forest gardening in Scotland and beyond
Due to personal circumstances I won t be running lots of courses in 2025 just one Introduction to Forest Gardening course on the 17th of May. This one day course will introduce the principles and the plants of edible forest gardening. Topics will include how a forest garden works, the forest garden year, forest garden [ ]
I ve done a last bit of seed cleaning over the holidays, so that s my seed list finished for seeds collected in 2024. You can find the full, up to date list in the SEEDS section. Maybe I shouldn t call it a seed list any more though, as I ve been experimenting over the years with ways [ ]
Here is my list of forest garden courses for 2024. Introduction to forest gardening This one day course will introduce the principles and the plants of edible forest gardening. Topics will include how a forest garden works, the forest garden year, forest garden plants, and harvesting and cooking forest garden crops. The course be particularly [ ]
For 2024 courses see www.foodforest.garden/2024/02/21/forest-garden-courses-2024/ Introduction to forest gardening This one day course will introduce the principles and the plants of edible forest gardening. Topics will include how a forest garden works, the forest garden year, forest garden plants, and harvesting and cooking forest garden crops. The course be particularly aimed at those who want…
FOR THE CURRENT LIST SEE MY SEEDS Finally, all the seeds I collected in 2022 have been cleaned up and put on my seed list, ready for sowing in 2023. There are all the old favourites, plus a few new things like perennial leek seed, hog peanut/earth bean (Amphicarpaea), crow garlic bulbils, broad beans, zenteika [ ]
2023 COURSES NOW OUT For all those who have been asking, I have put together a programme of courses on forest gardening for 2022. I ve tried to offer a bit more variety than the introductions that I have done in previous years although these are still definitely in the mix. Introduction to forest gardening [ ]
Nettle (Urtica dioica) is the Jeckyll and Hyde of the home garden. It has no neutral qualities, only excellent and abominable ones. On the negative side, they spread aggressively by seed and underground runners, and attack anyone who dares try to weed them out with hypodermic syringes full of irritants. And as the leaves mature, [ ]
With the addition of these Chinese quince seeds, that s the list of the seeds that I have available for sowing in 2022 pretty much complete. Many forest garden seeds need stratification (winter cold). This seems to be in plentiful supply at present, but sowing of these seeds unless it s in the fridge shouldn t [ ]
This seems like a good time of year to post about snowbell (Allium triquetrum, also known as three cornered leek), one of the most useful plants in the forest garden in winter. A strange quirk of nature means that many of the best plants for the Scottish forest garden in the depths of winter come [ ]
Silverweed has a long history as a cultivated crop. It was sufficiently important, in the landscape-scale agro-ecology of the pre-colonial Pacific North West, that access to good patches was controlled by law. Closer to home, Alexander Carmichael says in the notes to the Carmina Gadelica that silverweed root (brisgean) was much used in the Gàidhealtachd before [ ]