Bridget

Archive for June 24th, 2011|Daily archive page

A Sunny Summer Morning in Arigna.

In Animals, arigna, Gardening, permaculture, sustainable living on June 24, 2011 at 8:37 am

The Forest Garden area is coming on nicely, plants are filling out and more are being planted all the time. Everything here is perennial, a mixture of herbs, fruit bushes and flowers. Comfrey is interplanted throughout, chopped and dropped around the base of the plants to provide fertility. Rushes strimmed from the fields provide the mulching material, eventually rotting down to build up the topsoil. Permaculture techniques at work. 

This little pond at the bottom of the polytunnel provides a paddling pool for the many frogs that have made their home in this microclimate. They in turn pay for their keep by gobbling up any slugs and other pests that invade their area. Nature working without any human interference.

I recently bought some plants for this pond as it tended to have a lot of algae. Now that they are becoming established the algae problem has disappeared. The little water Forget -me-not has just started flowering, pretty little thing. There’s also Water Lettuce(bottom left), Water Violet(bottom right) and a Flowering Rush beside the Forget-me-not.

Outside the back door Buddha keeps watch over this little pot of Sedum and Sempervivum slips. These plants grow easily from even the smallest piece.

In the field the animals relish the abundant Summer pasture.

And a curious Donkey comes to check out the camera or maybe see if I have any tasty morsel for her.