About This Blog

MY BLOG – I am charting my progress with no-dig vegetable growing  at Tin Bath House, sharing everyday gardening experiences and ideas. Also I am blogging about how my relationship with our  land develops and the things I discover.

WHERE WE LIVE – Stroud, Gloucestshire  –  since 2011 in our 1950s house with an average garden and an established hay meadow of one acre. Set on a steep Cotswold slope with poor soil and a very exposed, windy situation. We have amazing views and wildlife here.

The veg plot in 2012

WHAT ARE WE DOING AT TIN BATH HOUSE?

Trying to live a consciously ‘green’ lifestyle

Producing food and sharing the surplus

Promoting enjoyment and learning from the land, and sharing this with other people

Offering inspiration to other people who want to grow food, especially those who have poor soil or other difficult conditions

We have a Permaculture design which integrates these aspects of caring for the land and caring for people, while making it a productive plot.

I am experimenting with the ‘Ruth Stout’ method of ‘No-Work Gardening’ using no dig techniques and hay mulching.

We are not trying to make a living off our land, we are simply custodians of it and running a hobby ‘mini-holding’.

WHO HAS  INSPIRED ME?

Ruth Stout –  no-dig guru, author of ‘The No-Work Garden Book’

Beatrix Potter – female farmer and creator of Peter Rabbit

Edith Holden – who wrote the ‘Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’ in 1906

My mother Margaret Johnson who was a naturalist and Biology teacher – she died in 2011

Madge Hooper, doyenne of herb growers – I used to visit her at Stoke Lacey herb garden in the 1980s

Centre for Alternative Technology, where I spent some time in 1977 –http://www.cat.org.uk

Permaculture movement and eco-people, including my friend Molly Scott Cato (see  http://www.gaianeconomics.blogspot.co.uk )

Dr Jayne Donegan – friend, doctor, homeopath (see www.jayne–donegan.co.uk)

AND FINALLY ….. HOW I SURVIVED OVER 30 YEARS OF MIS-DIAGNOSIS
Since my early twenties I have suffered from Fowler’s Syndrome, a rare neurological condition which causes chronic and acute urine retention in women. I was diagnosed in 2012. Having struggled with it for so long I am finally getting good medical help now, with Sacral Nerve Stimulator surgery in 2013.  Living and surviving with Fowler’s Syndrome is the whole back story of my life.  All I can say is that having been chronically ill for a long time,  enjoying myself in my lovely garden  gets me through difficulties and helps me cope with chronic pain.

(See   www.fowlersyndrome.co.uk )

Advertisement