(bright guitar music)
- Hello, and a very warm welcome back to the garden.
And it's very much Operation Tidy,
because we've had the first frost,
and that means things like these tender nasturtiums
are very much at the end,
and I'm getting ready for next season.
Now, for the last year,
I've been experimenting with something
called no rules gardening,
or intuitive gardening.
And it's been a really fascinating year,
and I've learned lots.
So thought in this video,
I'd do kind of a review of the previous growing season
that we're just finishing off right this moment,
and kind of tell you what I've learned.
And based off this,
what I would recommend
if you're interested in intuitive gardening.
(bright guitar music)
So I'm going to start with the most surprising lesson
that I learnt,
and this is a very personal one.
Now, I've always kind of shunned the idea
of growing flowers unless they were edible.
But this year I thought I'd push myself,
get a bit out of my comfort zone,
and I grew loads of cosmos this year,
all around the garden.
And I really enjoyed it.
It brought loads of colour.
And I was kind of amazed how easy and simple it is.
And from this,
I'm definitely going to utilize growing a lot more flowers
in and around the garden in future years,
and kind of take on a little bit more
of the potager style of growing.
The second lesson I learned
was the importance
of polyculture planting,
and the growing importance of that,
because, obviously, with no rules gardening,
I could try growing things in ways
that I wouldn't usually do,
for example, rows of beetroots,
and instead just grow them dotted around the garden.
And I learned a key lesson by accident doing this,
because, unfortunately, the beetroot rows in front of me
have been hit by voles,
and they've destroyed every single beetroot that was left.
We did manage harvest quite a bit,
but it's really sad to see.
However, where I've planted beetroot
kind of as an experiment,
where I have a hybrid bed
of annuals and perennial crops,
those beetroot there haven't been touched,
because there's lots of different crops around them.
It's a perfect polyculture,
and they're vole damage-free.
And the lesson that I've learned from that
is to really not try and put all of my eggs in one basket.
Not to grow one block of crops,
and instead of trying to space it around the garden.
So even if one gets hit by a pest,
the other ones, theoretically, should fine.
Here I'm just removing
this structure here.
This is District Nurse,
which is a heritage climbing bean.
And last night, just before the frost,
we've got a last harvest of all of these beans
for shelling and cooking,
which is really exciting.
And the third lesson that I learnt
from a year of intuitive gardening,
is that it's really improved my observation skills,
because I didn't have a plan to follow,
which forced me to look a lot more carefully
at the growing space.
And then they used the observations
to inform what I'd grow there,
or how I could best utilize that.
And I really enjoyed it.
And a year with this has given me loads of ideas
to start using in the next growing season.
I think the one that I'm most excited about
is being able to utilize a lot more wigwams
around the garden,
not just to add some structure,
but also a lot of visual interest.
The danger of having a year of intuitive gardening,
and no rules growing,
and not having a plan,
is that there's a likelihood
that you'll come across big challenges
and potential failures during the season,
which is something I've definitely experienced.
One that really stands out for me,
was that it's quite easy to run out of space
when you're just going for it.
And for me,
I was trying to garden in a intuitive way
without following a plan.
And what ended up happening was,
in July,
there was a period of around three weeks
where the garden was completely full,
completely chockablock with things.
And I was getting really creative in terms
of where to put out seedlings.
But I had loads of seedlings that were just
in the solar tunnel waiting to go out.
And when you were at that stage of the year,
time is really of the essence,
because, literally,
a matter of a week or days in between planting something
can mean you having a harvest
at the end of the season,
or not have having a harvest.
And I feel that,
had I transplanted these
two to three weeks before I actually did,
when they were actually meant to go out,
I might have able to have had a crop,
even if it was a small crop.
It could have done a few meals.
But, unfortunately, that didn't happen.
And that's going to be a key thing
that I need to bear in mind
as I'm approaching July,
is to also just make sure
that I do have some space available for succession crops
right at the end of the season,
Just before I go into the next lesson,
this video backs up and supports the article
that I wrote in the most recent edition
of the Permaculture Magazine.
And I really tried to go in depth and in detail
into the approach of intuitive gardening.
So if you want to find out more about
the Permaculture Magazine,
and see all of the inspiring projects
that it shares from around the world,
there'll be a link down below in the description.
One of the main things that I wanted to do
when it comes to no rules gardening
was to not use a planting plan,
because one of the main reasons
why we have a planting plan
is to make sure that we're following crop rotation.
I know there were other benefits of planting plans as well,
but the main reason why I didn't want to do one
was, A, to not worry about crop rotation,
going against the common kind of norms,
and also to just have a little bit more space
for intuitive growing.
And a huge part of that,
a real benefit that I found,
was that it opened up a huge degree of flexibility,
and it meant that I could make last minute decisions
kind of influenced actually by my observations.
And being able to be flexible,
and actually think,
no, I think the carrots should go over here
rather than the original spot that I had thought of,
means that you're far more able to adapt,
because there might be some kind of pest issue
in a certain area of your garden.
And then by just having that freedom,
it doesn't have a knock-on impact
on your planting plan,
because you don't have a planting plan.
Now, a really exciting lesson for me this year
was learning that I can actually fit more plants
in the same space.
Now, usually I would have just thought,
no, this bed is just for the beans and the kale,
but because I was trying,
mainly because of more observation,
I was trying to be a little bit more clever,
and not worry about crop rotation.
I would just put in other plants,
as and when,
and this turnip,
probably a little bit woody,
but I just put that in.
And we had a great row of turnips here,
which, usually, I wouldn't have thought to do.
Now, one of the favorite,
my favorite successes, actually,
was seeing that there was some space
after I had planted these runner beans,
there was space in between.
And I decided to grow some parsley,
and the parsleys absolutely loved it here.
I've been harvesting loads.
It's enjoyed the shade as well.
And that was just purely out of the fact of,
oh, I'll try something new.
You wouldn't usually go parsley and beans together,
but let's give it a go.
And that has been awesome.
And it actually links in with another lesson,
which has been that the joy of experimentation
is just absolutely incredible.
It's undeniable in a way.
And for me,
based on the amount of experimentation
I've done this season in the garden,
I'm gonna make sure that every single year
I'm gonna leave some space in the garden
to allow myself to just continue to do more experimentation.
And I think that links perfectly with intuitive gardening
and no rules,
because you see what could happen,
and then you can adapt that to influence
you trying out completely new different planting methods.
And it's so exciting.
I'm just here beginning to remove these tomato plants.
And they're a real sign of summer.
And one thing I definitely found was that
I kind of got distracted when it came to spring and summer,
because you've got all the energy,
all of the planting,
thinking about the summer crops,
and what happened was that it kind of distracted me a bit
away from winter vegetables.
And as a result,
this coming winter,
my winter veg game isn't as strong,
because it's really easy to forget about winter vegetables.
But the tricky thing about them is, often,
they take the longest to mature,
so you've really got to start them in March, April, and May
to reach the full effects.
And by June, July,
I was beginning to think to myself, ah,
have I caught myself out here?
And by then, it's often too late to think about
the hardy winter vegetables.
The ninth lesson that has really embedded
the way that I kind of approach or think about gardening,
is more of a mindset,
and it's become really apparent this growing season,
because before I used to only think about
how much food I could grow
from the garden,
how productive I could make the garden.
But for me now,
productivity also includes
the output or the yields of happiness and positivity,
and almost an escapism,
because, from a garden,
you're not just producing food,
you're not just creating habitat for nature and insects,
and all sorts of things,
you're also improving that mental health aspect
for yourself as a gardener,
and it's also a chance just to go out,
do something new,
just be in nature,
and not have to worry about what's been going on.
And by being able to not worry about rules,
and just,
almost playing it by feel when I've been growing,
that has really opened up the whole enjoyment side of it.
And that's a really important takeaway
that I wasn't expecting to get
when I first started this growing season.
The real question is,
will I do another growing season
using this method of no rules gardening
coupled with intuitive growing?
The short answer is no.
And the reason why,
is because I see positives in all types of gardening.
I see positives in having kind of that strict plan
where you can really make sure
that you've got the succession planning down to a T.
But I also see the positives in having open spaces
to be creative, and flexible,
and expressive through the seasons.
So I'm going to follow a hybrid style from now on.
Part of the garden is going to be well-planned.
The other part of the garden is going to be open
and free for interpretation throughout the season.
And I think the final paragraph of my article
in the Permaculture Magazine probably sums this up,
because we all are individual,
and we'll have our own needs and interests
when it comes to how to approach gardening.
So there was no real right or wrong
when it comes to growing food.
Granted, there are a few rules that nature follows,
but everything else is up to us gardeners
to do as we please
Use the methods you enjoy,
grow what you love,
and always have time to experiment.
That's the mantra I have settled with this year,
and I won't be looking back.