Why Permaculture in the suburbs? Some quick thoughts. It seems like for a long time a lot of case studies on Permaculture were based on people moving out of built up areas and developing land in more remote areas where they could aim for self-sufficiency. That's great, but for most people the benefits from living in community, around other people and with services that can be delivered more effectively (and with lower impact) at higher density are more important. Plus, there isn't room for everyone to move out to rural locations, especially if we need to adapt quickly to a new emerging normal ..read more

I've always been interested in how we garden and how it might be different. I stumbled across books about permaculture in my teens in the 1980s and remember watching a video of Bill Mollison surrounded by a lush productive garden picking fruit where he lay. That idea of natural abundance lodged deep in me. I fell in love with that idea. I read a lot about permaculture and Robert Hart's amazing forest garden in the UK. I worked on a few farms and permaculture projects in summers between studying. I even started a course in sustainable agriculture but I didn't stick at it. I was coming to terms ..read more

The last time I wrote anything here was more than four years ago. A lot has changed for me since then and it's still difficult to explain it all. I left my marriage and my home. I left the garden I had been developing for more than 10 years. I couldn't tell you why, but I knew on some level that I had to. I'm still coming to peace with all of that, the feelings of grief, shame and regret but also the power of stepping into the unknown and the gratitude for the kindness and gentleness of others that heals. I haven't made sense of all of it but, I keep coming back to the need to tell the story ..read more

In Salisbury we are really lucky to have the Secret Garden, an amazing community garden project with a focus on wildlife, history, arts and education. It has recently been named by The Telegraph as one of the top 10 bee friendly gardens to visit in the UK and the fantastic city bee trail associated with the garden has won awards for its really clever way of promoting information about the range of wild bees in the UK. ​Yesterday the garden held a May Open Day to celebrate the opening of the garden for a new season. There were all kind of events on as part of the day from talks on the history ..read more

I have a shallow pool in a shady area at the front of the garden near the kitchen window. The original intention was mostly aesthetic - to reflect views of the garden and sky when seen from the kitchen. Over time though I've realised it serves other functions. It provides a great way of instantly telling what the weather is like. If it's raining there are splashing drops and ripples. If it's windy there are ripples on the surface. It reflects the sky and cloud cover and when it's really cold it freezes. All of that adds interest but it also provides a source of drinking water for everything fr ..read more

So, prompted by the wonderful Bees Knees UK Community on Facebook, I thought about some New Year's resolutions and came up with the following: See if I can catch a leafcutter bee in action. I've seen lots of evidence of these solitary bees in the garden but have yet to see one in person as it were. These bees cut circular discs from leaves and use them to construct cells for their offspring. Here's a little more information http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/leaf-cutter-bee.The forest garden provides great habitat and food for solitary bees as well as bumbles and honey bees. I've been ..read more

Finally having enough apples to store for the winter has made me really happy this year! The Tydeman's Late Orange are keeping well in a cold garage on wooden shelves. The flavour has really improved with keeping. The skin of stored apples definitely changes and is quite different from shop bought apples. I did a little looking into how commercial apples are stored. It shouldn't really come as a surprise that commercial apple production, transport and storage is an industrial process but it regularly makes headlines when people realise that their fruit might have last seen a tree as much as 12 ..read more

Last year I tried dividing my rhubarb plant to create one or two new clumps around the garden. For some reason none of them took and the original hasn't been looking particularly healthy for a while now. Perhaps it's getting much less light now that the Red Filbert to the south of it is a bigger tree and is shading it. I've tried buying new plants on a whim at the garden centre but have never had much luck with that either, whether they have been potted ones or dried roots.  ​This year was the first in seven years with no rhubarb harvest at all. Not a happy situation but I haven't given ..read more

I've been trying to make time to get out into the woods. The autumn colours seem particularly bright this year. I've been drawn to beech woods in particular recently with their deep yellow turning red leaves. The colours are amazing and they are great woods for walking in, but what is striking is how little plant life there is below the main canopy. There are only a few holly trees which seem to thrive. Perhaps they need less light or maybe they make up for the lack of light when the beeches have their leaves by the light in the winter. It's clear though that mature beech woods are a poor mode ..read more

All trees take time to establish. It's one of the challenges in designing a productive forest garden. Nine years into my project I'm still seeing yields increase in the tree fruit as the larger trees mature. Trees on more dwarfing rootstocks and those that are more heavily trained will reach much of their peak production a little earlier of course but it can seem like a long time to wait.  However, in some cases there are established trees that have varieties on we don't like or don't meet our needs. For example, it might produce a very short season apple that we can't use, store, swap o ..read more