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Graham Bell's Forest Garden Design
1. Graham Bell
How the forest garden is Designed to be
self-managing through habitat creation
2. Early Beginnings
1. A family of keen gardeners
2. New garden regularly with RAF
3. Lots of practical experience
4. From Yorkshire to Malta
5. Unmanaged productivity
“ I remember aged 7 being awarded a penny for
every dandelion I dug from the garden lawn ”
3. But ye cannae grow apricots in Scotland. Or can you?
Early Beginnings
4. The First Garden
1. 1979 London
2. Concrete and Compost
3. Japanese Flowering Cherry
4. Crab Apples
5. A climbing Rose
6. Neighbours called Bob
6. Permaculture
I found two books: The Findhorn Garden (the original
stunning black and white version not the new coloured one)
and
Permaculture One by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.
Just what I wanted!
7. Permaculture
We went on a weekend course on Permaculture
at a large House in West Wales- Glaneirw, an
intentional community which specialised in free
range cows and Aga’s.
What we learnt was
fire to the belly and
stays with me to this
day. Work with
nature. Abundance is
natural. Thanks to
Andy Langford and
Jolyon Fillingham.
“The significance of the cows didn’t strike us till we were driven from
bed at two in the morning by the overwhelming smell of cheese. “
Nancy eating the apricot…
8. Back to London
1. Stopped Spraying Aphids
2. Welcomed Lacewings
3. Said Hello to Ladybirds
4. Made a home for Snails
9. Garden Cottage
Take responsibility for your own life
Maximise output
Minimise was
Reconnect energy flows…
So you:
Reduce work
Care for people
Care for all living things
Permaculture is a
Design Principle
10. Meet Nico
Ruby had our first grandchild this month-
which is relevant because it gives you a
timescale on establishing low management
systems which are highly productive.
But you might also like to say hello to Nico.
11. Natural systems
The garden connection
comes because the first
thing we try to do is grow
food…
And produce our own fuel
And reduce the demands
we make on the planet
12. Natural systems
Remember all our crops were weeds once.
And try to understand the function of weeds in natural
systems.
No nettles no what?
“It is an unweeded garden that grows to seed.
Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.”
14. Natural systems
If there are no pollinators there are no apples?
So is the apple tree a plant or a system?
Where does the tree end and the system begin?
Is the bee therefore part of the apple tree?
These are apples grown in
our garden and preserved
by putting them in an apple
store. No chemicals. No
carbon dioxide. And are
they edible? In Scotland in
March?
15. Natural systems
This is an Organic pumpkin. A 96lb pumpkin.
As our ex-councillor Jock Law said to me in
1990
“Ah ye cannae grow pumpkins in Scotland”.
There are now sixty people in
Coldstream who grow pumpkins every
year and compete to see who can grow
the biggest.
And we couldn’t do that without
insects.
16. Natural systems
A predatory habitat. Who is
the worst predator in the
garden?
Yes my friends- You and me.
That’s what we made it for.
We can tolerate a few other
people to harvest it too.
I grew up in a family of keen gardeners. My father was in the RAF so that meant that every three years he got posted somewhere else so they started making a new garden. For the first fifteen years of my life that was mostly North Yorkshire. I remember aged 7 being awarded a penny for every dandelion I dug from the garden lawn. I was never charged for the cutlery fork I ruined doing this.In 1963 we moved to Malta and I became a Boy Scout. I remember going on a route march one hot summer’s afternoon and two local farmers hoeing in the fields who didn’t speak English noticing our plight, directed us to the hedgerows for refreshment. Wild prickly pears and apricots. Juicy and luscious. Unmanaged and productive.
In 1972 he retired from the RAF and they bought a smallholding in Cornwall. It was the year I went to University, but in my holidays I worked on the ten acre plot, fencing, weeding, planting (fairly poorly and ignorantly). But I did notice how hard the work was.
Well in 1979 I and my then wife succeeded (with great difficulty) in buying our first house in Lewisham in South London. 1 Abernethy Road SE13 (take note there’ll be a blue plaque there one day). And joy of joys a small garden. I still have the original deeds on my hall wall, hand written on vellum, so I’ve checked the plan. I’m able tell you from that that the garden was 16’ 4” wide by 60’ wide minus the dunny off the corner with a 30’ strip down by the offshot, in other words a hard standing outside the kitchen. Heaven. My first garden. The bottom bit was concreted. I expect it had been a greenhouse once. And there I built my first compost heap. I planted a Japanese flowering cherry and a crab apple (because I didn’t know any better) and a climbing rose by the larch lap fence adjoining the alley way alongside. First neighbour was Irish Bob, and second was Mad Bob. We had a small lawn to sit on in the summer and beds for plants.
In 1982 I did the three peaks yacht race. I was coming down off Ben Nevis when I had a phone call from my wife. We’d been burgled. When she was alone in the house. They broke in through the kitchen window and had the video away. I consulted the local beat bobby and he confirmed, you can’t beat a climbing rose. So it became a trained adornment to keep the next lot of buggers from crossing the boundary fence. And then the aphids arrived. So I sprayed them.
About this time the marriage broke up. I spent a weekend with a Green Party friend in Lincolnshire. She went out shortly after I arrived and left me with a demijohn of peapod wine and her bookshelf. And I found two books: The Findhorn Garden (the original stunning black and white version not the new coloured one) and Permaculture One by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. And I flit from one to the other for an eye opening couple of hours. The Findhorn Garden- this mind-blowing sequence of beautiful images, Eileen Caddy talking to the plant spirits, amazing cabbages. And Permaculture One- lollipop drawing of trees. Speculative ideas. But everything I’d ever dreamed of and cared about in one place. Low energy inputs, high energy outputs. Cycles of renewal and waste connected. People care, earth care, nature care. And I thought: this is achievable. I’m not Eileen Caddy. Beautiful as her vision is I needed an achievable route. But either way this is what I want.
I met Nancy. Political activism (a joint interest) turned to practical activism. We were fed up of talking about a better future. We wanted to do it.We went on a weekend course on Permaculture at a large House in West Wales- Glaneirw, an intentional community which specialised in free range cows and Aga’s. Yup there were dozens of them scattered round the place from collection awaiting refit. Well I’ve always appreciated multi-functional stoves. The kitchen was full of jars of crushed eggshells on high shells (well they had plenty of chickens). We had a fine panelled bedroom with a huge range of grilled cupboards. The significance of the cows didn’t strike us till we were driven from bed at two in the morning by the overwhelming smell of cheese. The cupboards were full of ripening Cheddar Cheeses! But what we learnt was fire to the belly and stays with me to this day. Work with nature. Abundance is natural. Thanks to Andy Langford and JolyonFillingham. We’ve taught many people since.
So we came back to London and I stopped spraying the aphids. What happened? Lacewings arrived and ladybirds and we didn’t have an aphid problem anymore. We stopped killing snails and put them on the compost heap and built a moat round it, so they could do their job of breaking down detritus. We could have produced a lot more from the garden than we did, but hey we were learning. We’re still learning today. OK just first steps. In 1988 we picked up our daughter Ruby (aged three months) our battered Marina Van and headed for the Scottish Borders, and we’ve been there ever since.
We’re talking here today about gardens. I am passionate about gardens and after writing the Permaculture Way I saw the light and wrote the Permaculture Garden. Stop fighting folk and join them. OK if you think Permaculture is about gardening, then let’s make that the easy way in to a much greater insight into how we can manage all of our lives in ways that are sustainable. Environmentally, socially and economically. “It is an unweeded garden that grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.” The source? Thank you. Who agrees?Well OK. But remember all our crops were weeds once. And try to understand the function of weeds in natural systems. No nettles no what?
If there are no pollinators there are no apples? So is the apple tree a plant or a system? Where does the tree end and the system begin? Is the bee therefore part of the apple tree? These are apples grown in our garden and preserved by putting them in an apple store. No chemicals. No carbon dioxide. And are they edible? In Scotland in March?
This is a pumpkin. A 96lb pumpkin. As our ex-councillor Jock Law said to me in 1990 “Ah ye cannae grow pumpkins in Scotland”. There are now sixty people in Coldstream who grow pumpkins every year and compete to see who can grow the biggest. And we couldn’t do that without insects.
If we stop trying to control nature and learn to work with it we will discover that there is a natural abundance on the planet earth which we are privileged to treasure and share with our neighbours. However many legs they have. I haven’t sprayed aphids in twenty five years- and that’s how long they haven’t been a problem. No aphids then no food for ladybirds, lacewings, bluetits.
You don’t have a slug problem you have a duck shortage. These guys (call ducks) are the answer, bonny and noisy and they don’t eat anything except grass a bit of grain and the wee beasties.
Last week we had some young eager visitors from Edinburgh. Where’s your wormery? Well you’re standing in it. How? The whole garden is a wormery. You don’t keep bees. No they’re free agents and we have masses of them. What we maintain is a habitat.
I can’t tell you how many species of insect there are in our garden, but I can tell you there are thirty six species of birds nesting here, piles of food, hours of peaceful reflective moments, and atmosphere to still the savage soul, a solace amongst the over managed manicured gardens of our neighbours and a haven for many different people, a lot of whom are bugs. At the end of the day if we took away all the people and all the sheep what would Scotland become- and how long would it take to do it?