December at The Physic Garden Project

For the December edition, whilst all is quiet at the garden, I thought I would give you a little overview of the project so far in the form of a brief account of events and a photo diary.

I became a director of Stanmer Organics mid January 2010. I was in the middle of my training to become a Medical Herbalist and Naturopath and I wanted a practical application for my learning experience. This is when I took possession of this small parcel of chalky, mainly uncultivated, land and the Physic Garden Project came into being.

 

In the first year, we began by dividing up the abandoned tiny grapevines from the previous project between the member groups of Stanmer Organics, before the massive, and on going task of clearing the land of weeds commenced. We cleared carefully by hand, removing bindweed, dock, thistle, bramble and excess nettles and looking out for any naturally occurring herbs and wildflowers that were already growing on the site.

In the spring of 2011 I hired a 360’ digger and a driver from an adjacent project (‘Future roots’, yurt builders) and we set about re-landscaping part of the site, with the primary task being to fill in the approximately 12m by 4m deep pit at the southern boundary, which was the legacy of a former and abandoned project.

 

Once landscaped, the new area provided a great space for our first planting scheme. Due in part to the very thin soil and also in an attempt to establish one area of relative order on the site, we decided to make half of this this into an area of 17 raised beds, filled with a combination of our own chalky soil and an imported mix of organic compost, from our neighbour (Brighton Community Compost Centre) and the other half into a clover lawn, which is relatively flat and ideal for future workshops and classes.

At last we could start growing, and from seed we began the first little herb and vegetable garden.

Our summer open day 2011 was a remarkable success, with a merry band of enthusiasts signing up to our future volunteering, workshops and medicine making plans.

In January 2012 we began by relocating 6 little inherited heritage apple trees to the new orchard area and started digging our medicinal herb circular garden on the main, gently sloping, south facing bank.

The ground was very uneven and still covered with weeds and quite a lot of couch grass but slowly it began to take shape.

 

We are forging friendships with the neighbouring projects, who are all part of the umbrella organisation, Stanmer Organics and during the spring we took delivery of many an unwanted barrow of “weeds” dug up from their sites.  Everyone was becoming aware that the herbalist loved what they wanted rid of.

 

By spring the new garden was prepared and we took possession of our first medicinal herb to plant in the bed allocated to liver herbs, a lovely Milk thistle, donated by ‘Fork n digit” the community food growers down the track!

With organically certified seeds, donated plants from our certified organic site and with a jaunt across country to Jekka’s Herb Farm we began populating the garden with glorious medicinal plants.

We have also negotiated permission from the Soil Association to import some, non-certified organic plants when the organic alternative is not available on the national database, under what’s called a derogation order. This means that in 2 year’s time those plants will be naturalised organic too.

During the summer we also dug a pond in what was a natural dip in the land, which to our delight, has become alive with wildlife as it beds in to the landscape and we cleared an area of bramble to reveal the perfect camping spot complete with new fire pit (the dingly dell).