THE EDIBLE JUNGLE

From spring 2009 Urban Jungle will be supplying fruit trees and bushes

Announcing our new project

An organic, exotic, plantation-style garden providing self-sufficiency in fruit, vegetables, cut flowers and eggs.

Our nursery is known for ornamental exotic plants and they will remain our passion and the identity of our business. We’ve had six years at the nursery now, expanding our range and experimenting with different stock, and we are always on the lookout for new developments in horticulture. We’ve been aware of the increase in popularity over the last few years of fruit and vegetable growing, but have resisted the temptation to ‘jump on the bandwagon’ or make a gesture towards the latest trend and simply stock a few packets of seeds and some fruit canes.
Now we feel we can bring our own contribution to productive gardening: an Urban Jungle take on this new and important change in how our customers want to garden. By creating a new architectural and exotic garden that’s highly productive for 365 days a year and that doesn’t look like an allotment, we hope to show by example, how your own garden can be productive without looking like a cross between a farm, recycling centre or ‘hobby patch’. Nor will this be an ornamental garden with a passing nod to food production – a few strategically placed Ruby chard and a hanging gourd do not a self-sufficient garden make!
We’ve been researching and scratching our heads for long enough and are ready to get started now: it’s a bit of an adventure really and we fully expect it to be a learning process with a steep curve (upwards we hope). We invite you to join us on this journey to self-sufficiency ‘the beautiful way’. You can follow this project on our blog and come along and have a laugh at our expense if you like, at what we achieve. We believe it is important to put your neck on the line if you believe in your vision of how something can be done, and whilst this is not some revolutionary concept we feel it is an idea who’s time has come.

We have an area of ground at the nursery ideal for the project. At present the area (approximately 26m x 20m) is home to a large muddy puddle which was once a pond – allegedly, six years worth of plants that have been ‘held in this area until they get better’…..hmmmm, and a ‘compost heap’. The compost would be useful if we could get at it – it’s currently guarded by malice of stinging nettles and a wasp nest. Next to this is another strip of land that will be home to a couple of dozen blissfully happy hens. All surrounded by countryside teeming with rabbits, deer and foxes. Security could be an issue.

On the plus side, the site is reasonably open and sunny and has several productive apple trees, which we are told are old and rare varieties. The ground hasn’t been cultivated in recent history, nor chemicals used, so, although the Soil Association might not certify it, its potential for organic (in our opinion), paradisiacal fecundity is self-evident.
We feel that we have arrived at an exciting design for this new garden that pays as much attention to looking good exotically as it does to tasting good naturally, whilst making it comfortable to sit and relax in, to soak up the regimented rows of food growing and the lush exotics adorning. You will be able to walk into the garden under arches laden with gourds and squash, sit amidst the circles of rosemary and lavender, and stroll by the new pond and under the bananas, out into our adjacent ‘Tree Fern Garden’.

Look out for regular updates.