All photos © Emma Cooper, except © Slavcic/Shutterstock & Rainbow Quinoa © Reel Seeds mY KitCHEn Emma Cooper describes the summertime flourishings of her prolific urban patch.

rom a perspective, health benefits. Being outside, being In a good year, one or two courgette there’s really no such thing as a surrounded by nature and getting your can feed a family for weeks on F purely ornamental . Perhaps hands dirty all promote physical and end – endlessly producing until no one it has a wildlife value – attracting mental health. can face another and the excess is beneficial insects by providing And ornamental plants can provide distributed to friends and neighbours. or shelter – or repelling pests. Dense or resources for our hobbies – everything Having experienced this bounty in thorny plants may be acting as a barrier, from photography or botanical art previous years, I have limited myself and plants also create microclimates, to pressing flowers, papermaking to two plants. One is the world’s ugliest windbreaks and shade. Their roots and dyeing. courgette, Rugosa Friulana, and grows anchor soil and help with drainage; ridiculously warty fruits that would a garden slows the flow of rain water EDiBLE ExpAnSiOn never make it onto a supermarket shelf. into drains and helps to prevent flood- But for the last few years I have been The other, Tromba d’Albenga, grows ing, whereas hard landscaping does creating a productive garden, where just the opposite. almost all of the plants have obvious Above: – usually edible – benefits. I started with The modest urban OrnAmEntALS nothing but heavy clay soil, bindweed backgarden which ornamental plants may give and a serious bramble problem. Now Emma has trans- us material for mulching or twiggy I have raised beds, a , a formed into a very sticks for plant supports. Green plant chicken run and plenty of plants grow- productive area. waste adds material to the ing in containers. heap, and fallen leaves can be used for In summer, every Right: leaf mould. Tending a garden brings is over-stuffed with luscious edibles. Emma Cooper www.permaculture.co.uk No. 61 Permaculture Magazine 3 long squash shaped like trombones. You , the tomatoes were tastier. can let them mature into winter squash, It was probably the shade the tom- but when picked young they’re firm atoes cast that stopped the kiwanos and tasty, with a tendency to snap in from fruiting. The African Horned half if you don’t handle them gently. Melon, or jelly melon, is a rather scary Both plants are living on borrowed -type fruit with fleshy horns. time now. Soon they’ll be pulled up to The plants are vigorous, climbing things make way for garlic and Japanese over- that don’t look at all intimidating – but wintering . Inside the greenhouse, have to be handled with gloves because a small army of pepper plants has a bit they’re covered in sharp hairs. I’ll try longer to live. They’re about to come into growing them again, but there was no their own, developing a riot of different space this year. colours as the fruits ripen. I love pepper This year’s experiments are outside plants, but they need shelter from the in the garden, and both originate in South weather if they are to produce a decent America. I’ve grown achocha in previous Above left-right: , Marigold, crop. I am particularly looking forward years, and it always well, but this Raised bed, Courgette, Squash, Garlic, to a new variety I’m trying this year, which year I am trying a lesser-known relative: Pepper, Greenhouse experiments. produces fruit in a pretty lilac colour. the Exploding Cucumber. When the fruits are ripe they split open and fling Experimenting their seeds over several metres, which At this time last year, the greenhouse makes seed-saving a bit tricky – I’m was full of experimental plants. I had having trouble catching the fruits before two varieties of yellow tomato growing they burst. There’s also a risk of eye for a Garden Organic trial – a heritage injuries if you’re standing in the wrong variety, and a modern one. The modern place at the wrong time… one, Yellow Submarine, formed such The quinoa plants are much more thuggish plants that eventually I tore sedate. I have two types (both supplied them out rather than fight my way in by Real Seeds). ‘Temuco’ has green to try and remove the sideshoots that flowers that aren’t as eye-catching as kept appearing. The older one, Yellow the aptly-named ‘Rainbow’. Quinoa is Queen, was much more well-behaved, a grain crop that’s easy to grow on a and although it didn’t have as large a garden-scale and has real potential in

 Permaculture Magazine No. 61 www.permaculture.co.uk the UK climate; in just a few more BLOOming gOrgEOUS weeks I’ll know whether either variety Even though this is a working garden, will grow a good crop of seed, whether and designed to be productive rather it’s easy to harvest, and if we enjoy than ornamental, it is full of beauty. eating it. The lavender and the calendula are in full bloom and filled with the buzz mY CHiCKEnS & WOrmS of busy bees, working through the long Fortunately, the chickens are less fussy summer days. The borage is flowering than we are. They’re busy turning weeds, too, always surprising me with a few excess courgettes and the fallen soft flowers that start off pale pink before fruit (plus creepy-crawlies and layer’s turning classic Borage Blue. Soon the pellets) into eggs with lovely yellow leaves of the blueberries will be turning yolks that are so firm you have to red, the apples will ripen, and the puncture them with a fork if you want spider webs and stunning seedpods of to make scrambled eggs. autumn will arrive. There’s really no such Below right-left: (1&2) Tomatoes, Jelly Any remaining plant material that thing as a purely productive plant, and Melons, Achocha, Rainbow Quinoa, the chickens won’t eat gets added to the only a permaculture perspective lets us Chicken, Russian Comfrey, Calendula. power-houses of the garden – three see all the yields a garden can bring compost bins that also deal with a lot cardboard. The resulting compost is rESOUrCES used to top-up the raised beds, mulch The Real Seed Catalogue fruit bushes and feed plants in con- www.realseeds.co.uk tainers. Comfrey plants mop up the The Organic Catalogue nutrients that leach out; I use their www.organiccatalogue.com leaves to turn my two year old leaf mould into next year’s potting com- Emma’s The post. The two wormeries that process Alternative Kitchen kitchen waste into liquid feed and Garden, is available super-fertile compost are hidden away from The Green in the garage – not because I’m ashamed Shopping Catalogue, of them but because the worms prefer price £1.95. life in cool, dark conditions. See Reviews page 57.

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