Ten principles of organic gardening

      I want to start with a story – if you are sitting comfortably.

      Once upon a time a contented shepherd called Elzéard Bouffier kept a flock of sheep alive on a hillside of wind-blown soil, in a corner of France almost lost and best forgotten. There were no trees on this land, nor were there any of the joys that trees would have brought with them. There were no springs of water and no streams. No plants. Or animals to eat them. And as there was nothing there to take pleasure or profit from, there were no people either. Apart, that is, from those who had to live there, who had no choice in the matter. And of these people most were as harsh and bitter as the wind that swept through the gaps in the walls of their blank stone houses.

      Although he could have been easily discouraged by this landscape, Elzéard was not interested in the reality that was. Only with the reality that was yet to be. Content to be alone, not bitter or lonely in his isolation, longing for nothing, Elzéard spent his unoccupied hours planting acorns – wherever he found an empty desolate spot that deserved to be occupied by timber and leaves. With no wife or family to occupy his time, nor matters of important business to attend to, nor entertainment to distract him, with the years on his side, he realised he could plant a forest, and did so.

      As the acorns grew into saplings and the saplings into trees, he noticed how the raindrops no longer ran along the surface of the compacted soil to puddle the hillside with damp craters. But instead ran down the leaves and the branches and the trunks of his oaks, into the soil, where the water stayed, until the earth could hold no more. Then it bubbled its way out again, through springs and into one of the many streams that now ran through the forest.

      When the leaves fell he watched the worms and the ants break them up and drag them into the earth. He witnessed plants erupt from seeds he had not planted.

      When the leaves fell he watched the worms and the ants break them up and drag them into the earth. He witnessed plants erupt from seeds he had not planted. He did not care how they had got there. Perhaps they had re-awakened from a deep slumber, or maybe they were fresh migrants arrested in flight from some other place and shackled to the earth by his trees. That they were there was the only thing that mattered, and that insects came to feed on their nectar and that birds came to feed on the insects. And that owls returned to hunt the mice that ate the seeds of the flowers. And that rabbits and deer came to eat the plants. And finally that humans returned in their tens of thousands to take pleasure in the amazing and mysterious natural phenomenon that was Elzéard Bouffier’s forest.

      The original version of The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono is a golden cloth of literature compared to the tailored square of material I have presented above. I haven’t really done it justice, so make it the next book you buy. What I will try to do in this book is give you the skills and ambition to have your own back garden Elzéard Bouffier moment. Not to plant a forest! Just to take a dead space and transform it into something living and wonderful. A good place for people, plants and animals.

      One: create space

      Space: as in, a place to be. Gardeners grow flowers and vegetables and fruit and herbs and trees and shrubs, but over all these things they create space.

      They bring together disparate elements and make something whole and beautiful. They learn which combinations of plants and materials work well together and which don’t. They appreciate how space can change the way we feel, defining our moods, inspiring and enchanting us. We know when we have stepped into a beautiful garden space. We can see how much love and work has been dedicated to it. We get an idea of what sort of person the gardener is. The gardener gives more time and attention to detail to a space than any other type of person. Unlike an interior designer who leaves when the job is finished, the gardener’s job is never completely done and nor does a gardener want it to be. Though we rest between work, a garden space never sits still. Plants grow and die back, and have illnesses and unwelcome pest visitors. The garden space changes from day to day. We watch what’s happening to our plants and tend to those which have succumbed to one of life’s little mishaps. This is the joy of caring for a garden space.

      Two: soil is everything

      Before you plant a single thing, get your soil care right. Plants need nutrients from compost to grow strong and prosper. Some plants will grow on poor soils but the ones we demand to grow most often, the vegetables, the fruit and the cultivated flowers, need to eat a lot of food to grow. Chemical gardeners use artificial fertilisers to feed their plants. Organic gardeners use compost and other soil improvers.

      Compost improves the structure of the soil, helping soils to retain water when plants need it most, and provides food for composting creatures. Healthy soils produce healthy plants less likely to be attacked by pests and disease.

      One of the most striking displays at the CAT visitor centre is a simple row of vegetable beds, one next to the other, each one filled with a different quantity of slate, soil and compost. The first bed is made up entirely of slate waste. The second bed is just slate and soil. The third bed slate, soil and compost.

      Plants grown in the first bed are always small and weedy, and are attacked readily by slugs and other pests. Plants grown in the second bed are only slightly better served by the soil than those in the first. Only in the third bed, the bed stacked high with soil and compost, are plants able to flourish as they should.

      Three: grow a little food

      Food grown at home is better for you and better for the planet. Raw food picked fresh from the plant is better for you than cooked. And there are always more foods to eat than we ever imagine.

      When I moved to Wales I fell amongst inspirational people. Every single day of the year Roger MacLennan and his volunteers prepared for the whole of the CAT staff (and still do) enough salad for each of us to fill a large plate. Amongst the salads were leaves I had never tasted before and flowers I would never have thought you could eat. Each one of these plants was raised without a single chemical and with more or less no external energy required, by which I mean materials and resources brought in from beyond the garden. The compost was made on site. The wood for materials came from hedgerows around the garden. Even some of the tools were homemade. Amongst the rows of vegetables, Roger planted flowers to attract predator insects and around the edges he dug ponds for frogs to venture forth from and eat slugs. The food travelled approximately 200 metres to reach the table (at most!). And each day we sat together, talked and enjoyed what had been grown for us.

      Four:

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