The wild boar, who in previous years have just wandered through in the winter seem to have taken up residence here and we have regular nightly visits from them. There seems little we can do to permanently exclude them so we have to accept that they are the mobile element of a forest garden and have a job to do. Faced with the devastation of our bamboo crop it's not easy...... no bamboo shoots to eat this year. However, on the plus side, they are controlling the patch and stopping it getting out of the area we want it to stay in. In terms of outputs we also get their manure contribution into the system. You have to look for the positive things in life!
In thinking about the 'problem' of the grey water from the bathroom we came up in the true permaculture sense with the 'solution'. Create a willow bed and use the grey water to water it with an automatic drip irrigation system. So we set about doing it. It gave us the chance to plant as many different types and colours of willow as we could get hold of, something I had always wanted when making baskets and furniture. The first steps were to remove all the perrennial weeds from the area and then to dig in the waste pipe from the bathroom under the path in the garden to the point where it emerges and enters a holding tank. The willow bed is on the terrace below the garden so will be easy to keep an eye on. We laid a permeable membrane down, to suppress the weeds as the cuttings grow, then inserted the cuttings though it. |
AuthorLiving and working on the Forest Garden Farm Project are me (Annie) and Toivo and eldest daughter, Kate. Archives
March 2013
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