Suzanne's Mom's Blog

I learned about a sustainable, low-maintenance type of gardening from an article by Matthew Wilson in the Financial Times.

“Forest gardening is an ancient system with modern relevance,” he writes, “based on planting fruit, herbs and vegetables in distinct layer.

“This March marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Robert Adrian de Jauralde Hart, a man who quietly, and without outside recognition for much of his life, created a garden that was at once cutting edge but also rooted in ancient traditions and techniques. Hart was a pioneer in temperate forest gardening, and spent 40 years creating and tending to his eighth of an acre plot in Wenlock Edge, Shropshire.

“Hart had initially set out to make a traditional smallholding, with orderly beds of vegetables, a small orchard and assorted livestock. His aim was to provide healthy, health-giving food for him and his brother Lacon, who was born with severe learning difficulties and for whom Hart was the primary carer. Realising that the combined challenges of the smallholding and his responsibilities towards his brother were beyond him, he observed a planting of herbs and perennial vegetables in one corner of the smallholding that seemed to thrive in spite of a lack of intervention. Taking these observations further, Hart gradually converted the entire orchard into a forest garden, establishing one of the first prototypes for temperate climates.

“The principles of forest gardening are as ancient as the notion of cultivating plants for food. It is an agroforestry system, [composed] of planted layers with large trees at the apex and small, ground-covering herbs at the base. The spiritual descendants of ancient forest gardens can still be found across the world, in the ‘home gardens’ of Kerala, Zambia, and Nepal.” Read about how it works here.

Sometimes when you don’t have time to do things “right,” you discover shortcuts that work as well or better. Like boiling the corn cobs and the spaghetti together in the same pot.

Photo: Danita Delimont/Alamy
Avocado “family orchard” in Mexico