In the forest garden

Adrian Thomas visits a garden in Somerset that's an inspiring mix of food growing, sustainability and wildlife

- Adrian Thomas

On a hill near a wood where nobody goes, up a track through a gate, the food forest grows.” This is the opening refrain of Rob Handy’s entertaining YouTube videos, which he’s been making since 2017. In them, we follow Rob as he creates his forest garden, a project he’s been working on for the last 11 years. Forest gardening has been long known in tropical areas but is only now becoming popular in the UK. In this style of gardening, trees, shrubs and (mainly) perennial plants are grown in a way that mimics the structure of young forest in a sustainable, low-intensity, low maintenance way. All the plants are chosen to provide food, medicine, building materials, fuel and even toiletries and clothing. And because it’s all about creating a rich, balanced ecosystem, wildlife can thrive. I was lucky enough to have a tour of Rob’s forest garden on a warm June day. When he took on the plot, it was essentially an empty field. He then set himself the challenge of growing 500 different types of edible plant. He’s up to 470 so far, and the result is a diverse habitat of shrubs, trees and vegetables dotted throughout meadows which, when I visited, bobbed with Meadow Brown and Large Skipper butterflies.