here but all of nature, birds and mammals depend on them for food at certain times of the year. We picked over 60 kilos of them last year in just one day leaving most for wild life. To contain them we use a long handled slash hook and they are easily cleared with that but the briars are immensely useful in keeping herds of sheep and even goats away from fruit trees without the need of extensive and very expensive fencing.
The only places where we could cultivate the thornless variety is already filled with raspberries. I am very happy with the wild thorny things.
When we first came here half our land was occupied with gorse also man high and very prickely, almost inpenatrable. Gorse is a plant that needs burning to do well and keep competition down. By not burning for over twenty years our gorse is dying off to be replaced with briars everywhere. Gorse is a nitrogen fixer and makes the soil good for other plants, it used to be fed a lot to horses after being crushed in special gorse mills but one lighted match will reduce all vegetation, even grass to ashes in double quick time.
Briars are a lot safer, very hard to set ablaze.

The multiplier leeks are native Irish and might not like your hot and dry conditions Paul. If you really would like to try them I will send you some.
john


Fascinating, we don't get this on Discovery channel ... have you looked into thornless blackberries? We don't have room or ideal soil for blackberries but I'd love to have the right conditions. I have to look into the multiplier leeks.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
--Henry David Thoreau
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 7/20/2011 at 9:47 PM John D'hondt wrote:

Mainly the East coast is taken to be sunnier and warmer. But The coast in
the SW used to boast palm trees and warm loving exotics because of the
Gulf
stream. These got a severe hammering last year. I am 6 miles inland and
600-800 feet above sealevel and that makes a huge difference. Just 300
feet
lower down there are people who can grow and ripen tomatoes outside. That
has never even once worked for me.
Before we got trees and hedges growing, 25 years ago, there were plenty
occasions every year that a strong adult had problems standing upright on
an
open field in a gale.
Northern Ireland is still under English dominion and there they have kept
walled gardens and orchards and beautiful old trees while further South
they
have done their best to destroy everything "English" such as trees and
gardens.

Russion onions are very cold tolerant. These don't make a bulb much but
plentiful and strong onion tasting greens to about 45 cm high. Babbington
leeks are perennial leeks, multiplier leeks really that do form bulbs that
split up in 5-6 parts every year.They go dormant in summer and I now have
their bed full with self seeded Turnip rooted chervil, man high plants now
from which I want to take seed. After that the Babbingtons get weeded and
they will then reappear from themselves ready for winter harvesting.

We don't use bed covers anywhere. Our regulars don't need it and plants
like
cape gooseberry or passion fruit are too big to be easily wrapped up. We
lost those last year but the brown figs are remarkably hardy and are just
starting to deliver ripe fruit now. Gooseberries, red and black currants
and
apricots are almost finished. Summer raspberries too. Blueberries coming
up
and the blackberries (very thorny) are flowering everywhere but may be
short
of pollinators.
John

Isn't climate different north/south Ireland? I don't recall your
location.
Do you use any row or bed cover inside your tunnel? We do the red Russian
kale and other kales but Russian onions &amp; Babington leeks are
unfamiliar.
Of course some things just go by different names, certainly around this
country. I'm partial (understatement) to beet greens sauteed in little
olive oil but we don't do salads at home. On the weather front we finally
got the ground wet once last week but nothing since, and we're supposed
to
be
in our rainy season. They call it monsoon here in New Mexico but it's
hardly. Talked to a lady at a new country market here, said she
put in rain catchment this year but nothing to catch. ..

We need to know more about conditions &amp; coping in other countries.
The
more
we learn, the more we find we don't know.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


"If your experience is that your water comes from the tap and that
your
food comes from the grocery store then you are going to defend to the
death the system that brings those to you because your life depends on
that; if your experience is that your water comes from a river and that
your food comes from a land base then you will defend those to the death
because your life depends on them. So part of the problem is that we have
become so dependent upon this system that is killing and exploiting us,
it
has become almost impossible for us to imagine living outside of it and
it's very difficult physically for us to live outside of it."
-- Derrick Jensen

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 7/19/2011 at 8:53 PM John D'hondt wrote:

Climate in Ireland is a main problem in that the only thing that is
certain
is uncertainty. So far this year we have not gone beyond 20C. Not that
unusual but it slows down cucumbers and tomatoes a lot to name but two.
Last winter we scored as low as -18C which was most unusual. Some winter
crops took this in their stride outside especially Russian red kale and
Russian onions, Babington leeks, turnips and black radish. In the poly
tunnel were the more sensitive salad greens, misuna, mibuna, green in
snow,
February orchid, malva's and cresses. It got to -14 in there as well.
We expect more or less the same sort of cold winter this year but then
maybe
not. We had years that I could potter away in the garden in T-shirt and
short pants in January but we then got a killing frost in April.
Something always grows.
John








ear round for 25 years Paul. Of course
most
of these vegetables are seasonal but we have a fresh green salad every
day
of the year.
john


Year Round Vegetable Production with Eliot Coleman - DVD Trailer
http://www.chelseagreen.com/tv/episode/3975139/

This filmed workshop on year-round vegetable production offers
farmers
and
gardeners the rare chance to sit in with Eliot Coleman, one of the
pioneers of the organic farming movement and author of The New
Organic
Grower, Four-Season Harvest, and The Winter Harvest Handbook.


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
--Henry David Thoreau

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