I struggled with my Polyculture Garden again last year.
While I have been able to grow a fair amount of food in this garden, and parts of it were
quite successful, overall it could have been a lot better, and much more productive.
The focus on mixing plants in together rather than separating them into different rows or
beds, is a fascinating one, and definitely appeals to a more natural ethos, rather than
the more controlled and structured approach of the other gardens.
There are a lot of possible benefits of this more complex interaction between the plants,
including better soil ecosystems, a reduction in pest damage, and the possibility of higher
yields. Although I've continued to evolve how I practice
this particular gardening method over the years, I have struggled to get it to work
as well as I think it should. And looking back at last season, I realised
that I've taken this garden in the wrong direction and it's time for a new approach.
The main problems with this Polyculture Garden last year were for the most part my fault,
which is often the case. I didn’t put in the time that was necessary to adequately
manage this garden, especially with thinning the broadcast sown beds.
I also didn’t improve the soil enough with compost and other forms of fertility, which
was compounded by my failure to thin out the plants enough, as it left more plants competing
for scarce resources in the soil. There were also a number of other issues that
developed, many of them partially because I didn’t do tasks when they needed to be
done. While all of this is much more my responsibility
than a flaw of the gardening method, this Polyculture Garden seems less resilient as
it naturally requires a lot more work and attention on a much more regular basis.
This extra work should be worth it, as in theory this garden could be a lot more productive
than the other gardens. But I've found it to be a steep learning curve
to achieve that result, as there is very little knowledge or instruction about polyculture
gardening methods out there, especially for this climate.
In the past few years I've decided to simplify things a bit, in order to get a better handle
on issues relating to the compatibility of different types of vegetables growing in the
same bed of the garden. I haven't been focusing so much on the widely
available companion planting guidelines, as I don’t really trust them anymore, especially
since I realised that the onions were not helping to keep the carrot fly away.
For now I’m more concerned about competition, speed of growth, timing, density, how one
season flows into the next, and how well different plants fit together physically.
When broadcast sowing a mix of seeds, the faster germinating and growing plants tend
to overwhelm and stunt the slower growing types in the mix, and can require much more
aggressive thinning and harvesting. This was the main reason that I stopped sowing brassica
greens in with the slower germinating beetroot, chard and lettuce plants.
Transplanting or sowing new plants in beside older, more established plants typically doesn’t
go very well unless I clear quite a big space, both above ground and below ground, in order
to give the newer plants a better chance. And getting the density of planting right
is also a lot more difficult in a polyculture bed than with conventional rows or beds of
single crops. For example, I still haven’t figured out
how many carrot and parsnip seedlings to allow to grow in between the onion and garlic plants,
and this is even more difficult to judge with the random spacing of these broadcast sown
seeds. It can be easier when different crops are
growing in the garden for approximately the same amount of time, but when different crops
mature over different parts of the season, this increases the complexity.
I need to be mindful of when crops might be available for harvesting, so that adjacent
crops will be able to grow into the space as it opens up, and also when they can be
replaced with next season’s crops. This is especially the case with overwintering
vegetables such as leek and kale, as they can still be quite productive well into the
spring, after early season crops need to get into the ground.
Another issue of compatibility is that a number of crops really benefit from some form of
barrier or protection from pests and weather conditions in this ecosystem and climate,
but that can be more difficult if they share a bed with other plants.
For example, the mesh that I use to keep carrot root fly away from the carrots, can damage
the tall leaves of the onion and garlic plants that they grow with, unless the mesh is supported
on a frame high enough to keep it above these plants.
And removing this insect barrier while harvesting and tending to the other crops in the bed,
increases the chance that the carrot fly will get into the crop, as it did last year.
One of the reasons for clumping all of the brassica family plants into one bed was that
I could cover them with a similar mesh to protect the young plants from the tiny flee
beetle. Splitting up this family of crops would require even more of the garden to be
covered in the spring and early summer. And in order to protect the young potato plants
from cold weather and frost in the spring, I typically cover the rows with a fleece,
but this has caused damage to the more established broad bean plants that they are intercropped
with. I've also had an issue with the runner beans
plants needing this initial protection removed so that a pole could be added for them to
start to climb, but the squash that they shared the bed with really needed longer protection
from the unseasonably cold winds that we had last year.
Some of this can be sorted out with better timing of sowings and plantings, but this
can add additional workload and constraints, and this is made worse if the weather is cooler than expected.
Unfortunately, simplifying things in order to get a better handle on these diverse issues
of compatibility, has made this garden a lot less polyculture.
As a result I haven’t necessarily been getting the potential benefits of this integrated
planting approach, and at the same time it's not simple enough to make it easy to manage,
which leaves this garden in a problematic space between the two.
Some parts of the garden are getting there, including the bed growing a mix of onions,
garlic, carrot and parsnip. But the bed dedicated to potato and broad
beans is essentially an intercrop, and the bed for squash and runner beans is another
more simplified pairing. Given that beetroot and chard are so closely
related, the bed that these crops share with lettuce is also essentially a pairing of two
species, even if I have been broadcast sowing a range of different varieties of each one.
Last year I experimented with growing the spring crops of fast growing root brassicas,
such as turnip and kohlrabi, in a bed that was shared with courgettes and peas, and this
showed potential, if I can sort out issues of timing, spacing and fertility.
But all of the rest of the brassica family plants were confined to one bed, including
the fast growing spring greens and the larger and longer growing cabbages, kales and Brussels
sprouts. Despite this diversity of different varieties
of vegetables in this bed, they are all very closely related, and this is much closer to
mono-cropping than it is to polycropping. I've maintained this segregation in order
to conform to a crop rotation plan, where brassicas family plants aren’t planted in
the same bed for a number of years. But this has been one of the main impediments
to developing a more effective polyculture approach with this garden, and that needs to change.
I think I have been approaching this garden in the wrong way, at a fairly fundamental
level, and it's time for a change this year. As part if this I am starting to experiment
some more, including trying several different planting approaches for integrating crops
into some of the beds. Part of a bed will be still based on the random
nature of the broadcast sowing which I’ve done in the last few years, but this time
trying to manage the thinning much more effectively. Another part of the bed will be based on small
clusters of plants, for example I will sow many small patches of carrots among clusters
of onions, garlic and parsnip. Hopefully this will make thinning and harvesting
a lot easier and less damaging, as well as managing the competition between the plants.
A third section will be planted with alternating short rows, with rows of carrots sown between
rows of onions, parsnip and other compatible plants.
This would be the most controlled part of the exploration, where plant densities and
thinnings can be more accurate, and better evaluated.
In addition to these trials, I plan to abandon the crop rotation isolation of most of the
brassicas plants into one bed, and to spread out this diverse family of plants across the
other beds. Figuring out what goes where is the new challenge,
as I need to be aware of the likely competition from the larger and more vigorous plants,
such as the kales and Brussels sprouts, as well as matching the seasons and timings of
the plants, especially with the overwintering ones.
I am concerned about the possibility of a buildup of pests and diseases in the soil,
and it will be more difficult to managing other pests such as caterpillars and flee
beetles. But a really positive aspect of this change
is that I will be able to grow more of these very useful crops, rather than being limited
to what I can fit into the one bed.
These changes are part of my efforts to figure out how to make this polyculture method work
best in my context, which includes my own personality and work habits.
This garden naturally requires more attention than the other gardens, and is probably more
suited as a gardening method right outside my back door where it can get daily attention.
With the new explorations that I'm trying this year, there will be even more work, but
I do have a friend helping me out this season, so I expect we'll be able to keep on top of
things. I've also come to realise that the methods
that I use to plan, organise and keep track the other family scale gardens are possibly
incompatibility with this polyculture approach. Although there are still issues of spacing,
compatibility and timing with the other gardens, each crop is seen as a separate entity, like
a piece of a puzzle that needs to fit in amongst the other pieces in order to get the most
out of the garden. These methods of planning are definitely useful
for managing the other gardens, but are perhaps less suitable for managing the more complex
interactions between all the different plants in the Polyculture Garden.
I am still very fascinated with this overall approach, even though I haven't been overly
successful with it yet. Perhaps this polyculture approach doesn’t
really fit my personality, or way of thinking, and I imagine that other people may find it
a much more suitable fit. I still believe that this garden could produce
the highest yield with significant additional benefits.
But It's definitely the most complex and personal, with a lot more random chance as part of the
process. I really like that this garden offers a chance
to do things in a very different way, as this greatly increases the opportunities for exploring and learning.