You may also like:<\/strong><\/p> After seeing so much destruction and injustice, I really wanted to nurture and protect the environment I was familiar with as a boy. At the time, I naturally presumed that gardening would protect and defend nature, so I enrolled on a horticulture diploma. I learned the basics I needed, which then led to great opportunities to work and learn in some of the greatest gardens around the world.<\/p> Natural farming is about your own love and passion for food, nature and people, and I now see it more as a personal philosophy than a set of instructions<\/p> <\/blockquote> I developed the skills and knowledge I needed to care for these gardens, but it always felt that anything too \u2018wild\u2019 or \u2018messy\u2019 was strictly removed, no matter the habitat it created. Chemical management was common, from fungicides to herbicides. Self-sufficiency was seen as impossible and when I questioned any method, the response was, usually, \u2018That\u2019s the way it\u2019s always been done\u2019 \u2013 a phrase I would argue is the most damaging to nature in our society.<\/p> I could also sense an underlying sickness. Soil<\/a> seemed poor even with copious amounts of added compost. Roses<\/a> still got sick even with the cocktail of sprays, and plants and lawns never seemed fully happy, not to mention the rapid changes in our climate challenging their resilience each year. The desire for this unattainable \u2018perfection\u2019 shared by many gardens, charities and owners was destroying the idea I had of horticulture<\/a> as a way to protect biodiversity.<\/p> We converted an old dairy pasture and set out to prove that food can be grown as part of an ecosystem where every animal and insect, friend or foe, is welcome<\/p> <\/blockquote> This led me to work and study in the USA and Japan. I wanted to compare other horticultural styles to see if they had the answers I was looking for. Compost, soil health<\/a> and the use of cover crops became the main topic of my time in the USA. I looked into regenerative farming<\/a>, but found myself questioning the vast amount of inputs required, such as squid ink or crab shells. Surely self-sufficiency was key to sustainability?<\/p> Japan, on the other hand, was everything I hoped for. The people, gardens and landscape still inspire me today. My dream was to learn natural farming, something I had been fascinated by since reading The One-Straw Revolution<\/em> by Masanobu Fukuoka. However, I soon found out that natural farming wasn\u2019t a working practice to be scribbled into notebooks. It is a belief or idea that only you can translate for yourself. It\u2019s about your own love and passion for food, nature and people, and I now see it more as a personal philosophy than a set of instructions.<\/p> Unfortunately, when I returned from Japan, I quickly found myself being told to remove habitat such as leaves from under shrubs<\/a>. When I asked why, I was told, again, that that\u2019s the way it\u2019s always been done. Looking back, I think it was in that moment I resolved to dedicate my career to natural farming. Four years on, our natural farming has gone from strength to strength. We converted an old dairy pasture and set out to prove that food can be grown as part of an ecosystem where every animal and insect, friend or foe, is welcome, and external inputs are kept to a minimum. I am not one for using compost to suppress weeds, as I believe that in doing this, all we are doing is suppressing nature. Consider also the fuel, water and haulage required to make these inputs \u2013 let alone the plastic contamination in municipal composts.<\/p> Weeds<\/a> play a crucial role here at the farm. They encourage pollination far more suited to local insects. They build fertility through diverse root systems and create easy, complex polycultures with our vegetables. Many are also delicious, such as sow thistle and nettle. We\u2019ve banned the hoe and instead manage our weeds to grow in harmony with our produce, with any unruly ones sickled and used as mulch.<\/p> Like weeds, pests<\/a> are an important part of our system: more slugs means more beetles. Buzzards and hawks keep the pigeons away, attracted by the mice who love our weedy habitats, and who, in turn, also eat slugs. We as farmers must try to not interrupt the processes nature creates, but it can take years to reach an equilibrium.<\/p> Much like Manasobu\u2019s teachings, agroforestry and perennials<\/a> have come to define our natural farming now. Food forests, perennial vegetables<\/a> and syntropic agriculture have become key themes as annual production becomes more unsustainable with our changing climate.<\/p> People often ask me how the farm works, why weeds don\u2019t compete, why slugs don\u2019t eat everything \u2013 which they have in the past, but we are finding this just isn\u2019t the case as each year passes. Soon enough owls, thrushes, kingfishers, adders and newts return and the ecosystem rebuilds itself, and you find them living under your lettuces and cabbages, right there with you in the field.<\/p>
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