Welcome everyone!

Hi,

I'm a retired design engineer (mech and systems) and have been an armchair permaculturist since the 70s. I've taught systems / consulting over the last 40yrs while working in international consulting and now I'm turning to permaculture and forest gardening practice and teaching to give a little back in my autumn years.

If you're interested and on Facebook or twitter do subscribe to keep in the Permaculture loop. 

https://www.facebook.com/Permaculturescot/

https://www.twitter.com/PermacultureSco

You might find this info useful too https://www.52climateactions.com/ it's a project I was gently involved in to provide lots of easy ideas to reduce your carbon footprint. 

We moved to our wet 10+acre site in the far North of Scotland in Aug'17 but have only recently started (spring'20) developing a permaculture design to include a forest garden (or more like food forest) / foragers garden with the odd smattering of livestock.

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Something I've been adding to over the last few years...

Here's my brain dump of all the FREE (or otherwise) things I can think of that may prove of value. There's a lot of stuff here and should keep you busy for ages 😁

If you are just starting out growing, go with a no-dig approach like Charles Dowding https://youtu.be/BvUUpBvbCaY with cardboard and compost, a quick way to create a bed is here https://youtu.be/S5wgHQtxgJw with Geoff Lawton, there are always variations on a theme nothing is hard and fast.

Intro to Food Forests / Forest Gardens (scale being the difference)...

This will give you an idea https://youtu.be/ng-VskDFPpM and this is well worth a look (as is the rest of the site) https://spiralseed.co.uk/making-forest-garden/

Martin Crawfords forest garden here https://www.nationalgeographic.com/video/shorts/1438178883749/ and another one I recently came across https://youtu.be/oLTGjiYHHbI and another from Maddy Harland (editor / founder of the Permaculture Magazine) https://www.permaculture.co.uk/videos/how-make-temperate-forest-garden-part-1 

Heather Jo Flores wrote “If You Guild It, They Will Come: How to Grow a Permaculture Food Forest” https://link.medium.com/KGMajeYPz5

another excellent resource stateside at Edible Acres https://youtu.be/rzPf20kuQeA here's a food forest that Sean and Sasha at Edible Acres has just started https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLihFHKqj6Jeo---kvE1lsY-KZfhlnAzMG

Forest garden design https://balkanecologyproject.blogspot.com/2019/02/how-to-design-and-build-forest-garden.html

The newly established National Forest Garden Scheme is an interesting resource https://www.loomio.org/nfgs

From across the pond (so some adaptation for elsewhere required)... http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Permaculture/Agroforestry/Forest_Gardens/Edible_Forest_Gardens_Vol.2-Design_and_Practice.pdf

Plant resources...

In the UK, for seeds go to http://www.realseeds.co.uk/ or similar, unlike most seeds you buy (like f1 variants) Real Seeds all come good so you can seed save and resow or swap them, they even tell you how. 

For plants there are many:

Martin Crawford (not necessarily hardy for the North) here https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/

Graham Bell (now run by Kate Everett) at Red Shed http://grahambell.org.uk/product-category/catalogue-a-z Based in Scotland, Graham has the oldest intentional forest garden in the UK.

Alison Tinsdale for perennial veg at https://backyardlarder.co.uk,

Mandy Barber at https://www.incrediblevegetables.co.uk

Sue Beesley at https://www.bluebellcottage.co.uk/

Ken Muir: fruit a speciality https://www.kenmuir.co.uk

Pomona: great range of plants http://www.pomonafruits.co.uk

Victoriana: grapes, kiwi https://www.victoriananursery.co.uk

Poyntzfield Herb Nursery: on the Black Isle, an amazing catalogue of herbs worth a visit https://www.poyntzfieldherbs.co.uk

Buckingham Nursery: hedging, shuttlecock ferns, elaeagnus https://www.hedging.co.uk/acatalog/index.html

Plants with Purpose & Appletreeman - Andrew Lear http://www.plantsandapples.com

Ian Sturrock and Sons for fruit, if you think you can't grow apples because of your site position, try his Bardsey apple https://iansturrockandsons.co.uk/

Orange Pippin: brilliant range that they source from Frank Matthews https://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/

You will find the ever growing plant database Plants for a Future database useful https://pfaf.org/

The RHS has a plant finder (with a native filter) https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/Search-Form

There's also an amazing UK database of insects and their food plants here https://www.brc.ac.uk/dbif/hosts.aspx

Here's a good reference for fruit trees https://www.orangepippin.com/

you can find out your first/last frost dates in different parts of the UK here with a planting calendar https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/adjust-dates-uk.php

And a companion planting guide https://permaculturenews.org/2010/07/30/companion-planting-guide/, 

Companion planting is part of what we call guilds http://www.neverendingfood.org/b-what-is-permaculture/permaculture-guilds/

Don't get worried or concerned about companion planting and guilds, the whole space you have is something of a guild, you'll have plants that are near enough to each other to provide benefits. Experiment and try things out, some combinations will work for you and not other folks and vice versa.

You might find this useful too, Hugelkultur beds https://richsoil.com/hugelkultur/ a great way to use brash and old wood to make a drought resistant raised bed.

Permaculture...

If you want to take permaculture further (maybe you have already - if so apologies) general permaculture learning here for free with Geoff Lawton https://www.discoverpermaculture.com/products/the-permaculture-circle

Or https://start.geofflawtononline.com/permaculturecircle/

In permaculture one is generally directed to spend some time observing, usually for at least a year. I don't fully subscribe to that view, I would get stuck in straightaway (funds permitting), but be prepared to change things over time. There is no permanent design in permaculture, one is always tweaking based on observations. 

However, before you start, some instant observations on where: sun shines, frost dwells, wind blows, shade falls and water flows would be useful to know up front. Look at what's under your feet in terms of soil and what grows thereabouts will help you determine soil types.

Permaculture is a positive and systematic design solution to daily life,  It's about your time and how to save it and involves working smarter rather than harder.  

Permaculture is not just about gardening, it's a system of principled design that provides for ethically and ecologically-sound and economically viable solutions, systems that provide for their own needs and that do not exploit or pollute. Systems that are are regenerative and go beyond sustainable.

Inhabit a film about permaculture https://vimeo.com/120537755

Start a local group to do joint purchases to build discount and reduce delivery bills, share resources from seeds, plants and tools to learning and other useful skills so you all grow together.

Permaculture Learning...

Permaculture & community resilience free online course https://www.flowful.org/permaculture-resilience-online-course

Permaculture in action here at Edible Acres by Sean Dembrosky https://www.youtube.com/user/EdibleAcres

A potpourri of permaculture with Aranya https://www.youtube.com/user/AranyaGardens

Martin Crawford at https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/

For the bible for temperate climes such as ours, buy Patrick Whitefield's The Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook for Britain and Other Temperate Climates:  https://permanentpublications.co.uk/port/the-earth-care-manual-a-permaculture-handbook-for-britain-and-other-temperate-climates-by-patrick-whitefield/

An Aranya Austin book I find very useful  https://www.learnpermaculture.com/publications/design-guide

How to design almost any project. There's also a comprehensive list of different design tools and how to use them during the process from James Chapman. https://nonstuffuk.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/v1-2-the-simplest-design-process-june-2017.pdf

Map out your plot https://www.regenerative.com/magazine/map-plot

These are long reads for the library...

Another fantastic PDF, Fukoaka's The One Straw Revolution http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Food/The-One-Straw-Revolution.pdf

Another big PDF

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Permaculture/Bill_Mollison-Permaculture_Two-Practical_Design_for_Town_and_Country_in_Permanent_Agriculture.pdf

A good read here being an interview with Bill Mollison which will give you an idea where he was coming from https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/bill-mollison-permaculture-activist-zmaz80ndzraw

There is an ever-increasing range of free eBooks at the Permaculture Magazine

https://shop.permaculture.co.uk/ebooks.html Plus many hours-worth of practical and entertaining viewing on their YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/PermacultureMedia.

And finally, there are also literally decades of free permaculture reading and watching material at https://www.permaculture.co.uk (you can join the Permaculture Association here too as it has a wealth of resources to share).

Hello all

My name is Keith Colin and I run Sustainable Sussex and Sussex Chilli Farm along with my fiancée Liane Webb who runs The Sustainable Mind.

Sustainable Sussex primarily works with people who find access to the workplace difficult in mixed needs groups on sustainable projects. Our roots are in a community garden project that I set up due to my uncooperative mental and physical health problems after my career in the RAF.
Liane runs The Sustainable Mind which delivers free mindfulness and meditation training to groups who would not usually have access to it. The project dovetails with Sustainable Sussex to bring mindfulness to the groups that Sustainable Sussex works with - people with learning disabilities, mental and physical health problems, long term unnemployed and retired people.

We are currently setting up a community farm and cafe, nature trail with boardwalk and pond dipping platform and a community orchard with Sompting Estate - so please accept my apologies for dipping in and out here.
We will be using chicken tractors, conservation livestock grazing and will be building some of the useful bicycle powered farm machinery published on FarmHack.net
We hope that the project will be funded as 'Community Benefit' as part of a housing development and we could share our current experience if it might help this project.

We are also working with the Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust (OART) and Sompting Estate to deliver the community legacy aspects of a £1.8 million Heritage Lottery funded stream diversion and restoration project adjacent to the community farm.

Our vision for the community farm includes a forest garden and we are keen amateur permies.

We are the most active community greenspace organisation in Worthing with some 25+ regular volunteers with sessions running 3 days a week across 4 sites. We have no core funding and manage to get by through our chilli project sales and occasional input from us.

My background includes being a photographer in the RAF and electro-mechanical engineering and laser technician. I am vice chair of Adur and Worthing Greenspace Partnership.

Liane's background is in criminal psychology working in the probation service.

We currently live offgrid in a tipi with our daughter Eva and cat George.

We can imagine ourselves involved in the project helping to deliver and promote training and practical projects around Adur and Worthing.
We currently have plenty of space to grow in although the farm will not have any substantial infrastructure for 2-3 years.

We will try and get on here as often as possible to support but please get in touch if you have any specific requests or questions.

Keith & Liane

Hiya, I'm Hannah, I have been interested in permaculture and forest gardening since 2010 - having read Patrick Whitefields book and gotten hooked! I worked on urban agriculture in roof garden in Mexico, and visited many projects around Latin America before returning to the UK in 2014. At this time I was an artist, creating socially engaged projects on climate change. I have worked the last few years for a behaviour change and campaigning charity in London focused on air pollution and green infrastructure development (supporting the initiatioin of a number of community gardens). I now work for Shared Assets, campaigning for land reform as well as providing practical support to help people develop business and governance models to manage land for the commons good. I think forest gardening and agroforestry are an important part of the 'solution' and very happy to put time into supporting this initiative to increase knowledge and uptake of these techniques/ideas

Hi: I'm Maurice. I am very impressed at the quantity of brilliance shown in these posts already. I understand the point about a UK focus but would want to add that within the Global Ecovillage Network there is great emphasis on food forests and how they might be best established in rural villages as an income and employment generating enterprise (as well as the contribution they make to food security), Some form of "overseas membership" would help to spread the forest gardens/food forests concept further afield and potentially offer consultancy opportunities to NFGS UK based members. Not necessarily for now but perhaps for later consideration? Maurice Phillips

Hi I’m Diane, I used to work with Andrea in the Systems dept at the OU until I took early retirement in order to DO more rather then think about it! Haven’t managed to kick the thinking habit though. I’m a trustee of brighton Permaculture trust, and have a mature forest garden (21 yrs) in seaford, East Sussex. I came to FG via the Robert Hart book, then got introduced to Permaculture. Academic life / work meant I was a lazy Forest gardener - but I’m now in process of revamping the whole plot. It’s more about taking out, thinning, pruning, these days than planting. The FG provides far more produce than I ever need or can give away, but the wildlife are very welcome to the excess.

Hi everybody. I met quite a few of you at the launch event last Saturday in Lewes. I'm the Manager for the Pevensey & Westham Community Forest Garden in Pevensey, East Sussex, so naturally I'm there several times a week helping to develop it, alongside other volunteers from the local community. The forest garden was a project set up by Incredible Edible Pevensey & Westham, which is affiliated to the national Incredible Edible movement. The project has been generously funded by grants from Wealden District Council, and the forest garden is located on land owned by Southern Water, who granted us a license to manage it as the company don't want to manage it themselves.

My involvement in the forest garden developed naturally out of my long-term interest in all things related to sustainability and resilience as well as my concerns about climate change and ecological destruction. Such interest led me to establish a local group of Friends of the Earth in the Eastbourne area in 2012 and I am still the Co-ordinator of that group. I'm a community activist in many ways, and that was recognised when I was invited to become a Fellow of the RSA this year.

People can track the work of myself and my colleagues at our forest garden on Facebook at this page: Incredible Edible Pevensey and Westham.

I'm a Twitter addict, so you'll find me twittering away at @andythegreenie.

What follows seems rather long but I hope it sheds some light on why I responded to Paul's invitation to meet about something of which I knew little but instinctively felt was the next way to go both environmentally and as a managed retirement pathway.
I remain a part-time Teaching Fellow at the University of Sussex and am currently Convenor of the Role Model elective in collaboration with the Sussex Students Union which keeps me in touch with undergraduates as well as teenagers.
I have always had an interest in education for sustainable development and won a community-based action research project within the Economic and Social Research Council's Global Environmental Change programme 1994 – 1997 leading to a Doctorate in 2001.
My experience has ranged from influencing policy as a member of the Panel on Education for Sustainable Development in the Schools Sector which reported to the DfEE and the QCA in 1998; working as a consultant to the Dubai administration on the setting up of out of school environmental clubs for young people to initiating and running a 10 year bonding, bridging and linking social capital project associated with green spaces for adults with learning disabilities.
As Founder of the Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust in 1988, I established the first Junior Management Board for a Local Nature Reserve in England in 1996 and led on many linked campaigns and initiatives, including a current circular Yr 4, 6, 8 environmental programme for all Lewes primary schools.

I led the building of the Linklater Pavilion in Lewes as a local community hub for the study of environmental change – recognised with an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List of 2017.
If I can serve in any useful way with regard to setting up a national body dedicated to Forest Gardening and all that it offers for a much wider public, then I would be happy to do so.

Hi all. I'm Alan Carter. I have a forest garden in Aberdeen in North East Scotland and write about it at scottishforestgarden.wordpress.com. Anni Kelsey invited me to join the group - still getting a feel for what it is.

Hi, I am Anni Kelsey - passionate about every plant and tree growing on our lovely planet and in particular the edible ones. I spend as much time as I can in my garden looking after my diverse edible polycultures (see my book Edible Perennial Gardening or my blog annisveggies.wordpress.com) for details.

My main focus is on what can be achieved in the average back (or front) garden - the kind of space that many people have access to. However everything done on a small scale can be increased to much larger spaces and there is so much scope for growing all kinds of purposeful polycultures. I look forward to working with you all to establish many more forest gardens across the country and beyond.

My first childhood memory of gardening was growing marigolds in our army married quarters in Occupied Germany. After geography & social science at Uni, Lawrence Hills, HDRA and comfrey encouraged me into WWOOFing which was a key ingredient in getting a job working with unemployed school leavers on land reclamation projects and city farms in Bristol. I joined RISC - Reading's development education centre - in 1989 and took full advantage opportunities to work with NGOs in the Philippines, Nepal and India on a range of development issues. After attending an introduction to permaculture course with Mike Fiengold I persuaded my colleagues to find a permaculture designer to help us to create an outdoor classroom on RISC's leaking flat roof. Paul Barney came up with the forest garden planting and the rest is history. The roof garden inspired RISC's Food4Families community gardening project and gave me the opportunity to indulge my new enthusiasm for creating forest gardens. Three years ago, impossible UK property prices and a holiday in the Loire Valley led to buying a 2 acre small holding. The process of creating a demonstration hub for sustainable living and a focus for an active retirement has started. In short, life is a mesh of un-intended consequences - people and ideas coming together, providing new possibilities that can sometimes open up to new directions.
Paul's own life changes and the NFGN has emerged at the perfect time, both for my own evangelising and realising my dreams in central France. It is so exciting and affirming to meet and work with other crazy people to plough new furrows!