Healthy sustainable food production on small spaces plus books and gardens
Sally is an experienced organic gardener, smallholder and writer. Here you can read about the organic one-acre plot that Sally has set up at Empire Farm in Somerset. Sally blogs regularly about the plot – what's being grown and raised, her polytunnel, the organic allotments and her walled garden, as well as matters that concern her - climate change, healthy soils, organic growing, peatfree compost, biodiversity, sustainability etc. She writes about her visits to farms, gardens, allotments and growers during the year. You can also find out about her workshops that she runs from Empire Farm and the books she has written, including The Healthy Vegetable Garden, The Climate Change Garden and Living on One Acre or Less. She is a regular contributor to Country Smallholding Magazine.
To celebrate World Soil Day, I’m writing about soil regeneration. You hear this term tossed around but what does this mean and how is it achieved? Simply, soil regeneration means rebuilding soil organic matter and improving soil life. Many soils
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I’ve used biochar for many years after seeing the results of horticultural trials where it was mixed into potting compost. Seedlings grown with added biochar had healthy shoots and a better root system compared with those without. My own very
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Tithonia or Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifoliaare) is a brilliant pollinator plant. Mine are covered in bees and other insects at this time of year and the flowers provide nectar well into autumn. They are imposing plants, reaching around 1.5m or
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Finally – its publication day for the Healthy Vegetable Garden!!! Huge thanks to all at @chelseagreenbooks in the UK and US for all their amazing work – really proud to be one of their authors.Thanks too to the people who
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My veg plot has Nasturtiums everywhere – it’s not just that they look good, attract insects and are tasty in salads ( it’s a really punchy, peppery taste) but they are brilliant trap plants. You can see from the photo
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These Ailsa Craig onions were grown from seeds, not sets. Sown in modules in Feb / March and transplanted in April and May. They are later than set grown, but looking good. Not only is it much cheaper to raise
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There is so much to see at Hampton Court from beautiful prairie-style gardens to the more extreme plane wrecks, but I’m focusing on one area that I found truly inspiring and I hope the many visitors that I saw admiring
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As we get into summer and I start harvesting the first vegetables, I can’t be the only one to think – have I sown enough? Perhaps something has failed, the pesky birds have destroyed some seedlings or the slugs have
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Lockdown sent people into their gardens. They have spent hours nurturing their green spaces and while garden centres remained closed, the online suppliers of seeds, compost and other gardenalia were deluged with orders. We saw a shortage of loo rolls,
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A keyhole garden is a raised circular vegetable garden with a cut out or keyhole on one side for ease of access with a compost bin in the middle. They originated in Southern Africa where they were made popular by
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