Make a garden before you build a house: Difference between revisions

[[File:Gardenfullview.JPG|thumb|Thumbnailed image|Detail of the JvE garden Summer 2021 ©Nickie Sigurdsson]]

== Introduction ==

[[File:Garden view in January 2021.jpeg|thumb|Thumbnailed image]]

[[File:Detail.jpg|thumb|Thumbnailed image]|Detail of the JvE garden autumn 2021 ©Nickie Sigurdsson]]  

The garden is a site-specific work carried out in the intermediate space between the buildings in Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, Limburg. The latest version of the garden is unearthed by artist Nickie Sigurdsson and maintained in cooperation with participants, five Indian runner ducks, private seeds savers, and with generous support and guidance from farmer Wim Storken and horticulturist Yvonne Velthuis.  

In keeping with my own mantra of making more infrastructural work, I made a Wikipedia resource and a website as an attempt to share the rumination accumulated during the process of making a garden, along with practicalities. This will hopefully encourage others to embody land based work and knowledge for themselves, the resources being a practical infrastructure for new participants at the JvE to possibly carry on this work as well.

== Early disclosure ==

[[File:IMG 0772.jpeg|thumb|Thumbnailed image]]

[[File:IMG 0769.jpeg|thumb|Thumbnailed image]]

Before I did anything in the garden, I observed what was growing there in January 2021. I saw that the plot had been used as a dumping for past art projects, especially sand and limestone were omnipresent. Someone also told me that the metal workshop had “leaked” metal waste in the ground whenever people would work outside. I seemed impossible to deem a coherent soil analysis, so instead I found it more relevant for now to look at what was growing.   

*Nettle – likes nitrogen rich soils  

*strawberries – rich soil, is ok with shadow, acidic

*moss – likes moist ground covered by foliage.  

I got that the soil was rich, but “disturbed” in the sense that several minerals had been added to it. It was moist, which explained the snail invasion. The blood sorrel revealed that the soil seemed to be relatively acid, while Greater celandine indicated that the ecosystem was similar to that of a forest perhaps mixed with a wasteland dumping site.  

Would a forest be an ideal green space to the designated space in-between the buildings?  

What is the potential of a plot of land? And is it ok to intervene with what seems to be the natural agenda of the plant populaiton?

== Establishment ==  

[[File:disturbance.jpg|thumb|Thumbnailed image|©Nickie Sigurdsson, image by Charlotte Lagro]]

[[File:Compost.JPG|thumb|Thumbnailed image|Putting compost ©Nickie Sigurdsson, image by Isabel Seifert]]

[[File:IMG 1407.jpg|thumb|Thumbnailed image|]]

I decided to use a system of ‘raised beds’, a soil layout designated to cultivate a dense population of plants and accumulate organic matter. The system is e.g used in urban farms in Cuba known as Organopónicos.  

One simply digs out pathways in-between growing beds, and naturally the soil bed will ‘rise’ as more soil is added. The bed has a fixed width of 75 cm – a good working width for a gardener/farmer. The benefits of the raised bed infrastructure is that it enables a better drainage and a fixed indication for where the cultivation is happening, which means that the soil on the beds will not be compacted as persons will use the pathways for walking, so there will be a good build-up of topsoil year after year. I like the functionality of the raised beds, but I also find their composition really nice because they make the garden more accessible and open up the layout of the garden.  

The compost I used from Bio-kultura  (https://www.bio-kultura.nl/) was very good, but also fairly expensive. I reckon cheaper options can be found near-by. I wanted the first batch to be really good quality weed-free compost. I used the compost bins in the garden momentarily but they had not been maintained properly and there wasn’t enough for the whole garden.  

I learned from working with Wim that due to the "EU’s common catalogue of varieties of vegetable species" he cannot grow certain kinds of heirloom seeds and with the farmers protest happening across India early 2021 and the struggles for seed sovereignty across Africa and so many other places, made me think that caretakers of heirloom seeds are entangled with real acts of resistance, and that even tiny gardens hold a potential for safeguarding our seed cultures and knowledges of sovereignty that is carried from palm to soil to mouth.

*https://www.magicgardenseeds.com/

*https://kokopelli-semences.fr/fr/

*https://detuinenvanweldadigheid.nl/

*Wim Storken – is selling plants late spring and over the summer, you can ask for his special heirloom tomato varieties.  

*Yvonne Velthuis – Wilde Planten Kwekerij has a lot of special heirloom varieties specific and regional for Limburg  

*Leafy greens

*Aromatic, medicinal and edible herbs (in the most sunny parts of the garden) although Mint grew everywhere

*Burdock grew really big

[[File:Ducks small.jpg|thumb|Thumbnailed image|ducks in the garden ©Nickie Sigurdsson]]

Indian Runners are a breed of Anas Platyrhynchos domesticus, the domestic duck. They stand erect like penguins and, rather than waddling, they run or “quickstep”. The Indian Runner ducks are domesticated waterfowls found on the Indonesian wetland islands of Lombok, Java and Bali where they were ‘walked’ to market and sold as egg-layers or for meat. Like many other breeds of waterfowl imported into Europe and America, the term ‘Indian’ is misleading and refers mainly to the loading port or the transport by sailing ships of the East India Company. Other misnamed geese and ducks include the African goose, the black East Indian duck and the Muscovy duck. The ducks were brought (or displaced) by imperial powers to Europe, where they were bred for eggs and feathers. 

== Complications ==  

[[File:Failed pea plant.jpg|thumb|Thumbnailed image|Scan of a failed pea plant ©Nickie Sigurdsson]]  

*The garden took a long time to grow into a lush green place, this is particularly as effect of the lack of long sunny hours. Beans and plants from the nightshade didn't do well. Also pumpkins and squash didn't give so much, but plants seemed to be happy.     

== Maintenance and succession ==  

These are actions that would be good to do before the winter:  

Perilla (found in section 3, see map): is a Korean plant used for medicinal purposes and for seasoning. It has beautiful purple leaves. It will not survive the winter cold, so it is a good idea to take a few cuttings and put them in water on a windowsill. They will produce roots in six weeks, after which you can plant them in small pots before moving them outdoors in spring.  

*Thai Basil (section 1): You can uproot some of the Thai basil plants and plant them indoors, and maybe prune the rest down until the plant gets woody. It might survive the winter.  

*Lavas  

*All the woody herbs like rosemary, sage etc. (mostly found in section 1, the stone bed, see map) like to be pruned before the winter. It is also a good idea to add a bit of hay around them if possible.   

New Zealand Spinach (section 3 front, see map): is perennial, and it is a good idea to trim the beds a little aka remove the weeds and cut them down a bit. NZ spinach will possibly die out during winter and come back next spring.

Procedures next spring (in the making)

== Map ==  

[[File:Current map of the garden.jpg|thumb|Thumbnailed image|latest overview of the garden October 2021]]  

The map indicates some of the plants you can find late October, it does not indicate all the plants I grew, but perhaps some of the  most successful ones.  

*1 In the stone bed I planted sun loving herbs and medicinal plants, because it is the area where there is the most sunny hours. The stones makes a nice effect, but they are also useful for making the bed a bit higher avoiding erosion and warming up the ground. I planted Thai basil or Káu-chàn-thah which grew super well. Next to this there is a mix of bergamot, chervil, lemon herb, sage, rosemary, banana mint, sea fennel, artemisia.  

== Website ==