The PERMACULTURE KITCHEN GARDEN

In this new series Stephanie Hafferty explores simple, practical ways to build a healthier, more productive garden through the year

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In the 1980s, exploring the Green Fields at Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, I discovered beautiful popup edible gardens. These contained the usual vegetables, herbs, and fruit that you would find in most allotments, alongside unfamiliar edible perennials and annuals. The plots included plants grown for fertility (such as comfrey) or to reduce pests (such as marigolds), ideas I had not come across before. The beds were packed with plants, grown not in regimented straight lines but in dense clumps, resembling a colourful tapestry.

This was my introduction to permaculture. It was very much on the fringes then, something I saw at festivals but not on TV. I was keen to learn more and, as soon as I was able, put the ideas into practice in my own garden.

Permaculture is much more widely known now. Well-known permaculture-influenced gardens in the UK include the Eden Project and the Baddaford Farm Collective. Permaculture principles are influencing garden shows and festivals, including the allotment show garden I co-designed for the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival in 2021 and the Avanade Intelligent Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2025, which combined ancient permaculture principles with modern AI.

In this series, I will explain what permaculture is, how we can use its ideas to grow healthy, productive gardens, and share practical tips and projects to do throughout the year.

SO WHAT IS THIS SYSTEM?

Permaculture is a design system based on sustainable, ecological principles and ethics, working with nature to create a world in which humans live in harmony with all of life on our planet.

The word is a combination of 'permanent' and 'agriculture' and was coined in the 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.