Create your own Edible Polyculture

"Our daily bread" is something most people in Britain have taken for granted for many years.  Food and drink is the UK’s largest industry worth £80Bn per year.  But although the UK has a thriving farming sector we still import 40% of the total food consumed and the proportion is rising.  This is a big reliance on food grown elsewhere in the world, especially with climate change affecting our food chain more and more.

There are now more signs of the strain put on our food industry.  In 2008 there was a spike in food prices in the global markets due to poor harvests - wheat prices rose 130%, soya by 87% and rice by 74%. 

Drought, food and water shortages are now affecting many more parts of the world. Richard Choularton, a senior policy officer in the U.N. World Food Program’s climate change office said “We should expect much more political destabilization of countries as it bites. What is different now from 20 years ago is that far more people are living in places with a higher climatic risk: 650 million people now live in arid or semi-arid areas where floods and droughts and price shocks are expected to have the most impact.”

This is very sobering stuff, and puts in perspective the need for food security and sourcing local, both to ensure we can continue to feed ourselves as well as reducing our impact on the rest of the world.  

Have you thought of growing some of your own food, but have little time?

If you’ve got some outdoor space it's amazing how easily you can grow a little bit of food for minimal effort.  I’m not talking a high maintenance veg patch, but simply adding plants into the garden that produce a harvest for you whilst also benefiting our local bee and insect population.  Over the next few months we will be looking at a few simple combinations of plants that benefit each other and could bring you a small harvest.

Create Mulberry edible polyculture :

Mulberry tree – not often seen these days (but through no fault of its own) it produces delicious red or black raspberry shaped fruit that  are rarely seen in the shops.   It was originally brought into Britain in the Tudor times  in the hope that it would be useful in the cultivation of silkworm. The mulberry tree is beautiful – it has a spreading habit and becomes crooked and gnarled with time, with attractive leaves. If space is limited it can be grown against walls.

Grape vine – if you’re lucky enough to have a larger specimen you can plant a grape vine through it.  The mulberry has a positive effect on the health of a vine.

Hyssop – This attractive medicinal perennial herb will attract bees.   It has a positive effect on encouraging the growth of grapes.

Jostaberry, sage and other perennial herbs are also known to work well with this grouping.