Notes from the Positive Potions Garden, no.1: Permaculture Power

Each week we will bring you notes from the Gardens at Bodorgan, which will be a condensed version of our Head Gardener, Joe Anderson’s weekly report. Joe has a fairly mind-bogglingly varied and monumental job, which encompasses everything from re-discovering ancient drainage systems to moving ten tonne fallen trees; from propagating thousands of seeds, to growing acres of delicious organic vegetables, creating mountains of super-charged organic compost, to harvesting pick-up truck loads of delicious, rejuvenating botanicals... 

Notes from the Garden, no.1: This week has been all about starting the chamomile nursery in the poly tunnel, and planting the yew hedge in the walled garden, in the willow border along the edges of the quadrant (a distance of around seven hundred feet). The  trees came from Hopes Grove nurseries in Kent and were four year old bare root trees. They were lifted on Monday, arrived late Tuesday and were planted on Samhain, the Celtic first day of winter and the first day of Diwali - in the pouring rain! We used roughly 40 tonnes of the best of last year’s compost, so the ground was quite soft and easy to dig.

Nikki spent Tuesday weeding and mulching all bare soil with tree leaves. She lifted the stevia and lemon verbena and potted them on to overwinter in the Vinery, then spent the afternoon taking chamomile cuttings and potting them on in the polytunnel. The picture above shows over a thousand cuttings - should make a good harvest next year (to go in ‘Love’).

Meanwhile I am on a mission this Autumn to create as much leafmold as I can - a weed free and attractive mulch which I will be able to spread on beds and borders in a couple of years time.