Tagasaste haul

 Yesterday I was lucky enough to be able to buy 5 tagasate plants from a roadside stall near us and today I went and got 10 more. These will provide so much in the food forest: fixing nitrogen, nectar for the bees, windbreaks and mulch for the soil. I also got 30 small tagasaste seedlings from near the railway station where every year they come up and when very small don't mind being transplanted. i potted them up to put in the windbreak hedge in the orchard when they are big enough. I also scored 3 huge hydrangeas which I love, a tray of strawberries to plant in the orchard, a nectarine and a redcurrant. I will plant them tomorrow or Sunday when the weather is a bit more benign. It rained all day today. But I did get some weeding done in the asparagus patch and put some sawdust on the paths in the mulch garden. I made some rhubarb compote and some Kombucha from a scoby I got from Linda yesterday. I also took cuttings of Cistus purpureus (Purple-flowered Rock Rose) and I want to take cuttings of lemon verbena, elder, lilac and feijoa to plant in the orchard as well. I put the violas and the alyssum in the garden in front of the kiwi fruit today and potted up some pansies to display near the back door

Tomorrow I want to sow some fennel, parsley and hollyhocks in front of the beehive and plant some comfrey and coriander in the bee garden.

The fruit trees that I had in the orchard that I want to replace are:

• william pear
• mulberry
• kingston black apple
• cox's orange pippin
• gala apple

I also want to plant 3 plum trees: mariposa, santa rosa and a greengage as well as a sloe plum (Prunis spinosa) in the hedgerow. I still have to find a valerian herb for the bee garden. I imagine I will have a cherry and a pomagranate and a persimmon which Lee told me about.

Persimmon