MEET THE BLOGGER BUILDING A FOOD FOREST IN SCOTLAND

When Katrina and Peter moved to their East Ayrshire garden in 2019 they had no gardening experience – just a desire to live sustainably. Their food forest now feeds the family and supports their autistic son Clayton through the rhythms of nature

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You moved to your home in East Ayrshire in 2019. Had you and your husband Peter had much gardening experience before that?

We had no gardening experience before moving to our new home and we had a full blank canvas to get started with. We were eager to live more sustainably and use this space as best we could, so Peter and I took a permaculture design course (PDC PRO) with Oregon State University to guide us. It just gave us that extra boost of confidence and knowledge to design our space, grow food for the family and care for the land naturally and effectively.

You started by developing a food forest garden. What plants are you growing there?

Our food forest was the first area we developed, designed to mimic a natural woodland and provide a variety of food crops year after year. We started by planting fruit trees – apple, pear, plum and cherry – as they take the longest to establish. These were underplanted with fruit bushes – rhubarb, comfrey and wild strawberries – in the lower layers, while herbs like rosemary, lemon balm and chives spread naturally around, forming guilds around the trees and all working together like they would in nature. We've added nitrogen fixers like clover, lupins and sea buckthorn to enrich the soil, and flowers such as calendula and borage to attract pollinators. The food forest area is starting to fill out now and grows stronger with each passing season.

The forest garden is based around a series of 'guilds'. Can you explain what they are?