CoirProducts.co.uk Grower of the Month this month is Lisa (@lousous). In this blog post, Lisa gave us a peek into her gardening life, from how she started growing to what she loves to grow now. She also spoke about the importance of re-using what you can find, and her love for making jams, chutneys. Read on for more.
Recalling how she started growing, Lisa says, “I started growing with my father when I was a small girl, he gave me my own small area to grow my vegetables in.” Since then, she has come to love gardening. Having grown mostly in pots, Lisa now has an allotment, where she mainly grows in the ground using the no dig method. Lisa also enjoys growing vegetables to horticulture show quality, but as naturally as she can. She goes on to say that she likes to grow from seed and would usually spend mornings at the allotments, “we go each morning to the allotment to tend to it and usually spend the whole morning there, we do this all year round”.
One of the main benefits of gardening for Lisa is that it allows her to know where her food comes from and how they have been grown, and what has been used or not used on them to make them grow.
Having used coir pots and CoirCoins, Lisa says that they try to be as sustainable as possible in the allotment. “On our allotment we try to re-use anything that we can, using it until it is no longer viable to do so, I am known to be a hunter gatherer who will collect anything that I think I can re-purpose, my husband says our plot would look like steptoes yard if he did not stop me from collecting everything that I find especially galvanised or terracotta.”
Lisa also told us how she makes lots of jams and chutneys from the harvest from the allotment, as well as puddings and fruit crumbles. “We also store our potatoes, onions, shallots, garlic, pumpkins, apples and find that these can last us until the next growing season. Anything that we have a glut of we give to friends and neighbours rather than throwing them away,” she says.
Sharing tips and suggestions with other gardeners and growers, she says, “Try to use the no dig method and make as much of your own compost as you can. Also have as many flowering plants as you can to encourage pollinators into your growing area. And finally, give the child a small growing area/planter of their own to grow quick and easy vegetables/flowers!”
In a world grappling with food insecurity and environmental degradation, sustainable gardening practices continue to play an important role. With an array of eco-friendly gardening
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