Hello!
Delighted to be back! And nice to get January out of the way - here is the next Huw’s Garden Diaries for you and some extra updates - plus we have an exciting job opportunity.
An aerial overview (taken 1st Feb)
Below is an image showcasing the key projects happening at the moment on site, primarily expansion up the hill! Red circles indicate the sites of the future ponds, and once in I will create an overhead diagram to show their uses and sources of water:
The letters are a key to help show what is going on and where more clearly:
A - Planting up of mother stock for Dyfi Plants nursery - primarily soft fruit in this area.
B - Bulking up the linear food forest with additional perennials such as shrubs, roses, comfrey and soft fruit.
C - The start of our hand dug syntropic inspired rows on-contour, with a 12m spacing moving up the hill. To be planted with pioneer trees, alongside food crops underneath. More on this soon!
D - Our key shelterbelt to protect the site from the easterly winds which we are vulnerable to.
E - Pad ready for First Tunnels to come tomorrow and begin the polytunnel assembly.
F - Multi-bay shed at base of parking area for storage, wood has arrived, work starts this week.
And of course all of those additional shelter belts to plant!
Garden designer or landscaper?
For those of you who have a profession that requires site surveys etc for designing and planning, then there is a pretty cool tool which I use for things like layout out the polytunnel pad and working out contours etc! I am an ambassador for Moasure which is a measuring technology that uses motion sensors, allowing you to measure & draw at the same time.
Their flagship product 'Moasure 2 PRO’ is my go-to tool that allows me to measure spaces out for my garden with real ease and efficiency, and you know I'm all about efficiency! Particularly not needing to worry about tape measures. The image below was from a couple of weeks back using the trace function to measure how many trees I needed to order for my shelterbelt areas. What is great about this for outdoor work is that all you need is a phone and a Bluetooth connection to use it - no phone signal needed.
I worked with Moasure throughout 2024, and I'm really excited for our 2025 plans together. If you are interested in finding out more about Moasure, head to Moasure and I also have a special discount code for you to use which is X8HUW at checkout.
The Kitchen Garden (2 years of no external compost)
After leaving the kitchen garden alone for much of winter, I have started to prepare my beds for another productive system by amending with some compost and then mulching over with leaves and other materials. It is the second season I haven’t needed to buy in any compost for my growing areas, and if you want some tips on how to reduce dependence on compost then watch my latest YouTube video about 9 lessons from 2 years of compost self-sufficiency - I really hope it helps!
Opportunity: We are hiring for a Dyfi Plants Nursery Manager
Many of you here on Substack know that we (Sam, me, and the team) are creating a plant nursery at Dan Yr Onnen near Aberystwyth, Wales. Our focus is useful and unusual plants for resilient edible landscapes, and will be a hybrid of in-person sales and mail order to mainland UK.
Our primary goal is to provide a wide range of high-quality affordable perennial plants that can be used for allotments, homesteads, and community growing projects. Community growing is incredibly important to us, and for every 10 plants we sell, we will donate a plant to a community garden/project.
If this sounds like something you would be interested in, or know of someone who might be, then you can see the full job listing here.
I hope you are having a fantastic weekend! I will be announcing the next run of livestreams next weekend, along with the return of the weekly ‘what to sow’ list!
Ciao for now, Huw
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