Cheese Plant Books

This is the question I get asked by schools: “How will this work? The students are on summer holidays when the flowers and fruits are ready for harvesting.”

I get asked this question, too: “Should we start in spring?”

I always say, working with the soil is something you do as a part of your life all year round. You grow with the seasons, planning your timetable so that you work alongside nature. And the beauty of growing with the seasons is that you learn to live in tune with the natural world.  If your school is going to be locked up in summer, grow fruits and flowers that are ready by late spring/early summer, so that come midsummer, your plot is ready to bed down with easy-care plants.

If you are wondering if you should do nothing until spring, you would have wasted precious months that could have been spent nurturing your soil. In this article, I will show you how. It is so important to not forget that we need to take care of the soil too.

I am an advocate of gardening in the mindful, easy and natural way. This is my little wildflower plot (in the first week of October). 

Within this little space, I identified 26 different plants, of which 6 are edible and delicious in salads or smoothies – dandelion, cow parsley, Jack-in-the-hedge, wood sorrel, cleavers and burdock. There’s a prolific St John’s wort bush with bright yellow flowers in the mix, too, and this plant that is used as an antidepressant by herbalists.

It is time for this little patch of earth to go to sleep and replenish. The plants that are still growing are cut down as close to the root as possible, the green parts chopped up, woody bits removed. We then danced these pieces of green into the earth, like how wine was made in the olden days. These chopped plant parts will, over the months, function as ‘green manure’, giving nutrients for the soil and improving soil structure.

To speed up the decomposition process, we cover with a layer of homemade compost. This is how this patch of earth will sleep for the next few months. Cocoon within its warm, moist depth are 88 daffodil bulbs, sleeping too, waiting for spring to come.

With thanks to my son Kit for carting the compost and Mango (the retriever) for company.