Gorse Peters

Did this corn salad stay perennial? How's the taste? Did you ever figure what the botanical name for it is?

This seed company in the UK provides some really good information about sainfoin including a booklet which you can download a free PDF of

https://www.cotswoldseeds.com/seed-info/how-does-sainfoin-meet-todays-needs

And this is the downloadable booklet..
https://www.cotswoldseeds.com/files/cotswoldseeds/Sainfoin_Growers_Guide_website.pdf

What are people's experiences and thoughts on growing perennial tuber crops like sunchokes/jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus), oca (Oxalis tuberosa) & Chinese artichokes (Stachys affinis) and other perennial tuber crops? Do you grow them more like an annual and move them from year to year or do you grow them as a replant perennial in the same spot?

Out of these crops I've the most experience with growing Jerusalem artichokes and have just let them regrow in the same spot year after year, as it's easy to miss some tubers or chuck a few back in when digging them up. But as your digging them up anyway would it not be better to move them to avoid over damaging the ground by redigging the same spot every year, as well as to avoid potential disease problems and lower yields from the ground being over worked by the same crop?

Obviously potatoes could also be grown as a replant perennial but I've never intentionally grown them like this as I'm so used to growing them like an annual and because they're so susceptible to pest problems.

So I guess my question is how do you grow yours? Do you grow them in the same spot and if so how long have you done it? Do you get the same yields year after year? And have you had any particular problems with diseases etc from but moving them?

Also, has anyone grown potatoes as a replant perennial in the same spot? And does anyone know how the Incans used to grow potatoes, did they rotate them or grow them in the same spot?

Hi!

So I'm looking for some advice on earthworks, swales and irrigation for our community supported agriculture (CSA) project because we don't have a mains water supply. We were originally planning to have a borehole dug and use water for that for irrigation and what not. Unfortunately, though even going as far as 90 metres (original plan was to only go 45m) into the ground the borehole digging company didn't find water and gave up. There's been a few theories of why this is but we have as good as abandoned that approach and have been looking into other solutions for getting water. At the moment we are thinking to build a 10m x 10m pond/small reservoir which would be fed from the roof of our polytunnel which we're modifying to accept guttering. We then plan to pump the water out up to a header tank for drip irrigation or directly to a sprinkler.

Our land is really pretty flat and is a fairly free draining sandy loam which has about 2 feet of soil before you hit limestone. There's no slope on it and no hills. We mainly growing vegetables.

So my question is, is there any earthworks that we could do on such land that could directly irrigate two polytunnels of about 30m x 7m as well as the land (2 acres) in times when needed which could eliminate the need for a pump? Also, does anyone have any experience of making ponds without a pond liner? How much clay content needs to be in the soil etc and if water is drained out of a clay lined pond would it crack and lose water?

Any help, advice or points in the right direction are greatly appreciated!

Many thanks

Gorse