Forest – Page 3 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

June 30: honeybee gardens

2016/06/30 Danielle 1

It’s the last day of June, the end of #BlogJune for this year. It’s been a challenge to keep up with a post every day, and we haven’t (as originally intended) managed to complete a farm or house task every day, but it’s been fun anyway. Today’s task has been using some of the kumquats I picked on the weekend, making most of them into candied kumquats, and some (along with some limes) into lime-and-kumquat-jelly (not marmalade, as I’ve sieved all but a few decorative strips of zest out of the jam, but basically lime marmalade flavoured – hopefully it […]

June 22: wattleseed pancakes

2016/06/22 Danielle 0

Of the many species of wattle native to Australia, several produce seeds which are suitable for use as human food. Edible wattleseed has rich nutty, chocolate and roasted coffee flavours, and is well suited to both sweet and savoury uses. Australian aboriginal peoples ground dried wattle seeds to form a flour, which was then baked into damper (traditional campfire bread). The green seeds of some wattle species were also eaten, cooked and consumed as a green vegetable like peas or fresh beans. Wattle seeds have also been used as food in some areas in West Africa, where the wattle […]

June 4: dehesa australis

2016/06/04 Danielle 0

Dehesa (in Spain) or montado (in Portugal) is a type of agroforestry practised across the Iberian Peninsula. Traditional dehesa is an oak woodland, mostly cork oak (Quercus suber) but also holm oak (Quercus ilex), with various shrubs and grasses – and sometimes crops – growing under the tree cover. In many areas livestock are grazed under the trees; cattle and sometimes sheep graze on the shrubs and grasses, and pigs are herded through to eat the fallen acorns. In an Australian context, a similar system of value-add agroforestry seems very plausible. The tree component could be any one of […]

June 2: Seed Planting

2016/06/02 Danielle 0

Winter is here. Cold nights (and cold days, too, at the moment!), rain and wet, black soil. Every night there’s the smell of woodsmoke from wood-burning heaters in the neighbourhood, and the deciduous trees are all in the last stages of losing their leaves. The sweetgums are glorious, red and purple and gold. Everything is settling in for a good winter’s hibernation. Perfect time to plant tree seeds. I’ve had some stone pine (Pinus pinea) seeds and cork oak (Quercus suber) acorns in the fridge for a couple’ve months, getting the chill they need to start germinating. They’re going […]

tree cover

2016/02/19 Danielle 0

Not every landscape “wants” to be a forest. Although forest gardens are a staple in the planning diets of many permaculture enthusiasts, there are (or were) lots of other complex, balanced ecosystems. For example, there are savannahs, based around perennial grasslands and large herds of grazing animals, as well as shrub and wetland ecosystems. Forest gardening is actually a slightly controversial topic in sustainability/ regenerative agriculture/permaculture circles because so many people simply pick it up as a default without looking at what works best for their location. It’s important, I think, to keep that in mind and to challenge your biases […]