I'm delighted to be teaming up with Barton Art in Nature and the Barton GP Surgery, Oxfordshire, to launch 'Growing Together' a new 12 week wellbeing gardening programme at the newly built Barton Wellbeing Garden.Connecting men in the community who are struggling with their mental health and coming together to chat and grow 💚 Places … Continue reading Growing Together – Oxfordshire 12 week programme
Would you like to learn how to design or improve your garden with the aim that your outside space helps enhance your wellbeing as much as possible? I'm super excited to launch our new upcoming Wellbeing Garden Design workshop! The 1.5hr session will cover: - Exploring what you need in your garden, both physically and … Continue reading Wellbeing Garden Design Workshop
Do you love watching how nature and gardens transform throughout the seasons? The colour changes? The different tones, scents, colours and textures that arrive at different times of year?Each month in 2021, I would love to spread a bit of garden joy and will share how the therapy gardens and towpath garden are changing! New … Continue reading New Monthly Photo Wall and Calendar Competition!
Thank you so much to everyone who completed our survey regarding running online Growing for Wellbeing Workshops! If you missed the blog post or survey, have a look here, there is still time to give us your thoughts. I wanted to share with you a little snapshot of the results and announce next steps. Here … Continue reading Online Workshop – Survey Results
Happy New Year everyone! We're back open after a much needed rest and are super excited for the growing season to start. Whilst we can stay open at our therapy sites, we are limiting our face to face services for January and would like to extend our support to those not nearby or would prefer … Continue reading Growing for Wellbeing online workshop – interested?!
When you step outside for your daily exercise or to do your essential shopping, how many spring bulb shoots can you see popping up through the soil? Slow down your pace and allow your eyes to look around. Daffodils? Snowdrops? All getting ready to bloom and show their beautiful flowers! These bulbs will have been … Continue reading New shoots
Did you know that even on these freezing cold, windy, wet days, you could be growing your own food? That exciting feeling when all the seeds are germinating in Spring is what made me fall in love with gardening. Shoots popping up built my confidence and gave me something to look forward to every day, … Continue reading Are you craving that exciting Spring feeling? Growing Sprouting Seeds.
Are you looking for a challenge or just an excuse to get outside on your own more? I would like to invite you to take part in our new fundraising campaign ‘Challenge 27’! Get outside in nature, relax the mind and help us raise vital funds. You can walk, jog, run, skip, swim or cycle … Continue reading CHALLENGE 27!
Hi! Writing a blog on here feels weird now and I don't know why, perhaps it is because what I would usually be putting on here is now going on social media, in my email newsletter and/or in Kitchen Garden magazine, so it means I don't want to duplicate things in case of annoying you. … Continue reading Hi in July!
I loved recently writing this special blog for Collins4Parents, the education publishers, within HarperCollins. So much so that I thought, I would share it here too, especially as it's Mental Health Awareness Week. Helping kids find mindfulness at home through gardening Finding mindfulness can be tricky right now, even more so when the term ‘mindfulness’ … Continue reading Five ways that gardening can be good for children’s mental wellbeing.
I thought I would share with you my absolute favourite gardening and nature books, plus a podcast I adore, in case you are looking for some inspiration. I have so many books, that I could include in this list, but I want to keep it simple for you. In no particular order, let's begin... No-Dig … Continue reading TOP GARDENING BOOKS AND PODCAST!
Fancy some foraging and cooking right now? How about making delicious sweetcorn and wild garlic mustard fritters?! There is so much wild garlic mustard growing right now, especially in shady woodlands and along hedgerows. As you can see below, it grows along the hedgerow of the canal towpath alongside two other delicious edibles, nettles and … Continue reading Forage and cook: Wild Garlic Mustard and Sweetcorn Fritters
Nearly everyone I know loves cherry tomatoes, especially when they are homegrown and eaten straight off the vine midway through a morning on the plot or in the garden. Are you the same? The first cherry tomatoes of the season always feel and taste particularly special to me, so I need to get sowing asap. … Continue reading Sweet Cherry Tomatoes – Sow, Grow and Eat
The Tête-á-Tête's are flowering and the tulip bulbs are popping up through the soil... it can only mean one thing. Spring is here...finally! During winter I worry that the towpath container garden doesn't look that aesthetically pleasing to passers by and more like just a mass collection of totally random pots in some kind of … Continue reading Spring is HERE!!!
Give me two seconds to let that blog title sink in. Nope...2, 5, or 100 seconds isn't enough! I still can't believe it even after all the writing, editing, sending it off to print and now seeing it available to pre-order pretty much every where online. But yes, I have written a children's interactive grow … Continue reading I’M A PUBLISHED AUTHOR!!!
