The Sanctuary Garden

This is a survey to know what should be grown in The Sanctuary Garden next year. We’re expanding and it’s important we don’t waste time, effort and money growing food you don’t want to eat.

Please fill in this survey, it’s anonymous, so please only fill it in if you’re in the Dunfermline are.

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Seeds specifically for winter have been purchased from realseeds.co.uk with money you have donated. The seed company encourage seed saving and offer hints and tips on how to do it. Their go-to seed-saving “bible” is Back Garden Seed Saving: Keeping Our Vegetable Heritage Alive. by Sue Stickland. A second hand copy is winging it’s way as I write…..

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The seeds purchased include some interesting cool weather lettuces and some oriental greens;Hhere are a few that sounded interesting:

Australian Yellow leaf – A very large open-headed lettuce, with bright, bright green-yellow leaves that are gently frilled. Good flavour and crunchy texture. Very decorative, and slow to bolt. It makes huge lettuces – you only need three or four to keep you in salads for ages.

Winter marvel – It is a traditional French variety chosen specifically for sowing in late summer and early autumn. It is quite hardy and will do very nicely in an unheated polytunnel or greenhouse, providing salads in winter and spring when they’re most appreciated.

“Komatsuna” Japanese Green – is an incredibly versatile green from Japan and Korea with leaves used as a cooking leaf like Kale or Chard, or used raw in salads. It is delicious, cold tolerant and easy to grow all year

Mizuna (and Red Mizuna) – One of the simplest oriental greens, and gives a very rapid return from a small space. An excellent salad crop, tolerant of both hot and cold weather – with a good texture and flavour.

Mibuna – A quick and ridiculously easily-grown salad for cooler weather. Big bunches of narrow oval leaves which you can just pick by the handful.  Productive and easy to grow, and also tasty cooked.

“70 Days Improved” Choy Sum This variety from China is chosen for its darker green leaves and flowering shoots that are great cooked or raw. The whole plant is edible – harvest flower shoots and leaves all in a bunch when it starts to flower

There are the usual British winter greens of Claytona, Purslane and lambs lettuce

Fava beans from the latin name “Vicia faba” are broad beans. Field beans are broad beans used by farmers to fix nitrogen and the tops used as a feedstock. The beans are smaller that “cultivated” broad beans but taste just the same. They are winter hardy so they’ve been included in the sowings.

At the beginning of August, I was interested to see how long it would take to kill grass under black plastic. This is established, long meadow grass. It takes about a month, and probably two for it to breakdown further.

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The grass is covered with plastic and cardboard ready for loads of compost, and if I can afford it, another poly tunnel.

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This month figures have been boosted by potatoes and plums. All organic and all delicious. It’s remarkable what can be grown in a relatively small space.

The potatoes are delicious, and they taste as good as they look; I’ve tried some to make sure.

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The organic workshop had to start with the basic understanding that living soils and plant health are critical to good vegetables. Not just pristine but healthy; not just from a plant view point and when considering diet, gut and mental health. They are linked together.

Doing research the most frightening thing is that without soil microbes, all life on this plant would cease to exist. Without microbes plants can’t survive and without plants, well, that’s kinda obvious; no rump steak, chips or beer. I’m making light of a catastrophe.

One way of increasing soil microbes is to lift them from an established area, like a deciduous wood, let them multiply and then store them in bottle. IMO (Indigenous Micro Organisms.) #1 and #2 is the start of the process.

Unfortunately I did not take a photo of the lovely bloom of IMO #1 that had collected. It’s mixed with equal weights of dark brown sugar and allowed to ferment for a couple of weeks, strained and it’s now IMO #2. This is a bottle filled with shelf stable micro organisms that can be added to a bed, foliar spray or compost.

OHN, Oriental Herbal Nutrient takes a little bit to time to make and is now part of the workshop. The process will be split between the two classes. This class hydrated Angelica root with beer, crushed garlic and mixed it with an equal weight of brown sugar. The next class will do the other amendments for OHN, ginger, liquorice root, cinnamon and turmeric if I can find any fresh.

The second beginners workshop covers seeds and planting up. This includes separating and potting on some live supermarket herbs, about a dozen bay trees planted from seed in a tiny pot and planting seedlings grown here into a rain gutter.

The compost mix is mushroom compost, with perlite for drainage and chicken manure pellets for fertility.

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It’s been drizzly for the day so helped with outside watering. Two handfuls of Magnesium sulphate (epsom salts) were added to the big tank so the plants always get magnesium, critical for photosynthesis. When you consider most folk put half a bag of bath salts into their bath, a handful or two is nothing in 1000 litres, 264 us Gal.

Mick kindly dropped off another load of chippings, and they are steaming away. I’m going to use them to make compost by mixing equal parts of bokashi ferment, bark, mushroom compost and fresh horse manure. Another experiment….

The two beginners workshops that ran on Saturday 10-11am and Wednesday 7-8pm, have now finished. Those slots are now open in the first week of August, replaced with a free Organic and Composting workshop. Please register by clicking this link. If you can’t register – drop me a note either by email, messenger or instagram.

The Workshop will take on two aspects of growing

1. Grow naturally, without buying synthetic chemicals and pesticides. Discuss improving soil life, making organic feeds and teas to improve fertility, helping to reduce pests damage and increase yields. Korean Natural farming backbone of the course along with other ideas and concepts I like to use.
2. Composting, in particular Bokashi composting, it’s a way of fermenting compost so it breaks down quickly. We’ll make activated bran and you can try this process at home.

The workshops will alternate every week, although there is a lot of cross over and synergy. This will allow some to ferment over a two week period.

At the end of the 6 – 8 week course you be more aware of how to improve soil, microbial life and make some simple plant feeds that don’t reek like a latrine. You’ll have made Bokashi compost from your kitchen waste and used it in the garden.

Everything will be provided on the workshop.

Here are a few things you can source so you can take things home to bring along.

1. A couple of buckets with lids that click on, would be ideal to try Bokashi composting at home. Start with a little 1kg yogurt bucket or ice cream tub and scale up when you get the hang of it.
2. Little bottles for amendments, feeds and anything else we make, you may take some home to try on your plants.
3. A note pad and pencil

The course is free; there is no little asterisk with notes at the bottom with a 12 month contract. Donations are welcome, and help to keep things going. I’m not drawing a salary, but do eat some of the veggies to check if they are as good as I expect them to be, and it’s immensely satisfying to complete the cycle of life.

The three aims of The Sanctuary Garden are

1. To provide an escape, a place to forget about everything else and just enjoy being outside

2. To share knowledge, build on ideas and demystify gardening by doing, showing and explaining why, the background and sometimes the science. I’m a geek.

3. Share produce grown, particularly with those who have food insecurity.

The Sanctuary Garden is organic, has raised beds, a poly tunnel and is aiming to be zero waste by reducing and reusing, particularly when it comes to plastic.

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What is covered?

Everything for the course is provided although A few have regretted not bringing a notepad. The backdrop of these workshops is low cost, organic and demystification by explaining rather than rote learning. Korean natural farming is introduced and discussed in all the workshops. Details from upcoming workshops are discussed if relevant. Most of the time, I over-plant, so have seedlings to give away.

Powerpoint and whiteboards are not used, rather a show, tell and in some cases actually doing. Each week you can see what’s happening in the Sanctuary Garden. If there is produce you can taste raw, you get the chance to do that too. Bring a coat or jumper just in case the wind picks up.

Tea and coffee is available, you can make it to your desired strength and sweetness. In workshop #4 we’re in the kitchen and you’ll get to taste and enjoy produce from the garden and if I can, we can compare it against shop bought.

The donations we get, are spent on big things like water pumps and truckloads of compost. Seeds and plants are often donated or they are in “stock”. Grant is not paid, he’s loves pulling things out of skips, picking up free second hand pots and tools. His time putting the courses together and teaching are gratis. Most of the produce grown is either eaten on site or donated to food banks. The plants and Korean natural farming ‘liquids’ you take home are free too.

To sign up, just click this link, you can easily unsubscribe.

Workshop #1.

We go through how not to kill a plant, what kills seedlings and seeds. Types of compost, how to use vermiculite and perlite, sowing seeds, how and when to water. Choosing pot sizes for seeds, seedlings and final sized pots. What are smart pots, root bound plants, how roots and stems grow, preventing lopsided plants, and feeding plants.

If the weather is good, it’s all done outside, it’s touchy feely, interactive and the reasons why are explained to help demystify growing plants. We touch on how to grow veggies without spending a fortune on tools, pots, compost and seeds.

Workshop #2

Is hands on, you get to transplant some seedlings, of various sizes into pots. The tools you don’t need to buy, root size, when to plant out or pot on seedlings. How to grow herbs from live supermarket herbs that usually die by their ‘sell by’ date. Show how to take cuttings, plant them and talk about successes and failures.

Workshop #3

This is the details of some of the things touched in earlier workshops. We how to choose veggies, where to plant them in a bed, squarefoot planting, living soil, soil amendments, easy composting, pest control, raised beds and weeding. Saving seed, cross pollination and F1 seeds are covered too.

Workshop #4

This is a tasting experience, showing how to make pesto, hummus, lemonade, cookies with mint from the garden and how to oven dry cherry tomatoes, amongst other things. My recipes are probably a little more relaxed than Jamie Olivers, I used words like ‘a skoosh’ ‘dollop’ ‘handful’ but in most cases you’ll see the raw ingredients.

Workshop #5

How to plan what to grow and when. How to keep track of what’s in the garden, what to harvest and put seeds into soil. Depending on time of year, will depend on what’s covered, but will be the basis of planting all year round. For those of you who are super organised, you can take these simple systems further, I’m not a fan of paperwork or keeping on top of it but this works for gardeners rather than book keepers. It doubles as a planting reminder, journal and reference.