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- My name's Rosa and this is James
and we're at Tap o' Noth Farm in rural Aberdeenshire.
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- Tap o' North Farm is an eight acre
permaculture designed small farm.
We run a small ecologically designed market garden
producing vegetables for a weekly veg box scheme.
We are registered as a CSA,
community supported agriculture scheme.
We've been focusing a lot on agri forestry systems
for wood fuel
and the biodiversity that trees bring to a site.
Most recently we've set up a new enterprise
called Tap Retreat which is an off grid shepherd's hut
where we're hoping to welcome people to come
and stay on the farm, create their own retreat,
and get to see what it's like living
and working on a small permaculture farm.
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So in the market garden we have a few rows of trees
which we refer to as the forest garden tree rows
or linear forest gardens.
And it was important for me with regards to design
in the early days of the market garden
to make sure that we had that injection of perennials
throughout the annual system.
For dividing up the plots we knew obviously it would bring,
it would act as wildlife corridors throughout the garden.
Real areas for the biodiversity and animal populations.
We wanted to have fruit available for our CSA veg boxes.
The annual vegetables always take up a lot of time
no matter how clever we can be with our planting techniques
or you know reducing weeding through no dig.
Annual vegetable production is a lot of work.
And, and we wanted to put some systems into place
in that garden that over time will manage themselves
to an extent.
Another positive aspect of integrating trees into
the annual market garden was to create
a beneficial micro climate.
We've got some very strong winds.
We're, we're on a sloping site here,
270 meters above sea level on the, on the side of a hill.
So it was very important to be able to put some wind
breaks place because we know the vegetables
need that wind protection.
We know that the fruit trees themselves
needed wind protection.
So any wind breaks that we put in were there not only to,
to break the wind, but also to be a yield in itself.
So we were putting hardy fruiting species in as hedges.
So we were, we've been planting crab apples
and dams and sea buckthorn roses.
That means that we're getting, yeah many,
many functions from that one hedge.
So far we've been mostly focusing on
fruiting perennial shrubs
and trees within the market garden.
But I think there's definitely scope
for looking into perennial veg.
- With perennial vegetables they have a very,
there's quite a nice compliment
if you've got a combination between annual and perennial.
You know, there's obviously the perennial vegetables
will have their, obviously their own needs and things
but it potentially for example in a,
in a difficult season, you know your perennial vegetables
are much more likely to be able to hold up against that
than your annual ones that you're really just starting
off every year.
So you've got this kind of sometimes a bit of a security
that comes from having a combination of perennial trees and,
and perennial vegetable crops as well as your annuals.
It can be like a backup for both of them to help each other
in that way.
When things aren't necessarily going so right
within like the annual garden it's very comforting to see
these things still super lush and yeah,
looking after themselves in a way,
and just producing without you breaking your back to do it.
So it can sometimes feel like this lovely,
I guess reminder just of that really
and just that there is still food coming out the garden.
- And we've certainly had that this year,
this has been a very difficult year for many growers,
gardeners, farmers around the country.
2021 has been a challenging year.
And even for the fruit trees, you know looking at them,
there's, there's not as many apples or plums on the trees,
but they are still growing strong.
- We would really like to think about even now,
now we've got these quite well established tree rows
although we've got new ones that we're wanting to
establish as well, really bordering all of the plots
in the market garden.
We also do want to bring into some of the plots themselves
some perennial vegetable beds as well.
Just again with the thinking of that complement between
the needs of both types of growing.
So yeah, we're excited about that like next stage
and seeing how that might integrate with a CSA box as well.
- I think from a ecological design point of view
the concept of succession and an evolving system,
it's something that we're always trying to think about here
when planning our design.
In 2016 yes we were building a market garden that was
focusing heavily on annual production of vegetables,
but we always had this idea in the back of our minds
that that might not always be the case.
That one day this field that we've made raised beds in
and brought in compost and is now a brilliant sun trap
and you know protected by the wind
and perfect for growing annuals.
One day we might like to transition
to a more perennial based system.
And of course we are on the way to that.
And you've, you've got to have that idea in your head
years back when you, you get a piece of land and, and look,
look at nature as a model
and see how a field will turn into a forest in our climate
certainly given time and given the right climate.
And that's how we've been designing this place
is that we are looking, currently we have a market garden
but by putting in those rows of perennials
we know that if we want to
we can fill in the vegetable plots with more perennials
if we want to accelerate succession
and speed up the process to a forest based agriculture.
It's a great feeling when we get people who come on a tour
especially if they've maybe got their own projects.
Whether that's a bit of a pipe dream,
whether they've actually got themselves a bit of land.
What's really great is, is giving them some examples
and the inspiration to, to go back to their own projects.
Yeah, whether that's a back garden or a craft or large farm
and take something away from what we've been doing here,
our mistakes.
- Yeah, I was gonna say the learning from our mistakes
'cause we try loads of different things
and some don't go so well but that's really valuable to try
and pass that on just as much as the stuff
that does go well, you know.
So that's been really nice and that's been,
that's been something that's in recent,
like the past couple years there do seem to be more
and more quite local people cropping up,
you know that suddenly have found us.
And, and it seems to, it's very nice to realize that I think
we've inspired them to make a little bit of a new direction
and try out a new way of living.
There was a couple that found us just earlier this year
and they ended up coming on a tour
and they really had just discovered us almost by accident
but that took them on a journey.
They went from reasonably unassociated jobs as it was
to actually deciding to start a market garden
and trying to learn a bit more about living off the land.
And it was just lovely to see the kind of joy in this
like discovery of something
and just suddenly all these little fireworks going off
in their head as they walked around
and saw this way of living that with their young family
and things that they really saw as
a kind of potential way of life.
- We want to be part of the permaculture movement
in the UK.
That's something that we're very passionate about.
And so it's, it's nice to be part of the solution.
- Recently as people just saying like oh I've just felt now
I have that confidence to take that step
because we've had a chat about something
or they've come here and seen that.
You know certain things that they might have not felt
too confident to really like jump into
seem a little bit more possible
which is just all you can ask for to to like trying to start
like push people a little bit.
And then yeah, they start that journey.
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