Japanese wineberries
In this edition of my Forest Garden Friday round-up I thought I would catch-up with what Alys has been doing in her forest garden on gardener’s world. It first came to light that Alys was creating a forest garden in a back garden-sized plot in episode 5, first broadcast on 2nd April. Alys looked at how forest gardens are multi-layered systems that mimic the natural way a forest grows, but are filled with productive plants. And she planted her first one – a Japanese wineberry, which not only produces delicious fruit and copes with partial shade, but adds winter interest to the garden as well with its red stems.
My Japanese wineberry is still quite young, but I have already propagated (by layering) two offspring, who have gone off to new homes this year. I have a third new plant that I will find a home for here. You treat wineberries like summer fruiting raspberries for pruning.
In episode 6 (from 9th April, about 20 mins in) Alys shows how a forest garden, once established, is a self-sustaining system. The undisturbed soil is home to microorganisms that can move nutrients between plants. Nutrients are made available by nitrogen fixing plants such as the autumn olive (Eleagnus umbellata), which also produces fruit for jam and ‘dynamic accumulators’ such as comfrey and sorrel (which is a good early salad plant if you like the lemony flavour).
Both of these episodes will be available on the iPlayer (unfortunately only to those in the UK) until 10th July. So far those seem to be the only segments on Alys’ new forest garden, but she’s managed to cover quite a lot of the basic principles very quickly (including using plants with more than one use). Personally I’d like to see a lot more, but Gardeners’ World is frequently a disappointment.