Fun, productive, and therapeutic

CoirProducts.co.uk Featured Grower this week is Julia (@parkers_patch). For Julia, gardening is fun, productive, and 100% therapeutic. In this blog post, Julia spoke to us about what she loves to grow, her process of growing and working with plants, sustainable gardening practices that she adopts, and what she finds the most rewarding as well as challenging. Read on to find out all about Julia’s gardening journey.

Julia got into gardening at a young age, helping her father tend to his tomatoes in his greenhouse, while he would also put her on earwig watch in his dahlia patch. Later, when Julia had children of her own, she says, “I wanted them to eat healthily and understand that growing your own food is fun and rewarding.”

When it comes to what she grows, there are some of her firm favourites. “First and foremost it has to be basil,” she says, adding that she grows different varieties of basil. Basil not only tastes good and is prolific, but also acts as an organic pest control grown next to her tomatoes. Julia lists some of the varieties she grows, “Sweet Genovese, the more common basil to a giant variety, Neopolitana, which produces leaves the size of my hand, and the rather spicier variety African Blue Basil, which is actually a perennial…” In addition, she also loves growing asparagus, artichokes, yellow raspberries and purple sprouting broccoli, all of which are expensive to buy in the shops yet fairly low maintenance to grow at home. As for this year, Julia says, “I am growing a Luffa or Loofah for fun along with salads, onions, giant garlic, blueberries, peaches, plums, quince, figs, beetroot, beans, mangetout, broad beans to name a few.”

Julia also spoke to us about her process of working with plants. “As one of my jobs, I run workshops teaching the principles of sowing seeds and growing your own food, so the most important thing I always say is not to grow too much in your first year and ONLY grow what you and your family will eat. Making a list for the year is helpful, it’s all too easy to pick numerous seed packets off the shelf and sow too much which can become overwhelming and not enjoyable,” Julia explained. She added that she tries to grow a new vegetable every year, as after all, growing is the best way to learn. And most importantly, she says, “if I am not sure about something I research it and then just have a go.”

Julia also adopts environmentally-friendly and sustainable gardening practices as much as she can. “We produce our own compost here and collect as much rainwater as possible. I reuse most cartons, tins and plastic from household waste and turn them into planters – the plastic cartons are useful in the winter as the lids turn them into mini propagators. Egg shells and coffee grounds are collected and used as snail and slug deterrents. I make my own plant feed by submerging nettles in water for two weeks in the spring and summer and I rotate crops to get the very best from the soil. No dig has become important here too.”

Having loved using coir products for a couple of years now, Julia says, “I welcomed the idea of reducing the use of peat and plastic. The coir pots are fantastic and sturdy and the blocks of compost are easy to store before use as I have limited space in my greenhouse. I also love using the coir discs for seed sowing, its therapeutic popping one seed into the disc and just transplanting the whole unit into a pot to grow on with no root disturbance.

As for what she loves most about gardening, Julia says, “It’s fun, productive, usually, and 100% therapeutic”. Having always enjoyed being in the garden, Julia says that there is nothing better than spending time outside after a long day at work. Having lost both her parents in quick succession last year, Julia says, “I found that gardening through my grief helped enormously.”

On the other hand, she finds the changing weather particularly challenging. “Every year is different, last summer was a challenge with no rain and the hot temperatures, we are still on a hosepipe ban here in Sussex and this year it has been much colder at night, it definitely keeps us gardeners on our toes,” she says.

Julia also reflected on who inspires her the most when it comes to gardening, from Gertrude Jekyll, Vita Sackville West, Christopher Lloyd to modern day gardeners… “I love to visit gardens for inspiration, luckily I have Gravetye on my doorstep which has the most wonderful walled vegetable garden. Recently I visited The Newt which was utterly inspirational. I also find a lot of inspiration on social media channels,” Julia added.

As for sharing tips with other gardeners and growers, Julia emphasises, “don’t start the sowing season too early and understand your soil and what grows best, it’s no good trying to grow something if your conditions are not suitable.” She urges anyone to have a go at growing your own food, “it’s fun and tasty”.