Turning a standard terraced back garden (approx 6m x 15m) into a space for body-mind-spirit transformation. Informed by permaculture principles, this ongoing project began in 2012 in an effort to understand the power and benefits of native wild flowers, herbology and allotmenting. The grass was taken up. Zones of companion planting and forest-planting were introduced. A wild fruit and nut tree hedge was planted (Hawthorn, Cherry plum/bullace, Hazel, Buckthorn/Sloe, Rowan). Fruit trees (two fig, one greengage, a hybrid apple tree, two elder trees, a loquat, a cherry tree, almond, three olive trees, Quince and Medlar) and berry bushes (two types of raspberry, three types of current, two gooseberry bushes). Strawberry runners aplenty. two crowns of rhubarb. Space for perpetual greens and beans. Since March 2020 we also have chickens as much for their guarding and compost-enriching poo as their company and eggs. there is now a small fire pit with seating made from reclaimed tree trunks and a seating space fashioned for outdoor social-distancing connecting with friends.
Apothecary Allotment Garden aims to enrich rather than to complete self-sufficiency, but in learning and acquiring the skills, offers up new possible ways of engaging with the vibrant wider local and online community of land workers to create urban landscapes more habitable and sustaining for the human and non-human lives for an abundant future.