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Sally Morgan – Living on one acre or less

Healthy sustainable food production on small spaces plus books and gardens

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New book – The Climate Change Garden
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Contact

You can contact Sally via Empire Farm

Empire Farm, Throop Rd, Templecombe, Somerset, BA8OHR

sally (@) empirefarm.co.uk

Garden Media Guild Award finalist

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the_organic_plot

A sea buckthorn laden with orange fruits - the fru

A sea buckthorn laden with orange fruits - the fruits are quite sour but have lots of health benefits. But this post is not about the plant but it's location . .

This is taken on a walk around the back of Gloucester Services North. @gloucesterservices I love these services for the wonderful planting - on the Northside, around the back you can wander around a community area with fruit trees and soft fruits, a pond area ( that is part of the water management system) and admire the great hedgerow planting. The same is true on the South side where the walk takes you along paths with a viburnum-rich planting offering lots of berries for wildlife.

I stopped at tebay too nr Penrith where again there is a great walk and lots to admire including the new food waste composting area ( brilliant, but no photo as it was dark) and I noticed that Growing Well has a new market garden - this is a fab organisation offering mental health recovery services through their market gardens - I have visited their main site at low Sizergh farm @lowsizerghbarn @growingwellkendal nr Kendal so was thrilled to see another site @growingwelltebay - all the produce goes to the services and I assume they will get all the compost from the food recycling - closed loop stuff

So if you are driving along the M5 & M6 do stop at these services - the services themselves are lovely and I always come away with a bag of wonderful food, BUT it's much more interesting to have a wander around, esp at Tebay
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#seabuckthorn #tebay #growingwell #motorwayservices #gloucesterservices #wildlifeplanting #wildlifegarden

Such a bizarre autumn - I still have lots of tomat

Such a bizarre autumn - I still have lots of tomatoes in the garden - I cleared all the fruits in September but left the plants and now the plants are laden with trusses of fruit again and still putting on lots of growth .... There is blight but being crimson crush the plant has managed to survive despite a few leaves succumbing. While in the greenhouse my lovely mini 🍅 are still in fruit and the taste is so intense.
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#tomato #growyourownfood #autumn #inmygardentoday #horticulture #kitchengarden #vegetablegarden #vegplot #crimsoncrush #blightresistanttomatoes

Had to be careful when harvesting #medlars yesterd

Had to be careful when harvesting #medlars yesterday as so many natural predators were sheltering in the fruits

Around 1 in 15 fruits were homes to 🐞 lacewings and spider cocoons - all essential predators in my orchard so I have left quite a few fruits on the trees for now

Delighted to see the lacewing as I haven't seen many this year
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#orchard #orchardwildlife #ladybirds #lacewing #naturalcontrol #naturalpredator #medlar #biologicalcontrol #predator #organicgardening #organicorchard

Still spotting a few butterflies in those sunny sp

Still spotting a few butterflies in those sunny spells between the heavy showers.

This red admiral was enjoying verbena at Castle Howard where the verbena beds in the walled garden were full of insects.

It's so important to have sources of nectar in the garden for as long as possible.

There are no red admirals in our garden at the moment but several small and cabbage whites 😕 and there are caterpillars on the brassicas ....
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#redadmiralbutterfly #butterflyofinstagram #butterflies #gardenwildlife #gardeningforwildlife #verbenabonariensis

The new perennial veg garden is coming on well Th

The new perennial veg garden is coming on well

The Mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum) had a slow start but picked up during the summer, and is now romping through the Szechuan pepper. A couple more weeks and I'll look for it's tubers.

The Szechuan pepper has yielded well for it's first year and still more to harvest.

Underneath I have Iberian comfrey to create a ground cover and suppress weeds
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#vegplot #veggarden #szechuanpepper #mashua #nasturtium #perennialvegetables #comfrey #climatechangegardening #climateresilience #garden

Rainbow chard - nestled in .....the flower bed. Du

Rainbow chard - nestled in .....the flower bed. Dual purpose plant - ornamental and edible. It's not the only 'crop' in this herbaceous border - there are kalettes and various kales, some onions and elsewhere squash filling up some bare spots
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#kitchengarden #vegplot #flowergarden #chard #rainbowchard #mixingitup #garden #gardentips #inmygardentoday #organicgardening #growvegetables

The perennial veg garden has come on well during t

The perennial veg garden has come on well during the cooler summer and has coped well with the recycled aggregate and soil mix that I used as a substrate.

The globe artichoke is fruiting and the Chinese Szechuan pepper is covered in pink berries ( it's the pink pericarp that you use, not the black seeds inside). I use the Szechuan in my own 5-spice powder )

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#szechuanpepper #perennialvegetables
#artichoke #recycledaggregates #climatechangegarden #sustainablegardening

Crab apple looking gorgeous - laden with fruits.

Crab apple looking gorgeous - laden with fruits.

Crab apples are so useful in the garden / on the allotment.

🌳Their smaller size means they can be grown in a more restricted space

🌳They cast a light shade which is useful in a hot summer for livestock and us

🌳They have beautiful blossom in spring.

🌳They are useful co-pollinators for apples.

🌳 At this time of year they are laden with fruits that hang on the tree for weeks, attracting birds while fallen fruits are nibbled by mammals and insects.

🌳 You can use the fruits to make a jelly / preserve

Any other benefits?
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#crabapple #fruit #wildlifegarden #attractingwildlife #apple #pollinatorplants #wildharvest #gardeningforwildlife

It's a wet and gloomy day so some colourful flower

It's a wet and gloomy day so some colourful flowers in the garden taken in early in the morning during the week, kicking off with a bright Tithonia, some white borage, sunflowers, dahlia honka, cosmos, persicaria with sedum, Helianthus and some garlic chives

All busy with bees and other pollinators even though it was early and quite chilly

I like flowers with an open structure as they attract some of my favourite insects - hoverflies - many spp have predatory larvae that enjoy munching on greenfly and other small insects so a good reason to make sure there is plenty of food on offer for them

But my top find of the week was not captured on my phone - lifted the lid of a dalek compost bin and there was a bundle of recently hatched grass snakes - BRILLIANT
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#flower #tithonia #sunflower #flowersinthegarden #flowergarden #pollinatorplants

One of my polyculture beds I like to mix up my pl

One of my polyculture beds

I like to mix up my planting creating diverse spaces that bring in a wide range of insects and other animals and boost soil health. It also confuses pest spp.

In this bed I have leeks, celeriac, kalettes, kohl rabi, chard, perennial leeks, buckler leaf sorrel, nasturtiums

It's not the most efficient way of planting, it doesn't involve any crop rotation but for me it has a far more pleasing appearance and is resilient.

Interestingly the kalettes are untouched and not treated with anything ... despite plenty of white butterflies
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#polyculture #vegplot #kitchengarden #potager #celeriac #growvegetables #organicgardening

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