19 August 2010

A forest garden by definition is “a designed agronomic system based on trees, shrubs and perennial plants.  These are mixed in such a way as to mimic the structure of a natural forest – the most stable & sustainable type of ecosystem in this climate”.

Or to me a forest garden is where tomato plants have overgrown and taken over your garden or you have a forest of giant sunflowers.  So as you look in suprised awe at the sunflowers giants below I shall (try) to explain how they came about……

At the start of the veggie growing season back in March I randomly scatter marigold seeds all over the garden.  Marigolds attract the right sort insects into your garden to eat the wrong sort of insects that have been attracted into your garden to eat your veggies.  That is as technical as I can get about it!  Anyhow some plants started to grow all over the garden.  Hurrah the marigolds are coming….

Weeks passed.  No flower heads appeared.  Hmmmm are they weeds?  I have been known to cultivate the odd weed.  After a few more weeks (we are patient) we established that they were sunflowers.  The garden was full of sunflowers.  What?  How?  The answer was simple…..

Last year we grew 6 sunflowers.  I didn’t pull them out until late autumn and as I was yanking them out the sunflower seeds scattered all over the garden!  Amazing.  Some have grown to well over 11 ft!

So the tomatoes - that is a shorter story and much easier to explain.  When growing tomatoes it is recommended that you remove any extra stems growing between the main stem and its branches.  I didn’t do this and a tomato forest ensued.

Tags: forest garden, sunflower, tomatoes