article about my garden in the Danish gardening magazine!

Click HERE to see the article as published in the Danish monthly magazine "Alt om Haven" (February 2016).

More photos of my garden in the article (use the link above)

Translation 

FIRST PAGE (side 40)

Introduction text "I choose plants which attract beneficial insects"

When permaculture designer Ilke Pedersen-Beyst and her family took over their new garden two years ago, there was not much else than grass and some trees. Since then, a lot has happened. Today, more bushes and fruit trees were planted around the grass lawn in the garden. The neighbours have big trees, so their garden is surrounded by green.

SECOND PAGE (side 41)

Text underneath photo herb spiral and garden: Ilke Pedersen-Beyst has transformed an average summerhouse plot into a flowering/blossoming little biotope with insects, birds, hedgehogs, and edible crops. Follow the garden and its developments on ibeesgarden.blogspot.com

THIRD PAGE (side 42)

Text underneath photo strawberries: Already the second year, the harvest of strawberries was satisfying. Enough to have a surplus for some good homemade organic marmalade.

What are you doing in the garden now?

I am very happy, because I just got my diploma as a permaculture designer. I will immediately use my new skills and I am busy transforming the whole garden. The grass lawn is getting smaller and smaller and I am working on getting more flowers in what is left of the lawn. The kids also need to have space to play with the ball and we have constructed some "living" structures made of willow for them. My goal is to make a garden, that is edible, which is easy to maintain, and has many different kinds of plants and flowers, that attract a big variety of bees, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, hedgehogs, and even toads and foxes.

What is your biggest challenge?

For most of the year, we live in Belgium, so the distance is of course the biggest challenge. That is why I go to great lengths to design it in such a way that there is a natural balance with as little maintenance as possible. I hope to achieve this by using many perennials and increasing the biodiversity with wild species that will give the garden more resilience; by choosing plants that attract beneficial insects; by suppressing weed with ground covering plants and mulch, like wood chips, that also improve the soil; and by creating microclimates that give different kinds of plants the best circumstances.

What is your favourite plant?

That is difficult to answer, because I have so many! All the wild and heritage flowers and all berries are on top of my list. Especially old...

(continued on FOURTH PAGE - side 43)

...and lovely scenting shrubs with edible berries for both people and birds, like elderberry, rowan, sloe, hawthorn and historical or wild roses. I also love plants that have many things to offer, like for example oregano. It can be used for cooking, it smells lovely, it is a fast ground cover, it is good for bees and butterflies, and it supports other plants.

Do you have a favourite spot in your garden?

Every spot that is a bit protected from the wind and surrounded with butterflies, bees, bumble bees, and birds, as well as with pretty flowers and scents.

How does your dream garden look like?

I dream of a balanced garden filled with food for both people and wildlife with a large diversity in species, ecosystems, and microclimates. I have seen permaculture gardens just like that, where it was not necessary to irrigate, to use fertilizers or pesticides, and where the harvest was big because of a very healthy soil. I know it is possible and I would like to try it myself. It will take some time, but I look forward to this exciting "dance" with nature. You can follow the gradual, but big transformation of my garden on my blog ibeesgarden.blogspot.com. In the future, I hope to help others to make their own permaculture garden.

Text with photos on third and fourth page

1. Part of the herbs in the garden are gathered in a stone herb spiral with the most drought loving plants on top

2. The blue cornflower (centurea cyanus) is easy and lovely and if you are good at cutting off the faded flowers, you can prolong its season with an entire month

3. In the lawn, the self-sown wild flowers make a rainbow of colours

4. Ilke uses the dried seeds of nettle (urtica) to sprinkle on her salad

5. Lavender (lavendula) is a hardy and drought resistant plant that looks nice most of the year. Both the flowers and the leaves can be used as a lovely scenting herb

6. Sage (salvia) is a beautiful and easy herb that attracts many beneficial insects and gives a great taste to many dishes   

My lawn

celebrating achievements

Unfortunately, I do not have much time to spend in my garden abroad. My progress sometimes seems sooooo slow... Therefore,  I thought it would give me some encouragement to note all the achievements so far. And then it suddenly does look impressive!

I am really happy and proud to have achieved the following:

A day's harvest of berries in July

1. My main focus has been on the berries, with early and late varieties of gooseberries, currants, jostaberries, raspberries, wild strawberries, blackberries, grapes, blueberries, mulberry, elderberry, sea buckthorn, and of course strawberries. I created a berry area, but some of them are also spread over the garden situated in colder or warmer spots order to spread the harvest time. Each of the berry bushes has a good mulch circle around its base.

2. The more cultivated area - including the mandala bed - has got a nice structure with elevated beds and deep paths. The paths have a thin layer of very rough woody mulch, while the beds have several layers of chopped leaves, grass clippings, and chop-and-drop layers. One of the paths runs on contour with a small swale mound below it. Little walls made of branches protect the beds from wind. Some high poles make a tipi and even a little gate and tunnel which is waiting to be covered in green.

3. I started with establishing some perennial and self-spreading herbs, flowers, and veggies! Between the wild oregano, sage, thyme, lemon balm, mint, sweet cicely, bear's garlic, and hyssop, some common mullein (verbascum thapsus, koningskaars, filtbladet kongelys), columbine (aquilegia, akelei, akeleje), borage (borago officinalis, komkommerkruid, almindelig hjulkrone), yarrow (achillea millefolium, duizendblad, almindelig røllikke), purple toadflax (linaria purpurea, walstroleeuwenbek , torskemund) red clover (trifolium pratense, rode klaver, rødkløver), pot marigold (calendula, goudsbloem, morgenfrue), and garden nasturtium (tropaeolum majus, Oost-indische kers, tallerkensmækker), now pop up different places each year. The biggest success in perennial veggies has been the lamb's lettuce (Valerianella locusta, veldsla, vårsalat) which has spread all over the garden as an edible ground cover! The first beds with asparagus were prepared.

My first harvest of organic garlic

4. It was a special moment for me to collect my first harvest of lamb's lettuce, potatoes, curly kale, Viking spinach, purslane, peas, chervil, rhubarb, rocket salad, and garlic. All these were interplanted at the base of trees or mixed with the perennial herbs as part of companion planting. The beds created are not  similar at all to traditional beds and sometimes I was the only one able to spot the harvest.

5. The growth of the herbs on the herb spiral looks stunning. I admit, I am impressed on how well this works. I will certainly dedicate a separate post on this topic.

6. The start of the guilds around the fruit trees can also be mentioned here. The main ground cover under the fruit trees are the wild strawberries, some red clover, and some bulbs, like narcissus, chives, garlic, and bear's garlic. In between the trees the fruit bushes are thriving. I wished it had progressed a bit more, but at least it is a start. Next season, I will add some lemon balm, oregano and mint.

7. I started with the propagation of berry shrubs and wild fruit trees. The first batch of new young  gooseberry bushes is growing well! The next batch contains blueberries and cherry plum tree cuttings. 

8. I had hoped to progress more with the planting of extra trees, but on the other hand, I am glad I waited a bit. Learning to know the garden and gardening in general, I changed my mind a couple of times on where and what to plant. So far, some hazelnut, a  hamamelis, as well as a more tricky mulberry tree and a delicate nectarine tree were added to the apple, cherry, plum, sloen, and cherry plum trees. 

A grasshopper hiding in the clover

9. In general, I am truly impressed about the increase in biodiversity in the garden after I converted the lawn into more exciting habitats: an area with high grass; a wild spring flower lawn; deeply mulched beds; stone, earth, and wood structures; and some pockets left to grow wild. In addition, I created some shelters for earwigs, solitary bees, bumble bees, toads, ground beetles, and hedgehogs. The increase in the amount of lady bugs, dragon flies, damsels, beetles, caterpillars, worms, centepedes, hoverflies, spiders, bees, bumble bees, and butterflies is stunning! I will study a bit on how to identify them all and hope to post on fauna and flora species in the near future.

Pot marigold popping up in the garden

10. I made my three first hugel beds! One tiny one with different species of heather and blueberry saplings. A horseshoe shaped one with blueberries, thyme, strawberries and oregano. An S-shaped one with sweet cicely, bear's garlic, gooseberries, nasturtium, and hopefully some pumpkins next season. These beds are perfect for the dry spring seasons here and are a great way to convert garden material into good soil!

11. Except for the newly planted saplings and plants, I did not have to water the plants in my garden at all! Denmark has a humid climate, but we are in an area with less average annual rainfall (650mm compared to 750mm at a national level) and the dry springs - and some summers - have been very challenging lately. Eespecially, the herb spiral, the hugel beds, the mulching, and the swale have been very effective. 

12. I added about 100 new species of plants to the garden over a period of 2 years. This amount includes both seeds and saplings and covers herbs, veggies, flowers (wild and some cultivated), fruit shrubs, vines and trees. The previous owner had successfully planted about 40 plant species, including fruit trees and shrubs. And I haven't made an inventory of all the wild species in the garden yet.

Summing up the achievements does feel good and I hope to elaborate more on these and other topics soon.

the compost area: to be or not to be

One of the first things I did was to identify a spot for the future compost area. At first, I was thinking along the lines of a typical compost space: 3 compost piles each with layers of brown and green organic material. In order to get started with the kitchen waste, I made one out of iron chicken wire enforced with some branches. 

Our first compost bin, with a front panel which can be opened

However, the big amounts of autumn leaves, grass clippings and cut branches already started piling up next to it and after reading some books on permaculture, I changed my plans. I decided I wanted to have a compost area to gather organic material separately, but not necessarily turn it all into ready-to-use compost before applying it in the garden.

I learned that mulching and using living green manure on the spot would save me a lot of work and would create far more nutritious compost. If one turns compost, airs it, let it shrink, and then move it, one has already used some of its energy and nutritions and one disturbs the micro organisms at work. It is apparently better to add the layers of brown and green material, the manure and final mulch cover on the spot where you need it. Even kitchen waste can be tucked under the mulch layers: with the help of all the tiny soil animals it will be turned into compost on the spot.

This implied that I would just need a place to temporarily store some surplus leaves, branches, manure, etc. Nevertheless, I decided to leave my first compost bin in use for the time being and gradually get used to the new way of composting/mulching.

In any case, I wanted to cover the compost area from sight. We opted for a natural little fence made of branches.

The first layers of branches filling up our natural fence up to half its future height

We gathered our cut raspberry stems and some pretty reddish branches from our neighbour's birch trees which had flown into our garden during the last storm. We tried to make the fence a little curved to give it a more organic look. We still need to fill it up to the top, but that will only happen next time when we get some more branches. In front of the fence, we will plant our giant sunflowers.

I might even wait with finalizing the fence for a while, because just behind it there is a pile of big branches, grass and leaves which would make a good hugelculture base. Hugel culture is a permaculture technique reusing rough garden waste as a bed for planting veggies. You make a kind of trench and fill it up with branches and then layers of organic material. On top of it, you have the perfect spot to plant pumpkins and alike! This is where I will try to plant pumpkins this year, combined with nasturtium to protect them from pests like squash bugs and aphids.

The compost area will also be used to make liquid plant tonics (gier, udtraek). I will use plants like nettle, dandelion, comfrey, elder and rhubarb, but other plants are also possible like fern, tansy, and tomato. I will post more on this topic later on.

first harvest of dandelion in a bucket ready for the rain to fill it up and 
to be used for a plant tonic after two weeks of fermenting

the little orchard: a plan and the first steps

The first step is to lower my ambition on the speed and amount of things I want to do. It still needs to be fun and I hope to engage my teenage kids and my husband's grandchildren in the project, which will require patience and a slow pace. In addition, this first week we do not have a car, so I will have to aim for finding everything for the garden locally either in the garden or in the neighbourhood. I have been hamstring the seeds I want for this garden for some months now, but the bulk of these will only arrive later this week.

We already got some cardboard from a local supermarket, so the first apple tree got a layer in order to suppress the grass underneath it.

First layer of cardboard to suppress grass

I let the rain do the next step: making the cardboard wet. This is necessary before applying the next layer, which will be grass clippings (plenty of it in this garden) and then bark chips, branches, or compost in case one wants to add ground covering plants. This technique is the very simple version of mulching as used in permaculture. Ideally, you would add more layers, but this will do for the time being. 

Grass under fruit trees is not good, because the roots compete for the same water and nutrition. It is better to plant some companion plants which will form a "guild" with the fruit tree (which is explained below). Turning over the soil disturbs the soil and its thriving micro eco-system and it breaks my back. So the easiest and the best way is the mulching. It suppresses the grass and weeds, it is like composting your green and brown organic material on the spot providing fresh nutrition for the plants or trees, and it will be easier to maintain in the future. 

It is my intention to add some cover plants on top of the mulch layer: first white clover (trifolium repens, witte klaver, hvid-kloever) and nasturtium (tropaeolum, Oost-Indische kers, tallerkensmækker) and later maybe wild strawberries. Around the cardboard and still under the dripping line of the tree, I planted some wild garlic (allium ursinum or bear's garlic, daslook, ramsloeg) and on the other side some comfrey (symphytum officinale, smeerwortel, kulsukker). Around and in between the trees, I will add white and red clover. All of these plants mentioned are recommended to support fruit trees. 

An example of an apple tree guild. 
Source: Hemenway, Toby. Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2001

Adding a diversity of supporting plants in several heights below the fruit tree turns it into a "guild", in this case an apple guild. For each type of tree there are specific companion plants, plants which attract pollinators, nitrogen fixing plants, green manure, weed suppressing plants, plants acting as wind barriers, nutrient plants etc., which contribute to a healthy eco-system around the tree. Above, you can see a drawing from the excellent book, I based myself upon, "Gaia's Garden" by Toby Hemenway. Here, I will describe my own selection of plants, which hopefully will form a good guild together.

I think nobody would object if I call comfrey a key plant in permaculture.  The more functions one plant can offer to other plants, local wildlife, or humans, the better ("stacking functions"). Comfrey is a green manure (P, N, K, Ca, Mg, Fe), which can be composted on the spot once or twice a year, it fixes nitrogen into the soil, it is an excellent slug trap, it provides nectar and pollen for bees and other beneficial insects, it suppresses weed, it covers the soil, it can also be used as a compost starter. In some places I will plant it as a temporary soil improver and then cut it on the spot. Afterwards, I can then plant bushes on top of the cut leaves. 

I chose the wild garlic for my future salads, as a support for the fruit trees, while deterring aphids, weevils, and slugs. Again, it does not go well with beans and peas, so if I want those, they clearly will need to go in another part of our garden. Just to confirm my correct choice, I just read that the first evidence of the human use of A. ursinum comes from the Mesolithic settlement in Denmark (Barkær)!

The next day, I already found a good amount of baby slugs hanging on underneath the cardboard. I think planting the comfrey and wild garlic next to the cardboard was a good idea, if I ever want to have a wild strawberry left for me in future.

We already planted some nasturtium (tropaeolum, Oost-Indische kers, tallerkensmækker) in small seed pots to make sure the first shoots are not eaten right away by the slugs. I would like to plant these under the fruit trees and next to my future pumpkins to help to protect them from pests. The flowers are very beautiful and edible. (The pumpkin and sunflower seeds are not for the orchard, but for the compost area, and the forget-me-nots are for the raspberries, both see next post).

Clover is another multifunctional plant and I love it. A clover field is always buzzing with bumble bees and honey bees! It is a perennial plant which is appreciated in permaculture gardens (it is less disturbing to have permanent plants and of course easier for the gardener) and it can take frost.  It provides nectar and pollen, fixes nitrogen for other plants, works as an excellent ground cover, it aerates the soil (and thus can be used as a pioneer plant to air tight soil for future veggies), and it is a green manure (N and P), which can be used as a on the spot mulch layer. It fits well with fruit trees and strawberries, as well as veggies like potatoes and parsnip, but I read it does not go to well with beans and peas. I will plant both white and red clover in between and under the trees.

 

Later on, I would also like to add phacelia (phacelia tanacetifolia, bijenvoer, honningurt), again, a fruit tree supporting plant. It can be used as green manure, it is a nitrogen fixing plant, it provides air to compact soil, and attracts bees and other insects. Borage (borago officinalis, berganie of komkommerkruid, hjulkrone) is also on my wishing list. Its flowers are edible and very pretty in a salad, it acts as a green manure (K and Si), and is an excellent pollinator attracting plant. 

In a next phase, I hope to add a Northern wind barrier of shrubs like sea buckthorn (excellent nitrogen fixer); to add excellent orchard herbs like lemon balm (melissa officinalis, citroenmelisse) and mint (not yet sure which species); to add berries, like gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa, stekelbes, stikkelsbaer) and black currant (ribes nigrum, zwarte bes, solbaer); and even root veggies like horseradish (armoracia rusticana,  mierikswortel, peberrod).

I hope the selection above will be a good apple guild for a Northern temperate climate like we have here in Denmark.