#112: Gardening More Sustainably with Pippa Chapman

If you’re a fan of making your own clothes, chances are you might also be into growing some of your own food. And like this week’s guest, garden consultant Pippa Chapman, highlights, once you start trying to be more sustainable in one area of your life, that approach usually spreads to other areas. In this episode Pippa actually takes the reins and gives me a consultation about my own little garden. She offers up advice on how I can use my space more productively and successfully. 

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Garden consultation 

Find Pippa Instagram’s feed @pippachapman_thoseplantpeople and Those Plant People’s Youtube channel and website.

The Cloud Gardener specialises in garden designs for balcony places. 

My post about saving seeds from shop bought baby plum tomatoes.

Pippa’s design for a milk bottle slug/snail trap:

Stephanie Hafferty is a proponent of the No Dig approach to gardening.

Pippa’s design for a double palette planter:

Huw Richards is a permaculture inspired gardener with a popular Youtube channel. 

My takeaways from the garden consultation:

Train courgettes to grow upwards

Grow pumpkins and BNS up washing lines to form a canopy

Look for squash variety Crown Prince 

Try slug and snail trap (see pic above)

Try growing some perennial vegetables including perennial kale varieties Taunton Deane, Daubenton Kale and Panache Kale

Look out for Babington Leek 

For the shady area, consider Caucasian Spinach - which can be encouraged to grow upwards, plus salad leaves and swiss chard 

Plant spring bulbs to provide food for pollinators early in the year 

Edible flower options can provide food for humans and pollinators. Look for Daylilies (Latin Hemerocallis) - you can eat every part of the plant, Campanulas - siberian bellflower and Allium Molly - edible flowers for adding to salads 

Add mulch to the soil in Nov/Dec

Incorporate water into the garden, a container with shallow edges, so bees and other pollinators can drink

Decomposing wood provides a habitat for some insects

Consider comfrey as living mulch and to make fertiliser from it