Adventures in Food

Sometimes bugs are spotted: I liked these ones.

I just picked up a little book in a charity shop the other day because it mentioned wildlife gardening and I wanted some wholesome retail therapy. I didn't expect much, I thought it would be very light and fanciful. But it turned out it was a fab piece of popular science writing, about a study done in Sheffield on the wildlife in ordinary gardens. It's charmingly written but I especially like it because it's based on scientific research and it declares the limitations of its own statistics. In summary it says that they found out that using 'native' plants in Britain has no effect on the amount of wildlife. Including nettles - which have a mythological status when it comes to wildlife gardening but apparently this is bunkum. Native is a very slippery concept anyway. But there are some things which make a huge difference, consistently in different locations. In summary, these are the top ways to maximise your garden biodiversity: 1. Grow trees (or at least s...

At Pensford Field there is a hut (the studio) and behind the hut is a bank of earth with a lot of nettles on it. I am amazed to find that I am offered the opportunity to grow things on this bank. I am allotted, not an allottment but an aNottment. I went there yesterday with Graham from the Alpines in Kew Gardens, you could say he knows a few things about native plants. We had a look around and got together a list of plants growing on the patch. Of course it is mostly nettles, but also Alexanders, burdock, green alkanet, horsetails, Black HoarHound, a type of wild lettuce and a mustard, some pretty grasses and a wild barley, mugwort (allegedly useful in clairvoyancy), a buddleia and some buttercups. I may well have forgotten a couple of things too. We also have on the site a pile of breeze blocks, some rubble, a few black plastic tubes and a bird box. With this highly promising collection of assorted plants and objects I want to intervene as a concious and conscientious agent of ecologi...