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Growing up on an Exmoor Farm, and later relocating with my family to a Dartmoor Hill Farm when I was a teenager, immersed me into the natural world and shaped my love of adventure and wilderness. At 18 I left home and completed a BA degree in Landscape Architecture at Leeds, which informed much of my environmental knowledge. Wanting to pursue a more practical lifestyle, I took up gardening jobs including work at Stone Lane Gardens (Birch and Alder Arboretum). At this time I also worked as a photographer and completed a second degree, BA Hons in Graphic Design at London College of Printing.

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After a few years life took a different turn, I returned to Dartmoor to help take on the farm. At the time it was primarily beef and sheep, using the common land for grazing.

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Many years later I found myself farming on my own with two young children. I continued with the sheep but changed to rearing  turkeys for Christmas. By this time the farm had converted to being fully organic with the Soil Association, so I was rearing turkeys for Riverford.

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The farm was entered into environmental agreements, under which a lot of work was undertaken to restore hedges, banks and walls. The hedge planting I did myself, planting thousands of indigenous trees. The trees were planted onto banks, my main concern was that they would dry out in the summer. Over the years I used my entire wool clip on mulching the trees that I had planted. Even in the driest times, the earth under the wool would still be damp. The wool mulch also helped to supress weeds and gave the trees a natural boost of slow release nitrogen and other nutrients. Even at 1200' the trees grew well, the last two winters I have begun the process of laying the hedges.

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Once again I found myself at a crossroads and needing to change what I did. No longer wanting to continue producing hundreds of turkeys for Christmas I started out on a new venture. Using my accumulated skills I started an Organic Herb Nursery, using wool in the propagation process to cut down on the need for plastic, in an effort to make the gardening process more ecological.

 

 

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