Humble by Nature – Rural Skills Centre

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dry-stone waling, hedge-laying, Humble by Nature, Kate Humble, Monmouthshire, planting an orchard, rural skills centre, Wye Valley

Kate Humble with Myfanwy the Berkshire sow

Kate Humble, TV presenter and wildlife champion, the face of Springwatch and Lambing Live is known for her enthusiasm and passion for the natural world and it is this love for the countryside that has made her and her husband, Ludo embark on a big project. They have bought a farm in Monmouthshire, a beautiful, unspoilt county of rolling hills and river valleys where they plan to run a rural skills centre. I’ve lived here in Monmouthshire for 6 years now and know how difficult it is for rural economies to adapt, create jobs and thrive whilst preserving the ways of life that make them such great places to live and visit. Kate kindly agreed to tell me a little bit about her new venture, Humble by Nature.

What made you embark on this project? We heard that a council farm near our home in the Wye Valley was about to be broken up and sold off, probably never to be an intact farm again and we decided that was wrong. So we talked to the council and took it on in partnership with them, to try to keep it as a working farm whilst diversifying enough to make it pay its way. That’s why we’ve started a small business to run courses in rural skills and animal husbandry, all set in the middle of a beautiful working farm.

Will the farm be run organically? Whilst we are broadly in favour of organic farming practices we have chosen not to farm organically but are aiming to do conservation farming, which means farming to encourage wildlife as much as possible.

Who are the courses aimed at? The courses are aimed at anyone who has ever thought about where their food comes from or who want to reconnect with the countryside in some way. So we welcome people who are moving out of the city in order to have a bit more space, perhaps with a bit of land to keep chickens, sheep or even a pig or maybe they fancy trying their hands at bee-keeping. Also people who want to learn a new skill such as dry-stone walling or hedge-laying. Hopefully, we’ll also appeal to those already living in the countryside who have a bit of land that they would like to use more productively, or those that just fancy trying something new, just for fun or as a new hobby.

You’ve already run a hedge-laying course and a ‘how to plant an orchard’ day, what other courses do you plan to offer? We will soon be offering courses in how to keep poultry, pigs, sheep and bees, as well as some specialist food preparation courses like how to cure and salt your own meat and making sausages. There’ll be food foraging and …. well the list is almost endless!

Who will be teaching the courses? All our courses are run by local experts in their field. Our pig course, for example, is run by a very experienced local vet with many years of hands-on knowledge of looking after pigs. Our small holding teacher has just written one of the definitive guides to starting a smallholding and our bee-keepers have worked with people keeping bees across the world. So all our teachers are truly local and proper experts.

Will all the courses be practical and hands-on? Yes. The huge majority of the courses will be outside on the land as much as in the classroom and there are amazing (indoor) lunches to go with them!

How important will it be to encourage wildlife onto the farm? We are working very closely with local wildlife organisations such as Gwent Wildlife Trust and the Woodland Trust to make sure we encourage as much wildlife as we can.

With the massive decline in farmland bird populations over the last 40 years do you think it’s possible to farm profitably and also manage the countryside for the benefit of wildlife? Absolutely. We can all do something for wildlife, whether it’s just planting the right sort of plants for bees, leaving borders uncut or not removing that old bit of rotting tree trunk to encourage insects or if you have the space, planting trees and hedges and putting up nest boxes for birds. We’ll be doing all of these and more on the farm.

With this project, your TV work and your own smallholding do you find any time for a spot of gardening? I’m a very keen gardener and we have a small but productive vegetable and fruit patch at home. A lot of my filming commitments are in the summer when the very best of the fruit and vegetables are ready but I never miss an opportunity to enjoy the fruit (and veg) of my own hands!

And finally, wellies or boots? Wellies for the farm (always) but definitely boots for walking with the dogs in the Welsh hills.

To find out more about Kate’s farm you can follow her on facebook and find out more details at Humble by Nature.

Book Review, Interview and Giveaway- Laetitia Maklouf’s Sweet peas for Summer

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Alan Titchmarsh, Chelsea Physic Garden, English Garden School, Laetitia Maklouf, Sweet peas for Summer book

When I first started gardening in my mid 20s about 10 years ago there was a perception that gardening was for older people, something you did when you hit 40 and this is still to some degree the image that is reflected by the gardening media. But with more young people being bitten by the gardening bug and taking on allotments, it’s good to see some younger gardeners writing and appearing on TV.

Laetitia Maklouf is one of these younger faces. Her first book The Virgin Gardener was the Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph Gardening Book of the Year. You might have also seen her on Alan Titchmarsh’s Love Your Garden programme.

This book Sweet peas for Summer sees her move from her flat where she gardened on her balcony for 10 years to a house with a proper garden. Laetitia, determined that her garden will be beautiful in it’s first summer shows the reader that even in a short space of time it’s possible to have a blooming oasis.

The book begins with useful advice for making plans of the garden and how to create planting designs. It’s then divided into monthly sections focussing on how to make a new garden look it’s best quickly and thinking about how your garden will evolve in the future. All the gardening books I’ve ever read have said don’t do anything in the first year of having a new garden. It may be the proper way of doing things but it’s boring, boring, boring. The last thing I wanted to do after waiting 8 years for our first garden was to do more waiting, so I loved Laetitia’s ‘get stuck in’ approach. I also thought it was refreshing to see an average sized back garden featured, this is after all what most of us, especially first timers, have.

I loved the idea of using non permanent planting such as Sweet peas or Verbena bonariensis as a screen in the garden where she later planned to plant a hedge and the combination of growing plants with craft ideas such as growing Santolina and then making moth sachets.  Laetitia’s previous gardening had been confined to containers and her love of growing in pots is still in evidence with lots of ideas for seasonal window boxes and pot cascades.

It is very much a girly book but she has studied at both the English Gardening School and the Chelsea Physic Garden and clearly knows her stuff. The book isn’t short on horticultural advice ,for instance, there is a section on root cuttings using Japanese anemones as an example.

Sweet peas for Summer is fun and fresh and Laetitia has inspired me to try some of her projects. I’ve never really been one for hanging baskets but she’s convinced me to give one a go this year and she’s given me plenty of ideas for an empty zinc bath I have lying around.

To mark the launch of her new book Laetitia kindly agreed to answer a few questions.

What was your first gardening memory? Planting strawberries with my mother in our London garden.

What tool couldn’t you be without? I have a Sophie Conran hand fork that I use constantly.

What has been your greatest gardening success? Creating my own, first garden from scratch – I’ve loved every moment.

and your biggest gardening disaster? Ha! Too many to mention. Things die on me all the time . . . and mostly because I do something stupid like forgetting to water.

Who inspires you most from the gardening world past or present? I have devoured all of Vita’s books many times over. I love Anna Pavord, too and I am inspired, impressed and amused on a daily basis by all my brilliant gardening Twitter friends.

Which garden would you most like to visit in the world? I’d love to go to Japan, I’m very partial to moss and blossom.

What would be your dream garden project? I’d love my own meadow (a big one please).

And finally, wellies or boots? Wellies.

Bloomsbury have kindly offered a copy of Laetitia’s book to one of my blog readers. So if you’d like a chance of having your own copy of Sweet peas for Summer just leave comment with this post by midnight on Friday 13th April to say you’d like to be included. I’ll then put all the names in a hat and draw a lucky winner. It’s open to anyone so if you’re outside the UK feel free to enter. Good Luck!

Sweet peas for Summer is available now from Amazon and all good bookshops.

Thanks to Jude at Bloomsbury and Laetitia for taking the time to answer the questions.

Toby Buckland – Interview

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Gardeners' World, RHS, Toby Buckland

This is the second part of my feature on the gardener Toby Buckland. Toby started gardening after leaving school, working as a pinks and roses nurseryman at Whetman’s Pinks Nursery in Devon. He then trained at Bicton College, Hadlow College and Cambridge University’s Botanic Garden where he subsequently worked as a woodland supervisor. He has presented a variety of TV programmes including Gardeners’ World, writes for a host of publications and is the author of 5 books. In 2008 he won an RHS Gold medal and Best in Show for his Ethical Garden at Gardeners’ World Live. As he embarks on his latest project – his new online plant nursery he kindly took the time to answer a few of my questions.

1. What is your first gardening memory? – Gardening with my Uncle Bob. He took me down to the beach where I live to collect seaweed and put under the potatoes – it keeps off slugs. I remember being amazed when we harvested them that I’d been involved in growing something.
2. What tool couldn’t you be without? – If you’d asked me in summer it would have been the watering lance, it saves your back no end! But now, I’m quite attached to my Gerber knife – packing up parcels, cutting up string to tie up the bare roots – I use it all the time.
3. What is your favourite meal to cook with produce from your garden?- Well, it depends on what time of year. Pumpkin fritters in Autumn, broad beans and bacon, I love making curries with the chillies. I used to be a terrible cook but now I do most of the cooking. I like the variety and experimentation.
4. Which garden has seduced you? – Bagatelle in Paris – very seductive roses.
5. What has been your biggest gardening success? – The Marines Garden at RM 45 Commando Arbroath. I was asked to design a memorial garden for the families to remember the fallen. We brought in large boulders from all over the globe, everywhere that 45 Commando had served since 1971 when 45 Commando moved to Arbroath. It opened on Remembrance Day, 11/11/11. The marines are amazing how they just get things done. They raised more than £200,000 to build it through their fundraising efforts such as running double marathons. I was very honoured to be involved.
6. What has been your biggest gardening disaster? – Thinking I could open the doors of a garage whilst still driving a mower towards them, not a good idea. I was a reckless youth, and I did learn my lesson.
7. Which gardening book will you be snuggling up with this winter? – Truthfully, I’m more likely to read a novel than a gardening book. I prefer doing the gardening to reading about it.
8. Which garden in the world would you most like to visit? – Kyoto.
9. What would be your dream garden project? – If I won the lottery and could have a 1000 acre landscape to play with that wouldn’t be bad!
10. And finally . . . wellies or boots? – Boots definitely. I’m too hard on wellies – they always fall apart too quickly with all the digging. I live in rigger work boots that are easy to pull on and off when your hands are covered in mud.

Thanks to Toby. To read more about him and his new plant nursery go to his website http://www.tobybuckland.com/.