As of December 2022, regenerative garden De Sleutelbloem is hard at work. This market garden enriches its environment by combining climate-positive vegetable and fruit growing with principles from agroecology, permaculture and food forestry.
With the premise of facilitating more fertility, more biodiversity and more interrelationships every year. And most importantly, giving people a key role in making the ecosystem flourish.
Every regenerative farmer is free to make their own interpretation of what regenerative agriculture means to them. For future farmer Rick van der Haar, co-steward of Yūgen Forest and responsible for developing The Keyflower on Roggebotstaete estate, it means working with our plant allies to keep growing the viability, resilience and fertility of a landscape each season.
The various crops will be derived as much as possible from natural processes as they occur in the forests, marshes and grasslands of our country. Naturally, no chemical input in the form of fertilizers or agricultural poisons will be involved. This promotes the health of the entire ecosystem and thus also that of the people living with or from it.
The Keyflower is building toward a system including no-dig beds built from compost, a deep mulch garden fueled by biomass from the estate, and a chicken compost garden through which all the GFT streams from the estate’s kitchens and gardens go to make wonderful compost. This compost is then used back at the garden farm to turn all the fertility generated by the estate into food for soil life, countless birds, insects, microbes, fungi and humans. In its full glory, the garden farm will cover about 1ha and provide healthy, toxin-free food to nearby residential centers, local restaurants and Yugen Forest kitchens.
The various crops will be derived as much as possible from natural processes as they occur in the forests, marshes and grasslands of our country. Naturally, no chemical input in the form of fertilizers or agricultural poisons will be involved. This promotes the health of the entire ecosystem and thus also that of the people living with or from it.
The design for the Keyflower was created by regenerative design firm United Designers, which is active in ecological restoration worldwide. Lead designer Weruschca Kirkegaard has since joined the Nature Advisory Board of Yūgen Forest.
Construction of a syntropic agroforestry system, or food forest, will begin in early 2025. Within a syntropic system, natural creation patterns (read: plant growth) are used to generate fertility and food. As a result, there is no dependence on external inputs. Simply put: one plant species feeds another.
Fast-growing plants such as willow and comfrey, with their extreme vigor, are used to put the soil in optimal condition for growing fruits, nuts, nectar and wood, among others. Thus, native plants make their talents available to nurture an abundant edible landscape, whereby we can create an example for syntropic food forestry in the Dutch context.
Regenerative farmer Rick van der Haar is responsible for developing and nurturing The Keyflower. Read his story here.
Every first Sunday of the months of May through September, Rick gives a tour of the entire garden, with plenty of room for tasting, learning and discovery.
We are always looking for helping hands, so if you would like to contribute to the development of this magical place please contact us at rick@yugenforest.nl.
Yugen Forest helps make The Keyflower possible through co-funding and many other forms of support, so by supporting Yugen Forest in any way you are also supporting regenerative gardening The Keyflower.
Yūgen Forest
Vossemeerdijk 6
8251 PN Dronten
Netherlands
Yūgen Forest
Vossemeerdijk 6
8251 PN Dronten
Netherlands
