Edel Project - Sussex Mark

 

There are areas of the country that are reporting chem-trails which we know now to be the spraying of sodium iodide into the clouds, or at least that is one method being used to manipulate the weather. The sky was filled with these at the Midsummer Camp on the Saturday, and it rained heavily with a thunder-storm on the Sunday morning before we packed in. 

My point in bringing this up is that it is no longer feasible to think in terms of 'traditional' ways of growing in harmony with the seasons of Nature - these are being disrupted by the Forces of Chaos. For decades now the seasons have been disrupted, but now we face an even greater challenge. And we have to face this and try to find methods of growing that are suited to the swift weather-changes we face now. I am all for trying to grow in the methods used for centuries, which are tried and trusted methods, but this may not be feasible soon. This is a challenge that the Edel-Project can rise to if we work together to get around the growing problems we face (sorry about the pun!). 

I have just eaten a stew made from the vegetables from the garden - peas, broad beans, carrots, onion, potatoes, and kale. The main crop of peas has been frozen, as have the broad beans, the onions are not ready to fall over and dry as yet but I pick a few as they are to use now. Carrots have done much better this year, and the potatoes, even with blight in this bed, are fine; not a great crop but enough for me. The potatoes I lift and freeze by either blanching (chips) or cooking (mash/new potatoes). I am still finishing off mash frozen last year, so the new crop will replace this for another year - mash is the easiest to freeze. 

The above shows the garlic planted last autumn which is now beginning to die off at the tops; they will soon be ready to harvest the bulbs. These are best planted in autumn to over-winter because they get much more hardy that way.

I have just weeded the area between the raised beds; an onion plot can be seen to the left, and the potato-bed that had blight to the right, which I have cleared of the tops. The old cool-box is used to grow in, planted early it is well insulated.

A row of raspberry bushes which are doing really well this year; have not done so for two years but there is plenty of fruit coming on for the birds. These are really nest grown in an area that is netted, which I may well do one day.

I grew broad beans in three different areas of the garden, and this crop at the bottom of the garden was the only one that was affected by black-fly. Now, there is probably a good reason for this, since any gardener who uses a garden and an allotment knows that growing on an allotment always has more pest-problems than growing in the garden. Since the bottom of the garden is overgrown this seems to be the reason why this problem cropped up. But the beans are alright and these went into the stew today. (Spraying with soapy water can help to get rid of black-fly, but this must be caught early; the tops are usually affected first so cut these off.) 

These are the apples growing on one of the trees at the bottom of the garden; they are actually only about 1 1/2 inches but look larger. They are already ripening in the Sun. I have had the apple trees for about 8 years, and for the last 4 years the large one has produced tons of apples - I have to cook and freeze a lot of them because they will not keep long. One day I may get some form of fruit-dryer as an alternative, but this is yet to come. 

The tomatoes I grew from seed in seed-trays did not do well at all, but my neighbours gave me some plants and these are doing well. After they did so, of course, I found the garden covered in 'renegades' from last year's crops, and these now are doing just as well. These are grown inside the poly-tunnel, and I have others growing in a mini-greenhouse. 

This is a crop of 'renegade' tomatoes plants which I put in a large cold-frame which produces a great crop of peas which have been lifted and frozen. These are small tomato-plants that are scattered around, and would only go to waste. 

On the other side of the poly-tunnel are cucumbers, some of my own and some given by the neighbours (I do a swap with them on such things). 

These are three tubs/pots of mint - Garden Mint, Spear-Mint and Peppermint, all growing together in one area. I lift the roots in the late winter/early spring and repot them, at the same time using what is over to create new plants. This regenerates them every years and gets a much better and healthy growth. I make the usual tea and put a sprig of mint in the tea, usually peppermint. Mint is also great in cooking new potatoes. It can also be seeped in hot water and inhaled to help colds and flu. 

Runner beans which are now flowering, bright red and white flowers which is different. I am not so keen on runner beans, unless picked very small otherwise they are 'stringy' - even the 'stringless' ones! But usually end up picking them when they are larger and either suffering eating them or throwing them away! 

This is the second-growth of a pot of comfrey, the original plants given to me by Scyld. I keep them in a tub since they tend to spread easily and overcome the area where they are planted - like mint. 

This is a courgette grown in a tub; the leaves have gone yellow and are withering, most likely a sign of nitrogen deficiency, since this nutrient is needed for green growth mainly. This is likely due to growing in the tub without using a fertiliser (which I have not done this year), since the other plants I have are fine. I threw this one away since I have many other plants. 

This is another courgette plant which has small fruits which can just be seen; I have around 8 plants which is too much really, but they did so well from seed that I grew more on. 

Some years ago I bought a McCulloch Shredder from a chap next door to one of the gardens I maintain in Eastbourne. I have only used it a couple of times to shred up waste from cutting back a plum-tree in the garden. I dug it out of the shed where it has lain waste for about 2 years and I'm going to use it to shred the garden waste after harvesting certain crops. This should shred sweetcorn easily, and hopefully other plants too, as well as when I have to prune the fruit trees in the winter. The waste can then be either -

• Composted.
• By digging away the top 6 inches of soil in a raised bed, the shredding can be laid down and the soil returned to the top of the bed. (*)

(*) This is actually a good way to start a raised bed, since putting waste down first saves in buying lots of soil. Start with larger logs of wood and work down to smaller, and then shredding, then grass-cuttings etc. These will all rot down in the bed and produce nutrients for years. (It is called something like 'Hugelkultur' now, but that is a new fancy name for something that has been done for a long time.)

Note: I do a lot of grass cutting, and always bring the cuttings back home with me because they are most useful for many things. When they are bagged up you can feel the intense heat given off as they start to rot down, and this can be useful when planting in early spring. Take the top 4 inches of soil from the bed, and place new grass-cuttings in the bed; then replace the soil which heats up from underneath and warms the cold soil. For trays of seedlings take 2-3 inches of soil off the top of the bed and then replace the soil; put the seed-trays on the soil which acts as an 'underfloor' heating - one of the best ways to heat since the hot air rises, which the Romans did 2000 years ago. 

Lastly, this year I tried the idea of using sticks with copper coiled around them, and I have to admit that the crops this year were better. Now, it could never be proven that this was what caused this increase, since there are many other factors involved. What makes me feel there may be something in it is that I usually use chicken-pellets or blood, fish and bone when I plant the seedlings into the ground, but this year I have used nothing at all. During the coming winter I am going to try to go one stage further by cutting lengths of sticks and carving the ends with an Eohls-Rune at the top (Antennae), and the Calc-Rune at the bottom (Roots). An Ing-Rune could be carved/burnt in the centre of these two, since Ingwe is the 'rising of the sap' in the Spring. This sequence of runes is such that the sticks would be the same whichever way up they are used. The copper coil should thus be made to go from one end to the other, linking both of the outer runes together.