blockhill - forest garden experience & education

North Canterbury

Learn about foodscaping / food forest gardening

Develop an understanding of how to design and implement your own food forest garden with a one on one guided tour and discussion session.
  • Explore the extensive, established forest garden at blockhill
  • Learn identify, develop and exploit niches to grow a wider range of useful plants
  • Discuss mixed and companion planted polycultures and guilds
  • Understand plant succession for ecosystem transition and transformation
  • Witness beneficial insects and extreme biodiversity
  • Meet the chooks, ducks and pigs and see how they fit into the system
  • Overview of useful hand tools
2 hours
$80.00
Mila & Mattia

Mila & Mattia

Plenty of energy and enthusiasm for permiculture, Mila & Mattia spent a week of hot summer days helping out in the garden, pruning and mulching and building another Hugelkultur / log mound garden.
If you are looking for a place where you would like to learn about permaculture and sustainable life.. Don't miss Blockhill and, of course, Olmec and Melisa. We did different tasks every day and they are really open to explain everything to you. They are very kind, friendly and knowledgeable. They have very delicious and fresh vegetables and fruits. Sweet animals. The accommodation is beautiful and very clean. We had very good time at Blockhill. Was a real woofing, a real exchange.. Give and receive. So, the only think we can say is Thank you to save our world building an alternative and working life stile. Beautiful project! Big hug for both of you!!
Italy
February 23, 2019
Plastic house

Plastic house

Details   Well designed plastic house offers plenty of space for growing exostic and out of season crops
Date   July 30, 2013
Tags     garden 
Yurtopian swales

Yurtopian swales

I provide some basic guidance and marked out a short length of swale for Deschia and Daniel. This will infiltrate excess water from their yurt roof into the nearby garden.
May 10, 2013
  yurt  swale  garden  teach 
New garden swale

New garden swale

I still got the swale itch and couldn't stop myself creating a new excavation along the top edge of the garden as a second stage catchment for roof run off. This version has a layer of cardboard that spent a week on the floor under the chook perches.
May 07, 2013
  Swale  garden 
Garden expansion

Garden expansion

We discovered we need more garden area if we wish to grow sufficient volumes of potatoes to see us through the year. As a result I have spent a number of evenings out in the paddock with a shovel, turning over earth and laying compost and mulch.
I have tried a variety of soil amendments including growing lupins, sheep manure from the neighbors shed and cleanings from the chook house.
June 03, 2010
  Garden 

Starplate geodesic garden structure

Details   It's always nice to have a protected are where birds can't interfere with the growing of produce. We have tried numerous techniques and constructions over the years. One that looks promising (and cool) is this geodesic frame made with starplates, polypipe and plastic netting.

Light, durable and almost circular (5 sided base) this seems like an ideal little garden space for Melisa
Date   December 31, 2021
Tags     2021  December  Construction  Garden  Pipe 
Garden swales

Garden swales

Reconfiguring the garden after some inspiration from Geoff Lawton permaculture DVD.
By laying out the garden beds along the contour we get easy access with improved water infiltration and retention. The width allows for easy reaching to the centre from either side. In the rare instances when we want to irrigate it is simply a matter of flooding the path for a while.
July 31, 2015
  swale  garden  2012  2015 
Forest garden bounty

Forest garden bounty

Details   A nice assortment of root veges foraged from the forest garden while weeding. Includes parsnip, carrot, radish and potato. These make a great roast.
Date   July 17, 2017
Tags     food  veges  forest garden  july 
Sprinkling (at high pressure)

Sprinkling (at high pressure)

Details   It has been really drying out and we have been busy moving hoses to  water as many trees and veges as possible.
We have a well with a pump that delivers 25mm of water at high pressure. While I was trying to come up with a way to apply this water gently to the garden I came up with this simple circular terminus mister (click for photo).
It effectively produces a 4 meter high column of mist. Wonderful on a scorching afternoon.
Date   December 05, 2010
Tags     summer  water  garden  sprinkler 
Garden update

Garden update

Our garden is bigger and better this year with more planning, improved soil and larger variety of plants in the ground. We are just starting to reap the rewards.
December 09, 2010
  garden  summer 
Garden working-bee

Garden working-bee

A group of us gathered to help install a new vegetable garden for Heidi and Nuk out at Gore Bay. Many hands made things progress quite quickly and we were able to create and plant an area directly beside the house for easy access as well as a new contour garden mound in what was lawn.
August 14, 2016
  garden  community 
Hugelkultur gardens in summer

Hugelkultur gardens in summer

Details   Every year, since their construction, our hugelkultur raised woody garden beds have been improving in performance. While waiting for the perennial plantings to establish we have been gardening with seasonal crops including maize, pumpkins, tomatoes, salad, cucumbers and of course lots of beans. Modest additions of straw mulch, trenched in pig manure, compost tea and all plant residues are contributing to the overall fertility of the beds and on occasion where I have exposed the wooden core while digging it is clearly breaking down into a crumbly organic 'compost'.
Date   February 18, 2018
Tags     garden  hugelkultur  2018  summer