8. Edible windbreak
Designing and implementing the best shelter for growing food in our windy and exposed garden.
Design framework: action learning cycle
Observe/report, reflect, design/plan, implement, observe/report
Dates
November 2018 - August 2019
The larger garden is much more suitable, gets a lot of sunshine even in the winter, but is very exposed.
We have five chickens who range freely, so our planting plans need to take this into account. There are cows in our field next to the garden who will lean over the dry stone wall and eat anything within reach. And we have sheep who regularly escape from another nearby farm.
Options |
Strengths |
Weaknesses |
Opportunities |
Challenges |
No barrier |
No effort! |
Garden is exposed and windy |
Could wait and see – maybe we could
manage without a windbreak? |
Likely won’t get much veg this year |
Fence |
Immediate windbreak Good protection for veg |
Costly Will it withstand the wind? |
Could use existing materials we have
lying around |
Out of keeping with the national park
and surrounding area? |
Windbreak fabric |
Immediate windbreak Good protection for veg |
Costly |
|
Out of keeping with the national park
and surrounding area? |
Edible windbreak |
Extra yield (food) |
Costly Takes time to grow |
Opportunity to learn about something
new (and possibly write about it for others?) |
Likely won’t get much veg this year |
Earth care
Planting an edible windbreak gives us a chance to increase biodiversity, and doesn’t use non-renewable resources.
People care
We are in a national park, and the fence will run alongside a footpath. Erecting a fence or fabric membrane will block a view and be out of keeping with the area, and would be visible from a neighbouring house too. Erecting a fence is also quite a bit of effort for us!
Fair shares
By using an edible windbreak, we are able to support small, possibly organic, nurseries, and possibly able to share fruit and other produce with friends.
I decided to use Bill Mollison's list of principles to think about this design, as I've mostly used David Holmgren's for the others.
The whole point of this design is efficient energy and sector planning to manage the flow of wind onto the site, and relative location, to make sure the windbreak gives shelter to the food-growing area of the garden.
Each element performs many functions
If possible, I would like a windbreak that can also provide food for both us and the chickens, and be pleasant to look at, and have benefits for biodiversity.
Each function is supported by many elements
Having an edible windbreak means another source of food for both us and the chickens.
Using biological resources
We have the opportunity here to create a habitat that can support soil health, insect, bird and other wild animal populations.
Small scale intensive systems
If we plant an edible windbreak, we can use plant stacking to maximise the amount of plants in the space (which will also perform the function of windbreak better).
I focused on Patrick Whitefield’s How to Make a Forest Garden. There are many other books about forest gardening, and plenty of information available online, but this is an area where I had little knowledge, and there was great potential for me being overwhelmed with too much information. After a long observation phase, this design needed to be produced and implemented relatively quickly to be in the right season for planting trees, so I decided to keep it simple and focus on just one book.
The tables below show the edible plants that are also suitable for a windbreak, and other edible plants I considered for the garden. The information is incomplete as I only used the one book which doesn't give all information for all plants.
Plants for edible windbreak |
|||
Plant |
Height |
Variety |
Notes about plant |
Damson |
3.5-4.5m on St Julien A rootstock 2.5-3m on dwarfing rootstock |
Farleigh |
Self-fertile Harvest Sept/Oct |
Crab apple |
3-4m Slender, upright |
John Downie |
Edible raw |
Golden Harvest |
Universal pollinator |
||
Elder |
3m high and wide |
Common variety is self
fertile, can collect twigs from local trees |
Shade tolerant Shelter not needed |
Siberian Pea |
6m high, 4m spread but usually smaller |
|
Not shade tolerant Only casts light shade Good for chicken food Fine in exposed position |
Rowan |
|
S aucuparia
edulis - sweeter |
Doesn’t tolerate shade Decoy – draws thrushes from other areas |
Other
fruit plants |
|||
Plant |
Height |
Variety |
Notes about plant |
Apple |
2.5-4m on dwarfing rootstock |
|
Need full sun for at least half the day Late flowering/frost tolerant |
Plum |
3.5-4.5m St Julien A rootstock |
Get a self-fertile variety |
Blossom early – don’t plant where chance
of late frost |
Gage |
3.5-4.5m St Julien A or dwarfing? But dwarfing
might need feeding |
Get a self-fertile variety |
Least hardy of the plums |
Cherry |
3.5-4.5m spread |
Morello is shade tolerant (also mostly
suitable for cooking) |
Very big trees Fruit mostly taken by birds |
Gooseberry |
|
Winham’s Industry –
shade tolerant |
Can stand shade |
Blackcurrant |
|
|
Less shade tolerant |
Blackthorn |
|
|
|
Hawthorn |
6-7m tall, 3.5m spread |
|
|
I left around three feet between the wall and the planting area to allow for access in case part of the wall collapses, and to discourage cows from leaning over to eat the young developing trees.
- Hardy plants suitable for use in windbreak
- Plants which produce edible fruits
- Reasonable cost
- Available from our sources
- A range of heights - trying to mimic forest canopy and ground cover
The map below shows the planting plan.
Plants
ordered (for windbreak
only) |
||||
Type |
Rootstock |
Variety |
Age |
Cost |
Crab apple |
M26 |
Nuvar® Golden Elf |
1 year |
£17.00 |
Damson |
St Julien |
Farleigh |
2 year |
£29.50 |
Gooseberry |
n/a |
Hinnonmaki Red |
2 year |
£6.50 |
Blackcurrant (x2) |
n/a |
Big Ben |
2 year |
£10.50 |
Rhubarb (x2) |
n/a |
Timperley early |
n/a |
£4.00 |
Elder (x10) |
n/a |
A Nigra |
n/a |
£10.80 |
Rowan |
n/a |
S aucuparia edulis |
n/a |
£3.95 |
Blackthorn (x2) |
n/a |
Prunus Spinosa |
n/a |
£5.90 |
|
TOTAL |
£88.15 |
We only managed to mulch half the area in the end. The other half became overgrown with grass and weeks, and in the process of strimming we managed to lop the top off one of the blackthorn bushes. The crab apples are doing well. I haven't picked any rhubarb this year to give it a chance to grow.
The mulched areas have been much easier to look after than the section we didn't get round to mulching, where the grass grew long and was difficult to cut. Next year we will make sure we have enough mulch to do the whole area. Letting the chickens have access has worked well - they have kept the mulched areas mostly free from weeds, and aside from eating the gooseberries, haven't interfered with the plants. I think we'll need to put a net over the gooseberries next year.
Overall, things are proceeding as planned. We haven't lost any trees to the wind, and the area coped well with the snow and bad weather over the winter. Not much has grown in the garden (largely down to my neglect rather than wind I think), so next year will be the real test.
This is incremental, and the area will change as things grow, however the vegetable garden wasn't really a success this year anyway due to a combination of chickens and my own preoccupation with other projects.
I found the action learning cycle worked well for this straightforward design. It's not a framework I'd considered using for designing before until it was suggested by my tutor, Hannah Thorogood, but I'd definitely use it again.