renewable food

[solan]

I have 50 square metres of garden, about average for where I live, in London. It has to house water tanks, rotary airer, logs, bikes and a rocket stove type barbecue, and somewhere to sit to watch the goldfish in the pond.
After attending a transition town open day a couple of years ago I got a bit spooked about the food supply and the cold chain for keeping food fresh from field to house. There is no way I could grow conventional veg in traditional rows, apart from anything else it's in a lot of shade. Another thing transition towns tell you about is permaculture and agroforestry, so I started looking into that last year. The seeds I ordered are Good King Henry, lovage, chicory, marsh mallow, musk mallow, buck leaved sorrel. They are perennial veg that you just leave in the ground to grow themselves, no annual digging and weeding and watering and so on.
Similar ideas are currants and gooseberries that don't need sun to fruit prolifically, and vines that grow up into fruit trees, and things with deep roots to bring up nutrients to the surface, and things with ground covering leaves to keep the soil moist. legumes to nourish it, and other things. Itwill be a challenge to design for all this, especially if I go ahead and get the chickens too. Has any-one else tried any of this yet? If so, any tips would be very welcome.

[solan]

I had Polish sorrel soup in a local cafe today and it tasted so good I just have to tell every-one. When I got home I picked a leaf of it and it tastes loads better than lettuce or lime tree leaves or nasturtium leaves. It is lemony and lovely.

[cye]

Jun 11, 2011 11:45:37 GMT -5 solan said:

The seeds I ordered are Good King Henry, lovage, chicory, marsh mallow, musk mallow, buck leaved sorrel. They are perennial veg that you just leave in the ground to grow themselves, no annual digging and weeding and watering and so on.....
.. and vines that grow up into fruit trees, and things with deep roots to bring up nutrients to the surface, ...

Please tell me what good king henry, marsh mallow, etc are and how you would use them. i like the idea of maintenance free gardening. i've done nothing yet myself except experiment with 3 different types of apple trees, the only one of which has been a success is the james grieve. the kids are growing broad beans and we collect blackberries from the local nature reserve in september.

what i have discovered is that alpine strawberries have a will of their own, spread like wildfire, and would be an easy choice for guerilla gardening on the likes of roundabouts and lesser mowed public lands. these could then be foraged. the berries are so small it shouldn't attract the local greengrocer, but they are a powerfully good taste and well worth picking.

i'm also starting to find myself looking at trees in public spaces. like the business park i work in has hazelnuts which fall and lie wasted on the ground. we should be mapping these.

[solan]

you would like the plants for a future data base, PFAF, which tells you about the uses of thousands of plants, including non food uses such as soapwort for making soap, hazel for basket making and medicinal uses.
With Good King Henry you just leave it there and cook the leaves like spinach, and marshmallow roots can be toasted and eaten like sweets, and chicory roots and dandelion roots gently roasted and ground up as coffee substitute.
We harvested a lot of hazelnuts growing on street trees last year. This year one of my own little trees has started producing a small number of nuts already, and it's only 3 years old at the most.
I am interested in agroforestry where the plants form a system of their own and don't need human intervention to be productive. Permaculture is a similar idea as a substitute for conventional farming.
I am new to all this and am working on a garden design that will make use of these big ideas on my tiny little patch.

[cye]

do tell us more!

[caveman]

Any chance of a few pics?

[caveman]

I hope this is the correct place to post this....
Look up 'ageingoverlanders' in google. when you get to their website
click on 'Mercedes' and look at 'modern haybox'.

This lovley couple drive around the world in an old merc camper.
There are instructions given on how to make a modern haybox oven.
It seems like a very sensible way to do this sort of cooking. I am not sure how to use such an oven but I feel I will not be long finding out!