2017.04.07 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjrdaIF91H8
Hi,
This is just a review of what’s planned for this year, a lot of big works. Mostly terraforming and setting up the infrastructure to prevent outside hoes and deer from coming inside. Setting up an access to water, if we want to produce something we do need some water sometimes (some plants really need water to grow). Plants can withstand not having much water, which is good for them to improve their resistance and genetics, but to produce more at some point once the genetics are improved, we’ll still need some water for the driest parts of the season.
Also setting up a greenhouse on location is essential, we have a greenhouse 10-15km away, but it takes up a lot of time to juggle between both places.
And we’ll continue to add more shrubs around the outside fence. Meanwhile we’ll still care for some tomatoes, cabbages, kales, cucumbers, peas, beans, etc. But probably less than past years. The works this year will be so that we can focus on the plants more thoroughly afterwards

2017.06.12 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFp85U2qdA
The continuation of the grand garden
Great year, everything carries on forward slowly, surely and well

2017.07.02 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWP_4l7TBe8
It rained quite a good amount, everything is growing really well!

2017.05.03 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSAkMXcNGBs
Small update on the garden, also continuing to follow the carrots, parsnips and cabbages/kales cycles. For other how already know me, it’s as usual, I’m not following entirely normal rules of gardening, because they’re not all great and also because I want to bread stronger and sturdier varieties of plants.
Producing food is still not the main focus of the garden, there’s no watering on purpose since 5 years already.

2017.06.12 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXcZCxt_YJA
I haven’t had time to build the ‘fences’ of support to put on the sides of the bins to prevent tall plants from falling down on the paths..
Else the formation of seeds on the kales/cabbages is carrying on, by the end of june most of them should be ready. For onions it will be mi july/end july, carrots and parsnips will follow later, in all cases it’s not urgent for them as their seeds are to be resown in winter or in the beginning of next spring..
The tomatoes I have put outside by the end of may are doing really well.
Else it’s warm and dry (which is great for tomatoes) and without watering it’s hard for some plants, we’ve had since 3-4 years no single year with a “standard” weather.
This year, very dry and frost until end of april and dry and warm after..
Last year, floodings in april/mai, then very dry and hot for 3 months.
The year before, a nice spring but summer totally rainy and quite cold..
Anyhow, these are great years for me who wants plants to become sturdier, they have a lot of different harsh conditions to withstand in a couple of years!!
The strawberries installed since 3-4 years produce very well even with the total lack of rain, whereas those installed last year or 2 years ago are still struggling because of the drought, their roots are not deep enough yet.
Obviously, still no watering, except when it’s totally necessary, there I water very abundantly, mimicking nature and a good rainy storm, when the plants I want to keep on living and produce offspring are on the brink of death..
I did that twice on the young strawberries and once on the cucumbers on the 23rd of june, their roots are not deep enough yet and the soil lacks mulch to cover it.

2017.07.20 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCbo8_mDrtA
Follow up on the garden, harvest of cabbage, kale, kohlrabi seeds and some weeding.
Skip form 2min35 to 9min10 and from 11min40 to 18min10 if you don’t want to watch the accelerated video of me weeding a bit the garden.

2016.04.21:
A tub of salads and turnips has been planted outside and replaced by tomatoes.

2016.04.29:
Growing…

2016.05.03:

Many plants have already been taken to the garden with mounds, kales, cabbages, salads, tomatoes, corn. For very early planting out, there are still frost very often during the nights. Which is not bad, what will resisi will resist, what will die will die and we’ll continue.

Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddbuM15qF24

2016.05.09:
3 tubs of cabbages/kales have been taken outside and squashes and cucumbers, some celeriacs have been pricked out in individual pots and again some corn have been taken outside to the garden with mounds, because other ones taken out earlier have all died, they should withstand frosts easily, but apparently not when they’re too young. New Chinese cabbage sowing.

2016.05.14:
All the cucumbers, almost all squashes and almost all tomatoes that we took outside much earlier than normal have died in the garden, still too many frosts. But some are perfectly well in my own garden. Only salads and cabbages/kales can hold on well. The new corns that were taken out a couple of days ago are holding on outside too.
New sowing of tomatoes, salads, ricinus, millet, tetragones and cucumbers.

2016.05.21-22:

The chinese cabbages are ready to get out, and some squashes, cucumbers, cantaloupes, tomatoes, eggplants as well. Some are for my personal garden where they’ll have much more merciful conditions than in the mound garden, there for the cantaloupes, peppers and eggplants, it’s still too early.

New sowing on the 22nd, many various squashes, pickles and red cabbages. Also all very mature squashes have been taken out to another field to have harvests with those, a field with a climate more clement than the difficult one of the mound garden which is in a basin where temperature differences are increased both ways and with a lot of humidity. Also cucumbers were taken away to that terrain.

2016.05.28:
Nothing changed, the plants are growing, I just went by to water the plants.

2016.06.12 :
Abotu one third of the plants have been taken outside, many squashes and cucumbers, tomatoes, some celeriacs, peppers, cantaloupes, salads and various kales/cabbages.
New pickles were sowed, again many squashes, Chinese cabbages, tomatoes, salads. The eggplants were re-potted in bigger pots to continue growing in the greenhouse (so that their roots can grow in the manure) and some cantaloupes as well.

2016.08.05 :
In the last two months, most of the plants were taken outside. There have been new sowings, mostly squash and cucumbers, but cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes too. To grow them outside sort of not at the correct season to see what it can give? And tomatoes to keep them in the greenhouse throughout the fall and even winter.
The greenhouse since mid-July is a bit in the mode of production under cover, planting trays are removed gradually and many eggplants, peppers, cantaloupes and tomatoes have been planted in pots with soil and into contact with the manure so that they can take root in it indoor and carry on their growth quietly and safely protected. There is also a rodent (or more?) who settled in the greenhouse and ate every squash seedling since more than a month, see here for more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xJIO0RW0KU

2016.03.19 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbC3bzuHGJc
Everything is going very well Installation of the outer fence, raptor poles, hedges etc.

2016.04.30 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2-4OJpeDHc
Small update, not much happened since the weather has been quite good for 2 weeks but then cold and very cold for the next 2 weeks, the growth of everything came to a halt for a while.

2016.05.09 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv35-tbi4V4
Small inspection, some tomatoes are still alive. And I also sowed new sweet peas with ricinus seeds at the same time, as those seeds are toxic (as much as the plant itself), this is to make life very hard for rodents!

2016.05.16 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAa1VqjsTD4
There were still some frosts at night. Most of the cabbages/kales are still there, the tomatoes had a very hard time, only one or two are still alive, which is already great! The sweet peas I resowed last week are still in place, the first from a month ago had too much troubles with the cold.
As for the rodents, I had new ideas of poppy seeds, bitter almonds and licorice. There are supposedly very toxic for them, so if we can sow some of those at the same time as we sow other things they like, it should be very disturbing for them, while waiting for the natural predators. Since we still have to make these buzzards/owls pillars and will need to wait a couple of years for edges where foxes can hangout close.

2016.05.28 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA0I5g76W4I
Overview, everything is going really well. Having the green house always full of new plants and being planted outside as soon as they’re ready to go out is working well. Btw. something that has never been mentioned, we always skip the usual hardening periods for plants on purpose, we do that on purpose so that plants are encouraged to become more robust by having to adapt quicker to big environmental/climatic differences.

2016.06.12 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWSl-w-RoWw
Everything is going and growing quite well
No need to tell us about carnivorous indian runner or kakhi cambells ducks and other ones like those for slug control.
We know them, but the place is not yet setup to enable us to have them there, because that field is far removed for houses, if we place ducks there we have to be sure they’re safe and have water. For the moment, that’s not ready
And it’s good that plants learn to adapt and become much more robust, if slugs finish them, it’s because the plants are not healthy, you can see it with wild plants, the jerusalem artichokes do not get eaten that must, neither do wild carrots. These plants just learned to live in perfect harmony with all their surroundings for hundreds of years qithout human intervention

2016.07.15 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k2TXtmJJ9U
Small visit of the garden, many plants are growing very well. We discovered that chick peas can grow very well in Lorraine
Some plants struggled quite a lot during the rain period that lasted around 2 months, salads, squashes, tomatoes, cabbages died. But the most robust are still here.
Some Chinese cabbages went directly to seed, they struggled, hence the survival mechanisms kicked in, create the next offspring that will be more apt to resist!
Else, another detail that is important and that I forgot to explain in details, around here a lot of people failed growing their salads, they all went to seed directly, these people were using anti-slug products… Whereas, yes we lost some, but the onces that withstood the slugs are all great looking now and not going to seed at all, it clearly seems that slugs attacks on salads help them to produce more leaves to protect themselves.
These kinds of observations are very interesting to look at in a completely natural environment. The good development of some plants depends on an interaction with the fauna!
You’ll see it next time, many cucumbers (of my own seed already quite robust!) had to endure harsh conditions, the main stem just grew and grew for 30-40cm without ever managing to make one leaf, slugs were eating it all, but they survived, hence these will be some more good seeds for next year!

2016.07.17 :
Some pictures for a change

First mound :

Second mound :

Third mound :

Fourth mound :

Fifth mound :

Raspberry cuttings from the autumn 2016, winter 2016 are taking their place nicely on the west side of the interior garden.

A fig tree that is setting up roots in the harsh conditions

The north side of the interior garden, some raspberries that are there since 2 years now and aromatic plants, thyme, rosemary, sage, laurel, mint. Everything is installing itself nicely and slowly.

The east side, the gooseberries, blackcurrants and flowering currants from cuttings from the autumn 2015 and winter 2016 are also setting up nicely.

The most robust and healthy eggplant of the garden!

This tomato plant is growing very quickly!

That one (most probably, cherry tomatoes) produces an amazing amount of flowers, interesting to follow!

And the east side of the exterior garden with butternuts and pickles freshly planted that seem to be handling it very well.

2016.08.05 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xJIO0RW0KU
Slowly but surely, we learn new things about the natural regulation of the fauna.
There is a small addition at the end, in the greenhouse, because a rodent (or many?) is present and eating all the squashes seeds planted for over a month and a half. It took me time to understand. So there are many missing squashes in the garden this year (again because of rodents like last year, but not the same way ), it is frustrating, I lost a lot of my own seeds stored from the previous years, but hey, I learn for the future. Either place custom wire cages over each seedling tray (at the moment this is the most feasible option) or raising the trays, or for the future in a broader and holistic point of view, in a large greenhouse, always have one or a few cats around! Again the best natural method of controlling rodents and all the fauna is to coordinate and understand the hierarchy of predators in full. Still, for the moment, in this small greenhouse that is not yet possible.

2016.09.21 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGshk1kb4Iw
Not much to say, it was time to collect some seeds and sow others to keep on increasing the diversity in vegetables of the place.
Harvest of cucumbers, the ones that lasted the longest (april to september), harvest of some salad seeds and sowing on the fly of others, same goes for the celeriacs.
As far as tomatoes are concerned it was still too early, we’re waiting till the end for the ones that withstand the most the climatic conditions of autumn (eating the other meanwhile ).
I also found one commercial carrot, there should be more coming when/if it rains in September (which is the period where they can naturally resow themselves)
We’ve also sown various onions/leeks/cabbages/kales etc. on the fly; it’s the time, so they’ll be there to take root naturally when they can.

We’ve also added a grass to cover the soil, to not have high grass below the gooseberries/currants.

Else there are also some very late squashes (planted very late!).
Let’s see in october what happens next

2016.10.11 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXaB-JX_lvk
Small update, since last tile we had two weeks of quite cold and rainy weather, which almost killed most plants that cannot withstand frost, because in this humid and entrapped by the forest the temperature differences are exacerbated, hence some frost already occurred, or temperatures very close to zero during the night. Hence it’s time to collect some seeds

Something I forgot to explicitly explain in the video is that all the plants are from my own previous seeds as much as possible. This year the cabbages and kales are from new seeds since I never had any in the previous years (except kohlrabi and violet broccolis), the salads are new because I didn’t have yet enough seeds last year, some squashes are new to increase diversity, but peas are always new because I don’t want to change them, I want them to cross pollinate with the “vesce des haies”, I want that plant to start mutating into producing peas (I still do collect some peas that I keep as seeds for probably next year or some other time). The eggplants, peppers, cantaloupes and cress are also new additions. It’s a small vegetable garden, I try to increase the diversity as much as I can, but letting plants go to seed takes space!
And I made a mistake with the date, it was the 16th of june

2016.07.10 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIOfabKEsgo

Small update, I didn’t do anything since 3 weeks, I let the plants in peace to discover their own natural harmony by themselves in the company of the ‘weeds’.
It’s a very good year for the plants to learn to live with slugs and gastropods since it rained quite a lot. That way they can learn to let some part of themselves to be eaten by slugs without being completely devoured, the weeds know very well how to do that!
I have to repeat it, slugs are only there to finish organic decomposition quickly, if a plant is eaten entirely by them, it means that that plant was never healthy and/or never had the opportunity to learn to cohabit with them!

2016.08.12 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNysh_2jX8E

This video is a bit longer than usual so that I can explain you some ideas more in details.
What I intend to do, and that seems useful to share with you, to have no more plants go to seed and take all the space by lying on the ground, since they occupy the garden for much of the season, if the garden is small, when they lie down they take much more space than where they have their base. In the end, this year I had 2-3 bins covered (and therefore unusable) by radish seeds, carrots, parsnips, broccoli. They take up a lot of space, the next year I will ensure they stay upright and do not fall sideways! That way it will also leave the field free for cats below, otherwise they can not even hunt, there is no space!
Apart from that, I explain some transition stages over several years to adapt tomatoes to Lorraine summers!
For the 3 sisters method (corn, climbing beans, squash), in Lorraine (and in similar areas), we can probably use artichokes instead of corn, corn does not grow fast enough in these areas.
The variety of vegetables that resow themselves increases slowly and surely
Good viewing

2016.09.23 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FudcyqT9Fmw
All is going on well, it’s a project over many years as you should have already noticed from all the past videos Hence, harvests, harvest (of seeds) for the time being, it’s not yet time for big productions, I always let the vegetables live with the concurrence of the natural weeds, which most people usually remove often And I let vegetables grow like weeds, so it’s not that easy for them, but they’re improving slowly and surely with some little bit of help

2016.10.12 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c710qILLcGo
Like in the large vegetable garden, but less dire, it was cold and rainy for about 2 weeks, but no frost here yet So squashes are doing well, the tomatoes that had the hardest life through tall grass etc. reached their end but left some beautiful tomatoes offspring

Otherwise, as you can see, it’s fantastic as I had hoped, the first rains of autumn allowed lots of dormant seeds in the soil to germinate as they wished, carrots, parsnips, onions, I’m hoping for salads maybe? Beets, broccoli violet also maybe.
And other plants are doing well, I’m eagerly waiting for cabbages/kales to go to seed, but I think it will be for next year!

In short, fantastic, wild vegetables a becoming reality slowly and surely!

2016.11.27 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls2f1wggvMY
Just a small review for the end of this year, will have to wait for next year to reach some new insights about what’s happening now.
One thing is sure, carrots should not be sown in august (at least commercial varieties), as you can see in the video, they should remain on the old carrot and fall off later on, probably during winter to sprout in the beginning of spring. I have saved many seeds, so I will sow them on the fly at approximately the same time I see those on the last carrots standing falling off.

2015.04.24: First visit since more than 3 months. Global view.

The wheat held well, taking into account that we never took care of anything…

A small view of the different mounds, we did nothing there today. On the first one, a couple of radishes are growing, a friend wanted to make a small tunnel, but if no one is there to care about it, it won’t work! Hence the radishes sown in winter are germinating now.

There are also leeks and onions here and there..

The potatoes were impatient.

We removed a lot of the sprouts to be able to take them out of the bag…

And then had the envy to try and plant the sprouts only! With the most lazy method possible, lying on the ground, covered with straw and other organic rests. If it works well, it means that by keeping a potato, you have 2 seeds! The potato and the sprout that grows during the winter…

For the mound we used the Bolivian method as well, place teh potatoes on the ground and cover with a good layer of straw, that we’ll thicken as the potatoes grow. That’s it.

You can see the mound and the test part with sprouts on the right.

2015.05.22 :
On the 14th of may we transplanted many plants from the greenhouse outside, well before what is usually done in our region, before the last likely frosts, especially on this terrain which exacerbates the temperature differences during the night.
Celeriacs, tomatoes, some squashes, salads. And climbing beans and peas, but frankly it’s useless to transplant them, its much simpler to sow the outside straight away, we won’t do it again!

The squashes, Turkish gourds and queen blue, you can see they were well developed under the greenhouse and put outside way too early on purpose!

The transplanted climbing beans…

On the 20th of may you can still see the squashes and tomatoes just before 2 nights of frosts.

The climbing peas and beans as well.

On the video made on the 22nd (the sound is missed, you have to increase the volume a lot to hear something!), you can see the tomatoes and squashes that were well affected by the frosts, but they held on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4c5JaQ3Qc8

2015.06.07 :
About 15 days later, the squashes resisted and grew back even stronger and the tomatoes are regrowing healthily as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUnhGkUAm38

2015.06.13 :
Nothing special to report, everything is going wonderfully well, the plants are growing and we’re adding new ones. It has been very dry since more than a month, it rained quickly just 2-3 times during the last month. I leave you with the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isb9aNIi4nA

2015.06.23 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGKE2EqfV8g
Plants are growing well in the garden, but that’s not what is the most important to present to you in this video, it’s the second part, wild vegetables.
What I forgot to explain in the video is that it will take time, because at first it will be hard to spot any of the randomly dispersed seeds the grow, but overtime they’ll surely form patches that will become easily noticeable.
What I forgot to explain in the video is that in nature there are plenty of seeds, each plant makes them by the hundreds or even thousands. They fall on the ground, or are dispersed by the wind, by insects, by birds, by animals twiddling the plants. You must also understand that all this flora helps to bury these seeds so that they can germinate the next years, heavy animals trample on the seeds, ants modify the shape of the soil and also help cover the seeds, moles, rodents do the same, they also eat some, but it’s normal, there are so many seeds!
Some seeds can also germinate just by laying on the ground.
It’s a mix of all, we just have to let nature what she does best, perpetuate herself, diversify herself and adapt herself locally.
And also have faith in the beings of nature, elves, gnomes, etc. They are there and also work in the invisible realms, we just have to explain them what to do (by thought it’s enough ), or simply ask them to do what they feel is best. That’s it, the visible and invisible elements of nature take care of everything, you’ll see.

2015.07.03 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLjmWTYVo74

2015.07.11 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr218PuDr10

2015.08.06 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k–E_H2D0R0
I’m sharing with you interesting information about rodents, given that this year apparently the heat has been very beneficial for their proliferation and that the interactions fauna/flora are yet far from being equilibrated in that garden. Their abundant and prolonged presence allowed me to notice that there are obviously some plants they prefer and others they never touch. It’s valid for my region, Lorraine in France, I can’t guarantee that it’ll be the same everywhere else, most surely it won’t

• Plants they like
  • Potatoes : I don’t think all varieties attract them, but surely many are!
  • Cantaloupes : there was only one variety in the garden so I can’t comment more.
  • Watermelons : same here, only one variety. But I think they must like all varieties, these plants must have a similar taste..
  • Pumpkin/Squashes : only of the types pumpkins (small, big). They didn’t touch the turkish gourds, or other varieties in the garden. Generally speaking pumpkins are like cantaloupes with very low sugar!
  • Wheat : they’re rodents, they like seeds That being said, it seems some mutations of wheat were left untouched (the most robust ones!).
  • Beetroots : observed in my vegetable garden.
  • Carrots : all varieties, observed in my vegetable garden.
• Plants they don’t touch
  • Tomatoes : all varieties. However they can eat the ripe tomatoes close to the ground.
  • Beans : all varieties.
  • Green peas : there’s only one variety in the garden, but I tend to think rodents don’t eat any plants from the leguminous family as a general rule.
  • Salads : all varieties.
  • Cabbages : there are two varieties in the garden, but I also have kohlrabi at home and they never bothered it either. I think they don’t like cabbages in general.
  • Parsnips : this is based on my own garden, they ate carrots, beetroots, potatoes, but nothing happened on the parsnips..
  • Celeriacs : they don’t seem to attract them.
  • Radishes, turnips : generally, it seems that root vegetables with a strong taste don’t attract them.
  • Sweet/hot peppers : we didn’t distinguish them when sowing them, and they have no fruits for the moment so we can’t still differentiate them. But like their tastes for other things, I’d tend to think they are attracted by sweet peppers, not hot ones, even the plant must have a hot taste for them!
  • Eggplants : no signs of any tries to eat them.
  • Zucchinis : as I said above, squashes of the pumpkin type attract them, but not zucchini, neither many other varieties. Cantaloupes, watermelons, pumpkins are all cucurbitaceae with a tendency to a sweet taste, I think this is what attracts them, the plant must reflect the sweetness of the fruits
  • Cucumbers : they don’t touch them, like zucchini, these are cucurbitaceae as well, but without a sugary taste.
  • Swiss chards : observed in my garden where I have many small ones, no signs of rodents nearby.
  • Asparaguses : the ones I have at home don’t seem to get visits from rodents.
• To be determined
  • Onions, garlics, leeks : I don’t have enough experience to confirm it, we sowed almost none this year, but it seems that the taste doesn’t attract them that much. However, without anything more tasty nearby I guess they can eat them!
  • Potatoes : observations in my garden where I have 4 varieties seem to indicate that they have preferences. The red ones with a hard inside don’t have much signs of rodents, whereas the violet/blue (much softer) we’re eaten in parts! I’ll try to test more varieties in the next years. Still, we need the presence of many rodents?? I can’t control nature, she teaches me what she wants when she wants it, I must follow her guidance
  • Mint : it also seems that some varieties of mints act as repellents, because near some types of mints in my garden I’ve seen no signs of rodent activity..

That’s already quite good and it gives me ideas! maybe we can diminish the overpopulation of rodents we have on the terrain simply by not planting what they seem to prefer! Evidently while also promoting a good environment for their natural predators, we’ll place tall masts for buzzards, because they already come quite often to hunt around the place in the evening!
If we’d had time we would already have done it. I want also to make houses for tawny owls (big rodent predators), but without a big tree close to the garden i don’t know if it will work..
We’ll see, anyway next year we’ll probably have new surprises and lessons, climate changes, this year it was really dry and hot. What will happen if the spring/summer is quite wet and not very warm
We also plan on making a small pond, for toads/frogs who love slugs (we have not seen many this year), the presence of water will surely be also convenient for hedgehogs if we setup good shelters for them?
If we could, we would have introduced cats, but that’s for later, when we live in the middle of our field It’s a balance, because after that, the cats hunt small birds, we must set hedges and trees so that they can have places to protect themselves from the cats…
We’ll see, there are still many things to do.

2015.08.12 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10jZVguigOE
A small details about rodents to add, a rat ate a turkish gourd plant (not a mouse or fieldmouse)… I must do with rats, mice and fieldmice! What a great training ground.
In the video I also talk about the surrounding imbalance that must be taken into account, human activity unbalances the whole of nature, wild animals like good foods, with natural cultures it’s obvious that they’ll be more attracted than by what’s around! It’s to be taken into account by those who want to start something somewhere, at the beginning they’ll be quite a lot of re-balancing to do, the predator/prey cycles at all scales must be rethought intelligently so that the surrounding unbalances don’t affect too much the culture zone, the more nature is balanced, the less work for us!
I am naturally conscious that the garden itself is not yet balanced, but I noticed a much broader detail concerning us and the rodents. Since plowing kills a lot of rodents in the fields around, that also means less predators (they have less food) hence in our case, we don’t disturb them they can live freely in the ground as they wish. But we need the population of their natural predators to increase, all we can do is help by creating welcoming conditions. Mostly Buzzards and Owls, since we’re not allowed to have cats there, which might have been simpler in the short term… Though in the long run, owls and buzzards are better because we won’t need to feed them at all.

2015.08.29 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNV7mbjd6Jo

Combined video for all gardens. I’m mostly still trying to figure out the rodents life cycle!

2015.10.9 :
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKgw08Y-yTA
Not much to say, we’re waiting for the seeds.

2015.02.21: To start sowing of plants (from the south, needing more than 20°C of soil temperature to sprout) we made a warm layer with about 25-30cm of horse manure (there are 3 horses 50m away..), on top of it we added plastic trays so that the pots in them can bathe in water. Don’t forget we’re always trying to find lazy methods, even for sowings on hot beds. We don’t know if it will work, since we should normally come and stir the manure often to keep it warm. My friend will instead go every day quickly to add some more manure to keep the air warm.

Au début c’était irrespirable dans la serre, ça fumait!

An asparagus sowed last year held on and has managed to set itself in the soil!

2015.03.03: We made quite a useless thing last time, we remade the warm layer properly, there’s about 60cm to 1m of horse manure, occupying a big part of the space in the greenhouse, so it makes also less volume to heat up, this time the warm layer is made as it should!

2015.03.13: 10 without any visit. The seeds germinated quite well.

And I installed a bed of asparagus, 19 crowns (5 varieties mixed randomly), usually it is said they must be in a sandy soil well drained. Thinking about the history of asparagus, they used to grow in swamps, wet soils. therefore there, they are in a great soil (it didn’t see any human for 20 years!), which is gorged with water during most of the winter! I’m quite confident that they’ll thrive in that place, it’s also well protected from the cold.

2015.03.23-24: My friend watched over the plants and watered them once in a while while I was on holiday. The turnips became quite big, we had to move them outside, no matter what the climate was, they wouldn’t have lasted inside in a small box of 40×40 cm for more than 50 turnips! Hence we planted them just behind the greenhouse, in a place protected from the wind.

Meanwhile tomatoes germinated well in my small indoor greenhouse.

We sowed a lot of things the 23-24, the warm layer is full!

2015.04.07: I went to the greenhouse to transplant my tomatoes, they couldn’t stay in such a tin space anymore, I waited for a date I had by intuition, it turned out to be the right day, nice weather, but more importantly the weather started warming up again! We had between 5-15°C the first week of march, but then again between 0-10°C for the next 3 weeks! I was hesitating a lot, the tomatoes couldn’t bear the lack of space anymore, but I was afraid it would be too cold for the transplant, they couldn’t be put on the warm layer. In the end the weather warmed up just at the perfect last moment.

2015.04.23: It has been very hot for the last 2 weeks, the plants are growing a lot, it’s becomign hard to keep the in the greenhouse. But we’re still waiting a bit more to put them outside, in case there’s a small cold period again!?

2015.05.14: Most of the tomatoes have been put outside now, celeriacs as well, cucumbers and some squashes (giant blue and Turkish gourds).

2015.06.03: Other plants were sowed, cucumbers, peppers re-potted, some tomatoes that weren’t well developed last time are now good to go. And cantaloupes, watermelons, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants are replanted outside.

2015.02.21: When doing some tidying up in the garden I found this huge black radish, 1,8kg! I didn’t see it for almost 6 months… Because there were other smaller ones, but eaten by insects, with holes etc. thus I thought it was the same for this one and never took it out of the ground to check it, I was astonished, it remained good (about 90%, the top was a bit old) during all that time!

2015.03.01: Again a black radish I had never seen and a red onion.

2015.04.09: the first wild radishes of the year! They grew while the temperatures were between 0-10°C! They are much more rustic than the ones I sowed (bought) which didn’t germinate yet… They were quite tender, but I had to removed the hardened skin, it seems it was so to protect them from the cold!

2015.06.14: In the previous years I presented all harvests, this year I decided to stop because they’re starting to become overwhelming, I will only report interesting harvests, for example vegetables that adapted to the region, out of the norm plants, etc. In this end of spring, there were already wuite a lot of strawberries and currants, and aromatic plants. I didn’t sow radishes, because I’m on a specific diet for detox and in my case radishes are not well suited, so that’s it, else there would have been quite a lot already! I keep/sow some just for seeds this year.

2015.07.17: A small update. During the last month I had around 2-3kg of shelled peas to eat and also 2,5kg of unshelled peas harvested. Which are now in the freezer.

These peas were sowed as a support for the potatoes, to help them grow better (leguminous plants -> nitrogen fixers).

We also must have eaten between 1 and 2kg of wild strawberries, when they have good growing conditions they can become quite big! Warmth, sun and humidity. The place where they grow best is on stones, with a souther exposure, the back of the stones keeps humidity, the stones keep the heat and all of it in full sun.

And the first harvest of potatoes, ‘chéries’ I think. 12.5kg on 3m².

2015.01.05-06: A vegetable garden as I like it, well covered during all winter! I’ll remove weeds and plants only when I’ll sow, so that I leave the cover as long as possible to let insects do their decomposing work as much as they can until I’ll be forced to put them on a compost pile, because it’s obvious I’ll have to remove them, they won’t be fully decomposed by march/april..

I prepared a new mound, with wood underneath; as Claude Bourgignon often says, this method seems strange to him and I agree. But in this case it seems important, I plan on sowing corn, squash and beans in that spot, water tends to quickly leave, toward the field below/behind and also all the nearby trees sucking the water out of the soil. The wood logs seem useful to keep more moisture in the soil and I didn’t bury them too deep, seen from the back, the logs are maximum 10cm from the surface, mushrooms will be able to grow (presence of oxygen/aerobiosis) to decompose them. And as usual, never let the soil naked, hence since I did that during winter and no grass will grow to protect it, I added RCW to keep the soil protected!

2015.01.13: One comfrey B14 that was well in place in the vegetable garden since last year, I unearthed it to take the roots and replicate them in other places, around the greenhouse and in the garden with raised mounds.

2015.01.22: I finished the planning of the vegetable garden, the bins B and C are placed, the straw is covering an artichoke, I hope it will resist the winter. That’s also why I removed the comfrey, it was in the way of the bins!

Birds sow wild garlic everywhere (here next to the gooseberries), I love it Nature helps us with so many synchronicities when we want to do something and commit 100% to it! I didn’t even mention the mushrooms that implanted themselves in the whole garden these last 3 years, 2 types of boletus and puffballs which I love! It’s quite crazy to have 3 different varieties of mushrooms in your own backyard, and quite tasty ones…

A Rosemary plant that is holding on since 2 years already, it’s hard for him/her?, but I’m hopeful it will become robust enough to take a firm ground in there, usually rosemary is not supposed to handle freezing temperatures…

2015.02.03: a bit of snow covered the garden for about one week.

2015.02.15: Over 3 years I trimmed the trunks of this chestnut tree I had burned by mistake when I was young and it grew back in a bush shape for about 15 years… Now it’s back to one trunk, it was necessary to have enough light on the vegetable garden. The tree agreed to be cut that way, I admit, if it’s brutal, it had more than 15 trunks…

The black radishes I had left so that they make seeds to have early radishes instead of SFP/MFP (Surface fertilizing plants/medium fertilizing plants… my terms for differentiating plants that most people call weeds) early in the season.. But I’m not sure yet if the black radishes will grow early, it’s a test, I hope they bred with other varieties I had sown as well that can germinate around 6-8°C, black radishes usually need higher soil temperatures to germinate.

2015.02.17: Start of the setup of the pyramid greenhouse, obviously made to sacred geometry proportions

2015.02.21-03.01: On the 21st I sowed red early radishes, onions and parsnips in the bin 7 (on the right), for parsnips I know from previous years it works fine. For onions and radishes, since they re-sow themselves alone when I let them go to seed, I think that if they are too early in the soil, they’ll also just wait to germinate at the right time! I still covered this bin until the 27th.
Then on the first of march I sowed again red early radishes in teh bin 9 (on the left) and cress all over.

2015.03.05: I started my tomatoes, peppers (sweet and not) inside, I used seeds I bought (and that stayed under a pyramid for a year), but also seeds I harvested last year, the most robust and late ones.

I did without knowing is, as Pascal Poot recommends for the choice of seeds, it seemed logical to me! The tomato that is and looks the nicest and resists the longest
But as it is written here: Tomates sans eau ni pesticide : cette méthode fascine les biologistes I didn’t know that it had to be done as described below to harvest the seeds.. I just washed them and let them dry, I hope it will be fine, else, well I’ll restart this year, that’s why I still sowed a lot of seeds that I bought.. I’m more focused on small/medium tomatoes, because the big ones don’t usually have enough time to ripen outdoor here in the north of france!

• « You must take the fruit as late as possible, if possible just before the first frosts, hence it will have lived through the drought of summer, but also the rains of autumn. »
• « Tomatoes, are special. When you open a tomato, the seeds are in a sort of gelatin, like the egg yolk. This gelatin prevents the seeds from germinating inside the fruit, which is warm and humid. The seeds can’t germinate before this gelatin is rotten and fermented. »
• « You must hence let the seed ferment. For that you must open the tomato, extract the seeds and let them many hours in their own juice, for example in a salad bowl. A lactic fermentation will occur. »
• « You must watch this fermentation process as milk on the stove, it can last between 6 and 24 hours, but unlike as what is being said, you must not wait for a mold layer to form. We take a seed and put it on our hand, if we can move it with the index without the gelatin coming with it, it means it’s good. »
• « The we put everything in a tea strainer, wash with water and let it dry. There we get to a germination rate of 98% to 100%. »
• « For sweet pepper it’s different, you must just wash the seeds, let them dry on a very fine sieve and then store them. For chili peppers it’s the same, but it becomes dangerous because the seeds burn, it’s very strong, it even goes through gloves. Once I harvested the seeds from a crate of Espelette peppers withotu gloves, I had to leave my hands in cold water for the whole night! »

1-2 weeks earlier I had also planted 6 onions rocamboles in different places, in places where there are also mostly perennials.

2015.03.09: I planted asparagus crowns, that were bought, it’s hard to start from the seed! There are 7 crowns in bin 1, one Violette Burgundine, 2 Super d’Argenteuil, 1 Verte Voltaire, 1 Prima and 2 Grolim. This bin is now full of perennials, I don’t think I’ll add any more, the 2 Rhubarbs will make shadow for the asparagus, there’s also one lovage plant that should become quite big every year! And I won’t forget a Rocambole onion in the corner

2015.03.12: Bear’s garlic that I collected in a forest in Belgium last year around april/may accepted the invitation in the “woodlands” of our garden! It’s fabulous

I had a bit of troubles to differentiate at first from this Arum, I don’t know which variety for the moment…

2015.04.09: Not much happened during a month, the temperatures went up at the beginning of march, but then dropped again for the last 2-3 weeks of march, hence no opportunity to sow, the temperatures were between 0-10°C…

Global view, it’s quite at rest still! Notice the prunus trees, I’ve attached them together, I’ll let them fusion just out of curiosity

A good thing to remember, cress can germinate at such low temperatures, it germinates as quickly as SFP, MFP, DFP!

The radishes (commercial) that I sowed on the 21st of february are only starting to germinate a bit now. I had transplanted turnips from the greenhouse on the 13th of march in the bin 8, they are all almost dead, the cold was too cold and birds finished the job

I left these onions overwinter to start doing like with the radishes, I want my own rustic varieties re-sowing themselves on their own year by year! Onions are a good choice because they don’t take up much space. And look behind, the rustic radish much more advanced in its growth than the commercial ones!

And again other radishes.. It’s a good concept to have them as “weeds” in early spring! ANd it’s now been 3 years, they’re starting to be very robust, I leave all varieties mix up from year to year randomly.

The wild strawberries as usual flowering very early, the cold didn’t seem to bother them

I leave the strawberries alone, I don’t cut/trim etc. Because everyone does that, no one can tell me what happens if I let them be, I want to understand the natural cycle, here on the right, where it’s more developed, these are mostly the runners from last year that took root. On the left the strawberries were well implanted last year, I wan to see how it goes if I leave them on their own.

Sage is a great plant I recommend, not only can it withstand mild colds, it grows until January and doesn’t even lose its leaves, it’s somewhat like coniferous trees! Now it’s already budding..

2015.04.12: I planted potatoes I had kept from last year harvest. I learned from my mistakes (I hope ), last year I had planted 50-70 plants per bin, it was way too much, this year I planted 30, 3 lines of 10. In the bins A, B and C, as shown on the schematic I re-used and completed from last year page.

You can see the bin with the holes.

Then I added peas rows in between the potatoes, the association seems great, the peas help fix nitrogen from the air, which helps the potatoes grow. I wanted to try that, because climbing peas are good, but if I can do without having to install the grids etc. for them to climb, it’s even better! I keep the seeds from the climbing ones for new experiments this year.

Here I did the same, but in bin 5, which is a bit shorter (3m instead of 3.5m for A, B and C bins) hence I made 3 lines of 9 holes. And on top of the peas I also added black corn from seeds I kept from 2 years ago, I hope to be able to use them as support later in the year for climbing beans, but I don’t know if the corn will grow §being slower than potatoes) in between the shadow of the potatoes, I want to see if with the nitrogen fixed by the peas, even with the lack of sun if the corn can grow..

The varieties of potatoes I sowed are: “Salad blue” in bin A, “Kestrel 2nd early” in bin B, “Home guard 1st early” in bin C (I think, I’m not even sure…), and “Chéries” in bin 5.

An artichoke from last year that withstood the winter!

A violet broccoli re-birthing from it’s own root that died during the winter

I’ll try to get and keep seeds from these plants, if they adapt to resist a bit more to the cold that’s a great thing!

2015.04.15: I planted potatoes, 3rd year in the same spot, I decided in the end (I didn’t have the same opinion last year) to see if the soil can still be good even without rotations… I did that in a very simple fashion, I just removed 2-3cm of soil to place the potatoes and also added 2-3cm of RCW. As we mow the lawn once in a while I’ll add the grass to ‘earth up’ the potatoes.

Celeriacs from the greenhouse I pricked out, but they ended up being eaten. By slugs, birds? I don’t know, but I learned that I have to prick them out twice, once in a larger pot to let them harden and grow to resist the outside transplantation. I’ll need to equip myself with more adapted pots etc. next year! And small tunnels, of 3x1m to cover the bins individually when needed, but that was already in the plans.

Wild radishes…

In the mound at the back, that I won’t use to plant anymore (too much shadow), a parsnip still grew again, even with all the compost I added, the soil I disrupted a lot etc. Hence I’ll let that robust one grow to get the seeds!

And just next to there, where parsnips grew in the previous years, they are growing back, so I’m leaving it to see what happens…
Et à côté, là ou des panais poussaient l’année dernière, ils repoussent, donc je laisse faire pour voir..

I pricked out squashed (blue queen and turkish gourds), to see if they can resist, if it works I’ll have seeds from very robust plants, else…

2015.04.20: The violet broccoli is growing a tiny flower…

2015.05.08 :
I made a video, but it’s my first try and I’m not yet great at it, hence this time I added photos as support, because sometimes I don’t film very well, it’s not stable…

Thanks to a friend, I got many cuttings of blueberries and currants (old ones, very robust), he also showed me a place where to harvest wild asparagus, bear leek colse to where I live. And cuttings of rosemary and thyme that can withstand the cold of the region!

Wild asparagus and bear leek to eat, we might as well.

Here’s the mix I used to water the plants, around 40 ml of colloidal silver (30ppm), 15g of manganese sulfate and 10ml of ormus. The sulfate to boost the growth, the silver for their health and ormus for a little bit of both.
Re-diluted in about 50L, in watering cans.

The sage is getting quite big, the currants as well, making a good protection against the wind from north-west, to protect the rosemary and thyme I just planted behind.

New currants/blueberry hedge with strawberries behind.

Global view.

Complement for the video:
Bin A:

Bin B:

Bin C:

Comfrey well setup!

Commercial radishes, sowed the 21st of February.. They grew slowly compared to many wild ones!

The potatoes of bin 5 that have a virus and got sun burnt.

I placed the tomatoes today, 3 are from seeds from last year, they grew with mildew, like with the potatoes the carried it with next generation! I already watered with colloidal silver before, today I watered with my mixture as well. That being said they’re robust, my seeds are the ones that grew the fastest!

The strawberries, to continue watching a natural cycle, I do nothing except remove some herbs once in a while when they take too much space.

Lovage is a good food for slugs, good to know.

And the Rhubarbs are well attacked! But as I said last year, I planted them in full sun knowing it’s not ideal… I count of them to make shadow for asparagus, which is not the normal logic… Usually rhubarbs are placed in shadowy zones!

The violet broccoli still resisting quite well!

I didn’t explain in the video, in bin 5, there’s also black corn with the peas and potatoes. The corn is in the rows with the peas. I want to test if it will grow fast enough to not be overgrown by the potatoes (and they die because it will be in their shadow), thanks to the nitrogen fixed by the peas… So as to be able to make the 3 sisters methods (planting the squash and climbing beans afterwards) once I’ve harvested the potatoes.

This sorrel is still quite helpful to feed some herbivores insects.

The artichoke that resisted the winter, I keep an eye on this one!

Another comfrey very well set up.

2015.06.03 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pnZMiKhpfY
I won’t add every video as an integrated video, because it will probably slow down the page too much!

This last month not much has changed, the potatoes look very healthy, no more signs of any disease. I focused more on the planing around, the new currants/blueberries hedge, I added mint, I covered the soil etc. But nothing special in the vegetable garden. I let everything grow freely, because it’s very hot and dry so it’s best for the soil to stay well covered by plants. To this day I don’t really know what I’ll do next, 3 bins are completely free to be used. I’m waiting for inspiration! Squashes for the season (not forced), climbing peas and beans. And other things to come, it’s still quite early in the season, in the end a lot of things are planted in the garden with mounds, so I don’t know what to do at home, I thinking about other lazy methods.

2015.06.21 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5epByl8YCoc

Since last time, I’ve been inspired thanks to mother nature who decided to bring a little rain, which seems perfect to sow carrots, even if it’s a bit late compared to the norm, I noticed that each time i tried to sow carrots directly at the beginning of spring, it’s no good at all because slugs are really hungry and are looking for anything to eat. Since there aren’t many other plants at the beginning of spring, the sprouts of carrots are quite a treat for them! Now, the mole in my garden already ate a lot of slugs and some toads in the surroundings as well. It has been quite dry, slugs could not feed themselves much, hence not reproduce while these 2 predators ate them, hence there must not be a lot left, which seems perfect to sow carrots.
Apart from that, as explained in the video description, cress is a fantastic plant to cover the soil while it isn’t being used for something else, it has very shallow roots which can be weeded out easily. And it grows as quickly as other wild plants, hence it can easily prevent them from growing if sowed on a naked soil right at the onset of spring.

2015.07.01 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AcR0-FjBRk

As explained in the video, the mix peas/potatoes brought me a great little surprise, more pollination for the potato flowers. The addition of melliferous plants around the garden helps too, sages that are well set now and comfrey have flowers that attract a lot of insects (not just bees), I also let some wild herbs growing for their presence and their flowers that attract insects as well.
The aphids (managed by ants) that were colonizing some of my plants greatly dimished, as i expected it and observed in the previous years, this colonization usually starts in spring and ends at the beginning of the summer.
Btw. having ants herding too many aphids everywhere is a sign that the ecosystem is not yet well balanced, which I know is still the case. Thank you mother nature for the little reminder
Apart from that, 2 seeds of the same tomato variety, losetto (which were hybrids F1 when I bought them), cherry tomatoes, are growing very differently, one that was forcibly slowed down by slugs, is now growing in height, whereas the other one which wasn’t hindered still remains quite flat and rampant like it was last year.
This year, on top of wild radishes, I’m letting onions become wild as well by resowing themselves on their own.
I also explain a useful method to sow carrots, you have to cover them entirely, since they take 2-3 weeks to germinate, to prevent any other plants from growing.
I’ll let you watch the video for the rest.

And some more photos, because things are missing in the video!

In the aromatic plants corner. The commercial thyme and oregano are weak and can’t stand the actual climate. Where as the rustic thyme that I got from a friend, is thriving! In the middle there’s just rosemary that doesn’t seem to have survived the plantation, I put the branch as is in the soil… I’ll replant another stem later this year when it will be cooler, it’s also a rustic variety.

The rocambole onion has its own little ecosystem, this plant developed around it on its own, it’s great, it protects the soil around the onion. If that plant doesn’t climb too much, I might let it cover the entire bin?

I wasn’t yet good at recognizing them, these are asparagus sprouts, I had forgotten that I had put two claws in there, since there’s space… Another one in under the sage and also making a sprout.

Cross-breeding of leguminous plants, this Lucerne grew there on its own and as you can see there are black pods (normal) and green ones, in the green ones there are mini peas! I’ll keep these as seeds to resow next year to see what grows!

A closer view of the very big ‘radishes’ seeds, that don’t seem to be radishes! To follow!

I didn’t show it in the video, inside the unfinished greenhouse, there are plants, that I have to water.. Because the automatic irrigation but rainwater collection on the sides of the greenhouse is not yet in place. These are squashes and cucumbers mostly, they are there in preparation to put them where the potatoes are growing now, straight after the harvest I’ll put them there to use the space of the garden as well as possible. They’ll be a bit delayed compared to the norm, but it’s fine for me.

A parsnip going to seed in the compost heap, I hope it will be pollinated (auto pollination..), because it resisted to a lot of things, it must be quite rustic!
Un panais dans le tas de compost qui part en fleur, vu qu’il n’y en a qu’un j’espère qu’il se fera polliniser, car il a resisté à tellement de choses, il doit avoir une bonne rusticité!

A squash that grew in the compost, it happens often, but this one is quite special, in this spot there is not sun, ever! Under the tree, on the north face of the compost mound! I’ll keep a close eye on it, I don’t even know what kind of squash it is…

This is another part of the garden, where corn is starting to be big enough, I sowed climbing beans recently so that they’ll help the corn to grow better by fixing nitrogen, while using the corn to climb. And later I’ll add squashes at the foot of all those, when they’re all tall enough. The three sisters method… But I learned it over two years, you should not sow everything at the same time, first corn (here in april), then beans (mid-june), then squashes (mi-july). In our climate it’s not the same as in tropical or equatorial climates…

This year I sowed the climbing beans at the front of the house, to rotate the crops a bit and simply because it’s a good place.
I couldn’t do it earlier, because there is a huge tree above, and I had sown non climbing peas and potatoes there behind already, if I had sown the climbing beans early as well, they would have made too much shadow for the plants behind..

2015.07.17 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILuGNEr4TcQ

Last year I planted the potatoes on the 2nd of May, this year on the 12th of April. Spring started earlier this year, but it was spread out longer, for example the cherry and currants in the garden were ripe approx. 2 weeks later than last year.
Anyhow, this year, the potatoes were planted on the 12th of April, first harvests on the 17th of July (3 months and 5 days), last year they were planted on the 2nd of may and all harvested together on the 16th of august (3 months and 14 days). Depending on the variety, the next harvests this year should be in 1 to 3 weeks. Hence it’s approximately equal.
However, there’s no comparison as far as the quality is concerned! I kept the small potatoes from last year for this year. Last year I planted them 20-30cm deep, it was way too deep, they lost time to come out and it wasn’t good for the potatoes, the soil at that depth bathed in water and non-decomposed compost, many were rotten at the harvest, as I said in the video. I had also planted 60 to 70 plants per bin, it’s way too much, many vegetated too much, I had many stems longer than 2m, because they were looking for some light!
This year, it was great, the plants were robust and healthy, not too long, I could just have put a bit more per bin, I was scared of doing the same mistake as last year, hence I planted only 30 per bin, each bin is 3m² in size. I think that the ideal quantity is around 15 plants per m², hence 45 in a bin.
This year I had peas on top of it!
I harvest in total 2,5kg of shelled peas and around 2-3kg with shells. I planted them as support for the potatoes, as nitrogen fixers, I didn’t look forward to much in terms of harvest, hence these couple of additional kilos of peas is just fantastic! And even pea seeds! Next year I will do exactly the same, but with 45 potatoes per bin instead of 30.
I had 12,5kg of potatoes for these first 3m², it’s within the standards, that being said, it almost never rained during two months! Taking into account that I never water, this harvest is great.
On top of that, my most important goal, their genetic heritage improved again this year! I started with potatoes that rotted last year because they were too deep, the survivors of this ‘massacre’ were replanted this year and withstood peacefully a drought. With optimal conditions, I’m faithful that with this improved genetic it will be even better. Moreover, the soil is becoming better year after year, I think that it will take around 5 years in total to get to the top of the top, soil and genetics. It’s just a matter of patience and letting nature adapt on its own terms.
I started with commercial potatoes, I know very well that they are not used to support any and all climate conditions without human support, it takes a couple of generations for their genetic to re-become more rustic!
Also, I never saw any disease or potato beetles, that’s also an important aspect, very healthy plants that can repel their predators on their own! When I see go every week on their potatoes to remove the beetles, or put some (even organic) treatments, I wonder why they can’t figure out that it’s because the soil is bad and/or that their plants have a bad genetic profile. Generally a plant with an average genetic will grow very well in a good soil, but in a bad soil, the good genetics will be required, or help as I do, a bit of colloidal silver, ormus, something to help the plant to have what it needs to defend itself on its own while mutating, the harvest might not be great, but what survived will have mutated to become more resistant!

2015.08.07 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drxwJowxGD0

As I said above, the harvests might not be that great and on the following two bins it was confirmed.
2-3kg of blue/violet potatoes (1kg per m²), and 4-5kg of yellow potatoes (1.5kg par m²). That’s really small, but these varieties were not only commercial, but also ancient. The commercial varieties are trained to have good yields, the ancient varieties surely not, they must just be reproduced to have them available without much ‘training’.
But, the potatoes look nice and I’m sure their genetics are getting better!
These ones were also planted in a backfilled soil made this year, among other things with clay that looked somewhat blueish taken from a place in the garden where it hadn’t seen the sun for 15-20 years, it was not oxygenated (blueish clay is a sign of lack of oxygen).
Work to continue in the following years!

2015.08.29 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNV7mbjd6Jo

Combined video for all gardens. I’m mostly still trying to figure out the rodents life cycle!

2015.09.17 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlyL14bNrbg

There isn’t much more to say than what’s already in the video description.

Small update to keep you updated. Not much has happened since last month, the rodent activity is under control and the delayed squashes are now growing well, let’s hope the season will allow them to finish ripening
One obvious observation is that plants allowed to grow on their own terms produce more flowers and hence seeds! As should be the case in a natural environment where plants want to give the best chances to carry on to their offspring

2015.10.11 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJOvRcNMgWU

2015.10.31 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeRhjOGm7EY

I’m very happy with the way things are going.
One thing I didn’t mention in the video, I had cross-breeds between wild alfalfa plants and green peas earlier this year (I noticed it because the pea pods were opening in a spirally kind of way). That’s really great because at this time of the year the alfalfa plants are still totally green and growing, that’s a good thing if I can get peas (the cross between peas and alfalfa) that can grow well that late in the season! I love peas
And as I finished the video on it, slow growing corn left standing in the winter seems to be a great treat for small birds!

2015.11.24 :
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq5UjTouX6M

The end of autumn is nearing, with the first frosts. The names I was looking for in the video, was shallots and also lilies of the valley and hyacinths. These are flowers that have a toxic bulb or completely toxic. When I said I planted shallots and garlic, I meant fully grown ones. Always with the aim that rodents that end up biting such things get disgusted and that most of them find the safe spot I’ve made for them.
I forgot in the video, the onions I let go to seed this year are also starting to grow randomly all over the place, great

We planted on the 8th of may 2015.

2014.05.14:

2014.06.08:
We covered in between the mounds with straw, also sowing peas, beans, alfalfa (and carrots, but that’s useless, they never had time to grow, too much shadow, too quickly). All these plants, apart from the carrots, are nitrogen fixing plants. To help the potatoes, because the people letting us use the field still want to plow (old habits are hard to get rid of, even if they’re absurd!), thus we are obliged to try and make the soil better with other plants, it’s the only option, adding RCW doesn’t help either, the owners don’t want wood and even if they allowed it, we know it would end up underground next year, which is not in the natural order of things. Anyhow with have to work with some constrains!

Beans, alfalfa, peas and mostly chenopods .

Carrots grew, but never finished! At least there’s something “practical” about this soil for carrots at the beginning, since it’s dead… there are almost no insects, no slugs, nothing to eat the small carrot seedlings.

2014.07.04:
That’s what we didn’t expect! Here’s the big mistake of the year, or lesson whichever way you see it , don’t ever make half strawed spots with non covered areas. As I read in a book (Les plantes bio-indicatrices from Gérard Ducerf) that I got after we started this field, it was pretty clear, chenopods have a tendency to grow in places with large hydric contrasts. Here, dry mounds, with humid strawed paths, obviously chenopods are going to grow all along the mounds! It was slowly asphyxiating the potatoes, we let it continue until it was no longer possible.

2014.07.25:
Here’s the less strawed side, thus less hydric contrast, hence less chenopods, but in the background you can see the mess, 1m tall chenopods everywhere!

2014.07.26-08.01:
I weeded almost everything by hand, without pulling anything out, to not bother the potatoes roots. It’s quite a long task hehe

2014.08.01: The potatoes that were surrounded by the most (and tallest) chenopods suffered the most.

There where there was less straw and hence less chenopods, the potatoes were more healthy!

2014.08.06:
And that’s what happens when someone that wasn’t invited tries to help in, I don’t know who did that, I gusee thinking it would help, but pulling out the chenopods is of no help, it disturbed all the roots of the potatoes nearby, which all died as a result! It’s hard to explain something to the ancients, it’s not because a method has been used for 100 years, that it means it’s any good, the only sure thing it means is that people repeated it mindlessly…

I was on holidays during the harvests (end of august), it wasn’t that great, about 400kg (for about 300m²…, last year we had 200kg on 30m²!), quite small potatoes, many with a small taste of chlorine.. But it was a great experience, 15 people came for the harvest, it was all done by hand, everyone went home with a bag of 20-25kg and the small potatoes were kept as seeds for next year.

For 2015 the same method will be used, but as in 2013, we’ll straw everything (with a lot of straw!), not just between mounds. Maybe there won’t even be any mounds, just potatoes placed on the ground and covered with straw, with peas, beans, alfalfa etc. obviously! But I’m not the one who takes all the decisions. We’ll see if we get the field already, since we got a bad harvest. For us it was just a try, to learn you’ve got to fail sometimes, but I have no idea if the ones who lent us the field see it that way.

The greenhouse was already quite useful for the tomatoes I sowed, after staying at home for 1 and a half month (already way too long) in a small indoor greenhouse, I moved them to this greenhouse so that they could keep on growing while waiting to be put outside mid spring. I always was careful to keep them well oriented wrt. the north, as you can see, there’s a magnetized grid underneath, it needs to be aligned with the earth magnetic field.

Many more sowing from my friend and partner in all the gardening experiments!

Other plants coming from other people joined in the adventure (mostly tomatoes).

We planted some tomatoes in the ground to not have to water them.
A l’avant de la photo sur la droite, ce sont des poivrons! Ils sont vraiment lents, semés en même temps que les tomates.

The are also aspargus, that was a try, but that’s very complicated, you need a good installation to let them grow happily, it’s quite an art to start from the seed (they all died at the beginning on 2015…)

A bit more planning in front of the greenhouse, but that’s more for 2015!

I didn’t enjoy any of the fruits of the greenhouse, but my friend did (he lives very close to it, I’m much farther!), he got quite a lot of tomatoes!

2014.05:

2014.06 (obviously the cherries are from trees we already had before I started all this ):

2014.07:

2014.08 (the green tomatoes were from two sick plants, I might as well make jam from it!):

2014.09:

2014.10:

2014.11 (the apple juice is obviously not from my garden):

2015.01 (neither are the apples):

See you in 2015!

We discovered the field in november of 2013.

Between the end of december 2013 and beginning of january 2014 cleared the grass on the area to be terraformed and also trimmed areas of young trees around the field to start collecting some wood. The area, which will be more properly delimited as soon as we have the time, is about 45m long and 35m wide (around 0.4 acres). The mounds are around 35m long and a bit more than 1m wide.

The trenches of the mounds were dug with a machine, it would have taken way too much time to do all that by hand and we both work fulltime…

The same day we had already collected enough wood to fill up one trench and cover it again.

But we thought we had more wood than that, we underestimated the amount of wood that would be necessary for one trench!

During the whole month of January we collected dead wood in the forest around the field to have enough to fill up all the trenches. Thankfully we had a very favorable location with everything needed just next to the field, hauling more than a thousand of dead tree trunks just over a couple hundreds of meters by hand is already very exhausting!

2014.01.31: The trenches were filled and the tree trunks cut to better fill/fit in the trenches.

Again thanks to my friend we got a lot of wild growing Mirabelle plum and plum for free, so we also planted those around the field.

2014.03.18: The mounds were covered once again with the machine around mid-march.

2014.04.16: we planted around 800 seed potatoes in one mound.

2014.05.06: little by little we plow/harrow/bine the mounds by hand to give them a more practical shape. The potatoes are starting to come out, but it will be much more visible in 2-3 weeks. We planted very deep (15-20cm) to not have to mound the potatoes, but they also take more time to come out. Also, since we didn’t yet have the time to cover the mounds with straw/grass etc. it’s best like that, because with the weather we had (dry and hot since the beginning of march), it is best for the potatoes to be very deep where it is always moist (thanks to the soaked wood underneath as well), the naked soil dries very quickly… And here as well, we don’t want to use our time to go there and watch the garden everyday, water etc. It has to grow well without our intervention! We want a big and lazy vegetable garden!

2014.05.07: To this day, we planted the mound with potatoes, also some peas (on 3-4m of another mounds) and a couple onions on the border of the mound with potatoes.
We have to cover the mounds with straw/grass to be able to sow plants and vegetable that are a bit more fragile..

2014.05.17: The potatoes are starting to show quite nicely (red) and the small part of peas as well (yellow). We’ve just mulched with straw a good chunk of the mounds, but once again, we underestimated the amount of straw that would be necessary!

2014.06.08:
General view, the fence has been set up.

The first mound of potatoes is growing well.

A second mound of potatoes has been planted.

We planted around 25 tomato plants in this mound, we’ll let them creep and grow as they wish without support. There are two varieties (out of 6 I think) that should be well adapted and robust in our climate.

Some of the peas are not growing well, because they are a climbing variety and they have no support to climb onto.

2 plants of pickles and two squash if I’m right.

2014.06.27:
A general view, we sowed bush beans and bush peas in the first two mounds on the left and between the potatoes of the first mound on the far right.

2014.07.04:
It has been more than a month that it has almost nor rained, a couple of millimeters for 1-2 days, the rest of the time was quite sunny at 15-25°C. It’s the first year, the mounds are not ready yet to bear such a lack of water, they remain humid, but not enough yet, there isn’t enough mulch on them yet.

2 squash plants simply killed their own fruits to take back the water it seems… Now we’re just waiting for the peas and beans sowed last week to sprout, being quite robust plants, no matter the climate they should be able to produce something and in all cases they’ll aid in fixing nitrogen in the soil and will simply provide us with more mulch.

The peas are ripe.. They didn’t grow much, also because it’s a climbign variety and without support it just vegetates (we had nothing else to sow). Now they are at least slightly mulched with grass cuttings from around the enclosure.

Tomatoes seem to not been doing too bad, but they are still showing signs of lack of water.

This potatoes mound is now more or less mulched with grass cuttings from around the enclosure as well, but it’s not enough.. We don’t have the time to cut more grass for the moment. We hope it will rain a bit, the potato plants really suffered from the too sunny weather. But they are holding on, so if it rains soon it should be ok.

This mound, that was mulched with the grass we cut when preparing the space in winter is the one that is holding on best, rightly so, it’s the one that has the most mulch on it! The potatoes and beans growing in that one seem to be doing quite well with the weather we’ve had these last two months compared to the other mounds.

2014.07.25:
A small tour of the tomatoes that are growing very well, the soil is well balanced, compared to the tomatoes I grew at home which became ill, here there are no visible problems. It was a bit cold and rained during 1-2 weeks.. The observable lack of water in the first weeks is not a problem anymore.

The beans (non-climbing) are growing well.

Same for the peas.

The squashes and zucchinis are well set again, after the hard beginning! Mound 1.

We removed the peas that were dying/vegetating to try beans, but it’s still too dry.. Not enough mulch or surface cover for the moment. Mound 2.

Mound 3, tomatoes

Mound 4, the potatoes really suffered, as expected; there wasn’t enough surface cover and the bottom of the mound is not packed enough yet, thus too much dry weather, the potatoes suffered even though they held hold.

Mound 5, beans, potatoes, peas, it’s a bit of a random melting pot.

Mound 4, the back-side, the potatoes were planted here later than the ones at the frotn of the mound, these ones didn’t have to endure the excessive dryness, it shows! We can clearly see the difference between the ones planted after and before, many of the ones that had to endure the dry period are quite dead!

Back of mound 5.

2014.08.14:
Yellow pear tomatoes, that grow very well, it’s good to note, like in my garden, this variety as an impressive growth rate!

Small harvest.

General view.

Mound 1

Mound 2

Mound 3

Mound 4

Mound 5

We haven’t got much to do apart from waiting to harvest. We planted strawberries around the fence perimeter, we’ll continue that slowly but surely to have a hedgerow all around the garden.

2014.09.20:
I went on holiday for a month, I didn’t follow anything that was happening here. My friend told me he had fun with the harvests, he came 3-4 times while I wasn’t there to harves, tomatoes, pickles, beans, peas, potatoes. There were plenty of harvests, just no photos..

I sowed squashes before leaving, but as for my vegetable garden, I sowed about a month too late, you can see the flowers now (almost at the end of September), it’s too late for the squashes to grow enough and ripen. In the foreground of the photo are cabbages, they were decimated by slugs!

The tomatoes are starting to have a bit of mildew. They held well I think, taking into account that no one overlooked them! I ate a lot on the spot, such a delight. I also left some, the most healthy looking ones, to collect them later to keep the seeds for next year. It’s to slowly select the ones that are the most adapted to the local climate. What a pity, no one here has any old variety anymore, the selction process has to be restarted from scratch with non-local varieties..

As in my own vegetable garden, some ill plants keep on vegetating new healthy parts!

The cherry tomatoes are very adapted to the climate here I think! We can harvest quite a lot since the ripen quickly!

For the bigger ones, they have to be adapted, even if that means they’ll have to become smaller to ripen quicker. If it allows us in the north (and outside) to have more tomatoes, it’s a good thing!

Small harvest

2014.11.02:
If you followed my vegetable garden, you know I had a lot of wild walnut trees growing, we replanted two clusters (6-7 per cluster) here around the garden, hoping at least one in each cluster will hold on to start growing next year.

A friend joined the adventure, hence the addition of the tunnel greenhouse to sow in winter.. Personally I think it’s not a great idea, it requires maintenance, we’re not often there, the purpose of the garden is to grow on its own without much supervision. But there’s space for tryouts, that’s also one of the purposes of this place!

You can see in the foreground, strawberries ready to be planted.

2014.11.29:
The wood under the mounds did indeed promote the growth of mushrooms, that’s a great sign!
However there are so many holes in between the wood trunks etc. under the mound. Which means rodents set up their home in there, a lot of rodents! Let’s hope they are mouses (carnivorous), because if it’s fieldmouses (vegetarian) that will be complicated next year (they eat the plant roots..). We hope nature will help us to set an equilibrium in all of that. We hope to set poles for raptors, there are quite a lot of buzzard in the region, so if they could hunt the rodents that’d be fantastic! We want also to make shelters for hedgehogs, a small pond for frogs (both to manage slugs). We’ll see how it goes, these are plans for the near future!

General view.

We sowed wheat that seems to be growing well.

The strawberries are installed on the back of mound 1.

Wheat again.

Phacelia

A rapid try at making a copper wire pyramid… Not great, I didn’t do it, but I still approve of the idea

Mustard sown very late, I have no idea if it will do something.

For 2014 it’s the end, see you next year, the planning will continue and the plantations should get better as the years go by!

In the beginning of December 2013 I prepared all the wooden beams for the raised beds:

Here’s the initial plan, which is quite close to the final result, the pyramid is just a bit offset to the east and there will be 3 raised beds on the left, not 4.

Firstly, for those who know me, I always look for the best way to do things while working as little as possible (in the long term) and allow plants to grow naturally as they wish. So I won’t in no way talk about cutting suckers, watering or using any treatment on the plants. I’m simply trying to offer the best environment to the plants, so that they are happy; plants in good health will be plants that bring good results for us as well, it’s as simple as that.

Also one other important information, setting up what I’m describing might take some time, but in the long term it will be much better for us and for the tomato plants; it’s really worth it.

The first and most evident thing is, to have a south exposure as much as possible, to benefit the most from the little amounts of sun we can have in northern regions!

On this schematic, the circle indicates the suns’ position rising in the east and setting in the west. The south exposition must be as good as possible because we’re going to wall off the northern side, we’ll basically plant tomatoes in front of a wall or a big pile of stones. The point is to just have as many stones as possible on the northern side, because these stones will first of all protect the tomatoes from strong winds that most often come from the north or north-west and they will act as a slow diffusion heater, exposed to the sun most of the time, the wall or stones will collect heat and release it slowly when sun is lacking and during the night.

Don’t hesitate to make it tall, a 2 m tall wall is a good size! There is no sun coming from the northern side, so we might as well have as many stones as possible to collect heat. It is also useful to add stones all around the tomatoes, they will all collect/release heat and under the stones, humidity will be retained for longer periods.

The second, and very important point; tomatoes love water but they don’t like being wet! That’s generally the biggest problem in northern regions, excess rain causing blight, which I personally think of as the cold of tomatoes. From my own observations I discovered that the problem is not rain itself, it’s that in the north, when it rains it usually means that a low-pressure system is arriving and temperatures are going to drop, which in turn will prevent the tomato plant leaves from drying up quickly. Whereas in southern regions, when it rains, the temperatures remain the same and the water on the leaves will evaporate almost as quickly as it fell. And that’s the most important aspect to understand, it’s as if a human in the north stayed outside by 30°C under heavy rain and then staying the rest of the day wet because the temperatures dropped to 20°C afterwards, a perfect way to catch a cold. Whereas in southern regions you are otuside, get soaked by a heavy rain, but the temperatures remain as high and one hour later you’re dry again as if nothing happened!

Thus, it is an absolute necessity in northern regions to have a roof on top of your tomato plants! That way, the leaves won’t ever become too wet, with the wall on the northern side you can simply attach the roof at a height of about 2 m. But since we have a lot of rain in the north, we might as well use it well, tomatoes love water, there are two ways to do it easily. If like me you have a chance to put your tomatoes in a place with a heavy clay soil where water is always plentiful 10-20 cm below, you don’t have to do much, just be sure that the bottom of the plant is not soaked in water (by planting it high enough), but making sure that the roots can go deeper by themselves to collect the water they need. If you have a sandy soil, or a soil that dries up quickly, then the best is to put a gutter on the roof to direct rain water straight into the soil aroudn the tomatoes feet.

I said it earlier, in no way are we going to remove the suckers, a name very badly chosen if you want my opinion, because these suckers will grow into branches that will give more tomatoes if the plant is robust, many more tomatoes! The additional leaves will not prevent tomatoes from growing well, on the contrary, these leaves will collect more sunlight to be able to grow more tomatoes at the same time. A tomato plant that grows well and healthy without ever being trimmed can easily produce 10 times more tomatoes than one on which all suckers are removed. Here we have to set up cages, a prop is useless, we have to support the tomato plant from the outside with a grid around it on which all branches will be able to lie instead of attaching the central stem. The easiest method is a round grid cage made with grid of about 2 m length (about 20 x 20 cm mesh), which is rolled on itself, making a grid tube of about 60 cm diameter. A tomato plant growing freely becomes a big bush!

Example, with a wall facing south:

The roof is drawn in brown, the gutter in red, with a drop by drop irrigation system (still with a good flow) to direct rainwater directly around the tomatoes cages when it rains. That’s about it, just put one tomato plant in the middle of each cage and you’re set. In these conditions, tomatoes will have enough heat, they will be protected from the rain and will be naturally watered at their base without making their leaves excessively wet when it rains. You can also (I recommend it) add a big layer of mulch/straw etc. around the tomatoes to keep the soil humid for longer periods when it is dry.

With these cages you can also easily use a method of electroculture by adding a copper pipe as central prop, using the method described in schematic B on this page: Electroculture – Basics

But don’t forget that you shouldn’t connect the grid from the bottom with the grid on top in this case, you just need this grid of galvanised iron mesh around the base, wit ha grid of around 30-40 cm height halfway buried into the ground. Here’s a schematic below to show what I think is the best to do for the cage.

The support poles don’t need to be made of wood, but they must be in a material that is an electrical insulator, hence no metal: wood or plastic is the most practical.

Then, grid 1 is the one used for the electroculture method, I didn’t draw the central copper antenna, but it obviously needs to be there. The grid 1 is in galvanized iron. Then grid 2 is placed a bit higher, not connected to the bottom one and it has a larger mesh (~ 20 x 20 cm), because this is where the tomato branches will have to go past the grid when they grow and use it as support. Then I still recommend to not connect grid 2 to grid 1, and grid 3 to grid 2 etc. for higher up grids. Because there is a small voltage potential difference between the ground and any metallic thing that is higher up in the air not electrically grounded. The higher the grid is, the larger of a voltage difference there is. I’m talking here about differences that can be measured in 0,1 V etc. But for a plant these are huge differences of potentials!

This cage system is useful in any region, not just for northern ones…

The following page is sadly only in french, tomate en cage it provides informations about misconceptions people have about growing tomatoes which are completely wrong!

Here’s a small summary of the most important points:

• Letting suckers grow does not mean that tomatoes will be smaller, if the plant is growing freely there will be many more tomatoes on one plant and all of the same size, if you had cut all the suckers you’d get the same size tomatoes but in a much smaller quantity.
• Tomatoes don’t need to be exposed to the sun to grow, on the contrary it burns them! Leaves need to be exposed to the sun to collect the energy to grow the tomatoes that are protected by the leaves from excessive sunlight.
• Letting suckers grow won’t delay the growth of the first tomatoes, they will grow at the same speed and additional ones will grow on the new branches, once the suckers have developed into full grown branches.

I forgot to specify that this method of growing tomatoes in cages is much more useful for indeterminate varieties (that grow indefinitely) than determinate ones (that stay quite short), on the other hand, the wall and the roof, that’s good for any variety of tomatoes in any northern region!

That’s it folks, it will take a bit of time to set up such an installation, but it’s really worth it in the long term to have nice and healthy tomato plants, that do not require much care and provide us with plenty of tomatoes!

I wanted to add some more technical details, because the original document has a couple of errors; that being said the schematics and setups described are correct, but the explanations are not completely right and incomplete for my taste.

Documents talking about electroculture exist in two versions, there are two types of electroculture, which can both be complementary of each other I believe:

• Coming from the anglophone world: many documents describe a type of electroculture that consists, for the most part, in using high voltages generated by generators (mostly Tesla coils) and which, by various methods are sent into the soil or in the air around the plants to aid their growth.
• From the francophone world: another type of electroculture is described, which here is based on the natural properties of some materials to attract the electrons in the air and in the soil to make them flow better where needed.

These two versions are complementary, in my opinion. But it’s good to know about these differences because when looking around on internet we easily end up on documents talking about electroculture, the same subject, electroculture, but both don’t describe the same methods at all.

The francophone version of electroculture is based on the use of specific materials arranged in specific ways to reap more benefits from a natural property of all materials, i.e. the electronegativity of the elements. Some materials are more electronegative than others, hence by using these various materials properly one can direct the flow of electrons which are naturally collected from the surroundings.

The anglophone version is also very interesting, in all documents I read it’s based on using high voltages generated by Tesla coils, and as explained in other places on this website, Tesla coils are known to be the best orgone generators, they generate currents with very high voltages and very low currents using the principles of resonance. It’s resonance that makes it a great idea, as i explain it somewhere else on this website about my understanding of how orgonite works, orgonite seems to work by an effect of resonance, re-creating electric fields at a pure/perfect frequency. A Tesla coil generates very high voltages at a high frequency, but more importantly of a purity that is almost unmatched, i.e. perfectly regular sinusoidal waves. And as you might already know, I think that these perfectly regular electric fields are most beneficial to all living things; plants, insects, animals, humans and probably for what we consider as inanimate. Plants love classical music, which is also a very clean sound vibration, with perfect harmonics between different notes. Hence I think that plants also love perfect vibrations of any other type, here electric. It is a subject I want to talk about at some point in the future.

Meanwhile, lets get back to electroculture, francophone version, which is based on the electronegativity of all elements that exist on this planet.

Electronegativity is simply the natural tendency that a material has to attract electrons, the higher it is the more the material attracts electrons. That’s what I wanted to correct/explain from the original text from 1978 (Electroculture – Basics), which I noticed while I was re-transcribing it.

Electropositivity does not really exist, it’s a relative measure of electronegativity, i.e. gold has for example an electronegativity of 2.4 (or 2.54 according to other measures), iron has an electronegativity of 1.83, hence compared to gold, iron is electropositive because gold attracts electrons much more than iron does. We can only talk about the electropositivity of a material with regards to another, it makes no sense to talk about an electropositive element on its own… No, we can just say that it is more/less electropositive (or less/more electronegative) compared to another one.

Hence, technically here’s a periodic table, not very precise, with the electronegativity of known elements. Chemistry is good in small doses, and not that hard! However I won’t go into the details about how electronegativity is determined because it becomes much more complicated!

Here you can see that fluorine (F) on the top right is the most electronegative element. We shoudl talk about the electronegativity of alloys and combinations of different elements, because in nature and in our society we often have things that are not pure, like brass which is a mixture of copper and zinc, quartz, which is silicate and oxygen etc. all these combinations also have their own electronegativity, but it becomes much harder to determine. Hence lets stick to pure materials, and those that are of interest for electroculture, which I’ll order by decreasing order of electronegativity:

• Gold (Au): 2.4
• Platinum (Pt): 2.2
• Silver (Ag): 1.93
• Copper (Cu): 1.9
• Iron (Fe): 1.83
• Zinc (Zn): 1.65
• Aluminium (Al): 1.61

That’s enough! Just by looking at those values you can understand why precious metals are so useful in electronic circuits, because not only are they excellent conductors of electricity, but also very electronegative (as far as metals are concerned). However, please do note that a high electronegativity does not mean a high electrical conductivity, Fluorine is the most electronegative element, hence also very reactive, since it attracts electrons very easily it always has a tendency to bond with other elements and hence is not easily available in its pure form in nature. But fluorine is not an electrical conductor, since electrical conductivity depends mostly of the fact that the element has one electron on the outer orbit, or maybe two, but fluorine has seven…

Anyway, lets get back to electroculture. We now have the electronegativity of the most common metals, so we can look in details at the setups of electroculture.Lets look at schematic A which I re-edited for more clarity.

Graphite is a form of carbon, so I used the electronegativity of carbon, 2.55, it might not be 100% accurate, but even if it were 2.3 or 2, it’s clearly more than the electronegativity of zinc, which is 1.65. Hence the carbon electrode attracts more electrons than zinc, which means that the natural flow of electrons will flow in the copper wire, going from the zinc electrode toward the graphite electrode. Here electrons are collected from the infinite pool of electrons which are in the soil! If the electrodes are in contact with the air they will also clearly collect some electrons from the air. What must be also clearly understood, why I added red dotted arrows, is that electrons will also flow through the soil from one electrode toward the other, since the soil is also an electrical conductor (with varying resistance depending on humidity and the minerals in it). This setup is clear, it promotes a good flow of naturally available electrons through the soil and through the air, through the copper wire.

Now let’s look at schematic B, which I also re-edited.

Just before carrying on, when building your setup, always keep an eye on the directions north, south, east, west on the various schematics, on some the north is upward, on some the south is upward..

Here it must be clearly understood that there are two parts, the antenna and the grids. The antenna has a tip in a metal that is less electronegative than the tube. It’s done on purpose, in the original document they explain that we must use iron wire, but zinc is also suitable. The copper tube is the most suitable, because it has an electronegativity of 1,9, which makes it easy to find other metals that are less electronegative for the antenna tip; zinc (1,65), iron (1,83). The tip of the antenna is less electronegative than the tube, hence electrons will naturally flow toward the tube. The purpose of the antenna is to collect electrons from the air. Then you must also remember that in this installation, the antenna is insulated from the soil! It’s very important, there shouldn’t be any electrical conduction between the base of the antenna and the ground. Else like a lightning rod, the excess of electrons will go straight to the ground. This is not what we want, we want to collect the electrons in the air and send them to the galvanised iron mesh first!

You will also notice that when we connect the copper tube with a standard electric cable (in copper) to the galvanised iron mesh in the soil, the copper has an electronegativity of 1,9 and iron only 1,83. Hence you would think that electrons will go from the grid toward the copper tube since it has a higher electronegativity, the copper tube should attract electrons more than the iron mesh… But, it’s not the case, because we shouldn’t forget that electrical currents always want to go to the ground, lightning hits the ground, we insulate our houses with ground rods. It’s a bit of a paradox, earth is as much of a large supplier of electrons as an attractor of electrons. It’s because the ground always attracts electrons, that it’s full of charges.. And anyway, that being said, there are loads of free electrons anywhere around us!

Hence here, the electrons accumulated from the air in the antenna are transferred to the iron grid, because this grid is connected to the soil, thus electrons will naturally want to go in that direction, electronegativity is not a factor of importance for this transfer of energies from antenna to the ground grid. Then we have an antenna that provides electrons to this iron mesh and these electrons arrive in the iron mesh and will diffuse into the soil, the electrons will first go from the antenna through the grid because iron is a better conductor than the soil (it has less resistance). this is where the other opposite mesh will play its role, since it’s once again copper, or any other metal more electronegative than iron, the electrons going through the iron mesh will have a slight tendency to be attracted in the direction of the opposed mesh before dispersing anyway in the end…

From an electrical point of view it’s obvious, electrons always take the path of least resistance; hence they arrive in the iron mesh and then into the ground, but since on another side there is a copper mesh, slightly more electronegative, this will naturally induce a path of slight less resistance in the direction of the copper mesh (because added to the soil resistance there is also the copper attraction..)

Another important point that must be observed is that the meshes should be placed east and west, because we want to leave the north-south path free for the natural magnetic field of the earth.

Now I’m talking from my own understanding of the subject, why must we have the direction of electrons flow from east to west? And not west east? If we take into account the rotation of the planet, if we could leave and object in the air without it being affected by the gravity of the planet, and also not the inertia etc. As the earth rotates, this object would be somewhere else on the planet without having to be moved. By making electrons flow from east to west, the earth rotates in the opposite direction, hence this promotes in a minimal fashion an easier flow for the electrons from east to west instead of the opposite. Also, given the fact that electrons are so light, they are not affected by gravity like normal objects. But it becomes hard to talk about these subjects, because we have go into the topic of relativity..

Furthermore, there is also another interesting aspect that seems to me important to take into account, and electromagnetic wave is composed, as its name indicates, of a magnetic field and an electric field.

A light particle (shown here as the green dot), going to the right, with the electric and magnetic fields shown here above. If we take into account that the natural magnetic fields going north to south and the electric fields going from east to west sort of encourage electromagnetic waves to superpose on these same electric and magnetic fields, we can induce that the installation above helps light particles to go toward the soil. The natural telluric currents and magnetic fields are in these directions anyway. This electroculture setup fosters the penetration of the light into the soil.. If that makes any sense, that’s how I understand it. We shouldn’t forget that what we see is just but a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum, many other waves at other frequencies invisible to our eyes can be guided toward the soil, from my point of view cosmic waves are also electromagnetic waves.

Lets go to schematic C, also re-edited.

This setup, instead of promoting the natural flow of electrons, amplifies the strength of the natural magnetic field. Don’t forget while looking at the image, that the needle of a compass pointing to the magnetic north means that  what we consider as the north is in fact a magnetic south pole, it’s a convention that is not always evident, still logical though! This setup does not need to be explained more than that, because here it’s not about the electronegativity of metals, this should more be called magnetoculture… The magnet simply amplifies the natural alignment of electrons inside the iron mesh, which is a ferromagnetic materiel and hence electrons can keep their alignment more or less permanently. Here we can’t use a copper grid or any other non ferromagnetic metal, a ferromagnetic metal is absolutely needed.

Here we amplify the natural magnetic field of the planet while not disturbing the telluric (east-west) currents.

Schematic D now.

This setup is clearly the most simple to put in palce, in a flower pot, around any plant in the garden. But it is in my opinion slightly less efficient than method B or C. Also if we orient setup A correctly, the setup A, I think, is also more efficient than this one.

However, this one is still the easiest and it’s still much better than nothing, it will bring great benefits in any case. The negative point I see here is that the natural flow of electrons in the soil will be multidirectional and hence it’s not on ly in the direction of natural telluric currents. Nonetheless this setup still clearly amplifies the electron flow in the soil and above soil. The antenna is the same as in setup B, with a tip made of a metal that has an inferior electronegativity than the copper tube, thus it attracts electrons from the air, to the tube and to the soil. But here the antenna is directly planted into the soil. Here again we can see it in two parts like, setup B, that are somewhat independent of each other, but still related!

The antenna is directly planted in the ground and hence the electrons collected from the air naturally go to the path of least resistance, the soil. Then the surrounding grid, in galvanised iron mesh, with an electronegativity lower than copper, will, I believe, collect electrons from the soil and also those from the antenna and then again there will be an electron flow going from the mesh to the antenna. And so on the cycle continues, they go back in the antennas, are re-diffused into the soil, partly re-collected by the mesh, etc.

This setup, as I understand, helps naturally collected electrons to flow in a sort of ‘closed loop’ in the same space much longer than they would otherwise without any setup. Which allows the plants to have more time to collect more abundant electrons, which have a tendency to re-circulate in the same place over and over.

Finally there is schematic E, which to me, like to the editors of the Rustica magazine, is the ultimate setup, because here we really play with what’s in nature and the surroundings and nothing else.

The explanation in the article is fully correct, the only thing that is missing to this schematic is that, I think, these compost bands should be oriented east-west, not north-south, south-north; to amplify the natural telluric currents and not disturb earths’ natural magnetic field.

To end the subject, while writing this I thought about a small detail, cosmic waves! from what I learned in astrophysics, this waves can all be considered like light (or electromagnetic waves). Hence, if I’m not wrong with my understanding, the various electroculture setups, allow, by amplifying the natural telluric currents or magnetic field, not only these natural fields to flow more easily but also to let cosmic waves penetrate the soil more easily.

The new green wizards

Leeks as big as the arm of a gardener, strawberries as beautiful as oranges, garlic even four times more beautiful, it’s the giant vegetable garden. The vegetable garden of electroculture, this queen of gardening with miraculous methods.

“A bulb of 800 g! This is nothing says Mr. Thévenin. It might happen once. No, what is needed is not to harvest one but hundreds. You see this square of 25 sqm, with planted garlic, the harvest will surely be of 100 kg instead of 10 compared to traditional methods.”

We were at the end of june when Mr. Thévenin told me that. End of july, at the time of harvest, I went back to see him and he wasn’t lying. The garlic plants lying on the soil sunbathing and drying. They offered bulbs from 900 g to one kilo. 100 kg of garlic on a vegetable garden of 25 sqm, Mr. Thévenin had won his bet. 800 g.. The needle of his scale stabilised and announced 800 g. To the left, in the plate a large weight, to the right in the other plate a bulb of garlic. You read that well! It was clearly a 800 g garlic bulb that Mr. Thévenin had put on his scale. It was big, five times larger than a normal garlic bulb.

Electroculture, the fairy of gardening

The author of these incredible results, this fairy of gardening, this gardening muse is called electroculture.

“So, you know!

- Yes, wires attached to a generator and then we let electrical currents flow through. It’s not natural…

- No, no…”

No, electroculture and electricity providers have nothing in common. Of course it is a matter of current, but it is not produced by a powerplant. It is in the air, in the soil, in us. This free and natural electricity has several aspects:

• The Earth’s magnetic field
  The magnetic field converges to the North Pole. Proof of this is the needle of your compass, it is constantly under its influence and indicates that direction.
• Telluric currents
  These are electric currents flowing through the earth. They move from East to West, but their path varies depending on the arrangement and the layout of terrestrial layers. According to the physicists, their intensity varies according to the months of the year. In June they are at their maximum intensity, and at their minimum in September.
• Cosmic waves
  They come from the stratosphere and penetrate the Earth’s crust.

The aim of electroculture is to pick up the electro-magnetic energies for the benefit of the plants. A vegetable thus grown grows better; its seed germinates faster; the vegetable grows faster; more easily and becomes bigger. The vegetable can also defend itself more easily against illnesses and parasites. It handles more easily periods of drought and rough soils. Indeed, this energetic influx allows the roots to go deeper into the soil to find their food and also reach deeper layers of groundwater that are inaccessible to normally cultivated plants. This energy, is naturally received by all plants: through the roots (that play a role of antennas) which pick up negative electricity from the soil and then frees it through its aerial parts (which also act as antennas). These absorb the positive atmospheric electricity. The exchange of these forces determines the growth of a plant and the proper functioning of the chlorophyll system; briefly said, it organises life thanks to the ascension of sap. Plants cultivated by electroculture hence benefit as much as possible from these energies which, if not picked up, would just be wasted. This is the theory of “electrocultivators”, although some ecologists argue that electroculture  diverts these natural beneficial forces for a whole ensemble for the profit of some privileged plants. I won’t dwell into this debate, but I believe it is necessary to be aware of these two theories. Moreover, it appears that electroculture allows foremost to reveal and produce this healthy energy. As a matter of fact, every single plant is an electrical conductor of a couple of millivolts (experiment made by connecting a voltmeter on a bean plant); in the presence of an electroculture setup the voltages are amplified.

Are you interested by electroculture, are you just discovering it today. You should know that it exists since a very long time. Ancient civilisations, the Egyptians in particular, had noticed that around certain structures or rocks, and depending on orientation, vegetation grew better and was thicker/sturdier. Researchers looked at this phenomenon and found an explanation: some rocks are rich in electropositive metals (like copper), the soil being itself naturally a carrier of negative charges, they thought that at certain locations there was a natural production of forces beneficial to plants.

So, you want to setup such a system in your vegetable garden. There are many setups available. All are prototypes (you should be able to find easily light and simple materials).

In Rustica (the name of this magazine..), we showed a couple of years ago some simple setups (see schematic A).

Nowadays the “Paulin system”, named after its inventor, is the easiest to setup for an amateur. It consists of a painted metallic antenna (plumbing pipe), headed by iron spikes, insulated (porcelain insulation recovered on ‘out of order’ electric lines, or simply a plastic bottle or any non-conducting materials placed at the base of the antenna) and stuck in the ground. A copper wire connects the antenna to a mesh of galvanized iron (standard fences..) with a length of 3 to 4 meters, depending on the parcel to cultivate and of an height of about 20 cm. This mesh is buried a few centimeters deep to facilitate the use of gardening tools. Then 2 – 3 m away, opposite to this first mesh, another mesh of the same size is placed, however this mesh is composed of an electropositive metal, for example copper or brass. It is neither connected to the other mesh, nor to the antenna (Schematic B). The whole setup is oriented so as to allow the passing through of North-South telluric currents.

Another setup (oriented North-South) consists of a straight magnet (do not use horseshoe magnets) placed underground and connected to a grid of galvanised iron placed in parallel. The positive pole (North) of the magnet is directed toward the North (see Schematic C).

For other experiments, you can also use a cage of galvanised iron mesh/grid. Bury it slightly. At the center of this vertical cylinder you plant an antenna made of a copper pipe non connected to the grid at all (Schematic D). Crops sowed or planted on the inside usually have a yield two to three times higher than traditional crops. I saw at Mr. Thévenins’ place, garlics cultivated with such a method were about 10cm taller than neighbouring traditionally cultivated ones.

Wire ‘less’ electroculture

However, the ultimate method of electroculture will in the future consist of getting rid of antennas, wires, etc. How you might ask, can we pick up the energies? By building a “natural cell”: on each side of the field to cultivate we place two bands of compost. One band is acidic (loaded with positive ions) and consisting of heathland, mash-iron, fine sand quarry, rock powder, peat, wood ash, coal dust, soot, chicken manure; the other is alkaline (lacking in positive ions, e.g. negatively charged) and consisting of tuff, limestone soil, lime, masonry plaster, manure. By the principle of communicating vessels, the alkaline body attracts the positive ions of the acidic body. A mini electric current hence results from this exchange and permeates the crops culture. Hereby stimulating the vegetation as it flows through (schematic E).

Gigantic vegetables, increased production, reduced irrigation (50 to 70%) and the economy on manure for an fully organic culture, these are the benefits of electroculture. This gardening technique from the third millennia, though born in antiquity has not finished astonishing us. We look forward to hearing from your experiments.

- Frank Benjamin (Author)

The examples speak
You want to know more about electroculture, write to: C.A.E., 17, rue des Bouvreuils, 33600 Pessac. Near Bordeaux, on an arid terrain, ungrateful, and voluntarily never irrigated, without fertilizer or manure, we cultivated barley. Here are the results:

• harvest on the control plot (no setup): 354g, 149 cobs, average number of grains per cob: 15,
• harvest on the electroculture plot: 795g, 240 cobs, average number of grains per cob: 25.
  At the beginning of our century, lieutenant Basty did experiments with potatoes on two plots of 52m².
• harvest on the control plot: 610kg of potatoes,
• harvest on the electroculture plot: 900kg.

Strawberries (culture with antennas) were harvested on May 19th, other in a traditional culture on the 3rd of June only.
An American, James Lee Scribner obtained, by plunging a bean in electromagnetic baths, a plant of 7m length. He got 72 liters of beans from that giant.
In France, a plant of potatoes cultivated in electroculture attained 2m height and produced more than 4kgs of tubers of prime quality (he received the 1st prize at the National agricultural competition of Versailles in 1977). This plant kept on producing while others (normal culture) were already withered since a long time. In Pithiviers, M.Marcel Thévenin harvested a plant of tomatoes (in a galvanized iron mesh with antenna system) of more than 2m height, loaded with very big and delicious fruits.
In Ruwanda (Africa), drought and hunger prevails. Under the drive of Père Tasse, the villagers using electroculture managed to cultivate tomatoes, mil and sweet potatoes.