Groundbreaking Food Gardens: 73 Plans That Will Change the Way You Grow Your Garden

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There is lots of talk of fish-based pet foods being poisonous for hedgehogs, so should you avoid it? Just remember that hedgehogs will happily eat a whole host of things that are pretty bad for them. So when we are providing food, it’s our job to be the nutrition police. Don’t worry that your hedgehogs will be bored by the same old bowl of biscuits every night. They won’t; they can find plenty of exciting little morsels when they are out foraging. The food we provide is just topping them up: making sure they are healthy, not hungry, and fit to face all the challenges the natural world has for them. Otway was inspired to work in this way by the year he spent at Dan Barber’s Blue Hill restaurant, located at the sustainable farming research centre, Stone Barns, in New York State. The ingredients coming off the farm were, says Otway, “on a different level. You can’t un-taste that.” But feeding hedgehogs is important. Hedgehogs in the UK are in big trouble mainly due to the loss of their natural habitat and the food that goes with it. In our countryside numbers and in disastrous decline.

A hedgehog house or feeding station is designed to allow the hedgehog, who is small and quite bendy, to access the food whilst keeping larger animals out. It also offers your hedgies some protection from predators and bad weather whilst they eat. The County Arms (Wandsworth)- The pub garden has bookable huts and plenty of cover for inclement weather. Wet food (like wet pet food) is typically about 80% water. A high water content is no bad thing as hedgehogs need their fluids. But it does mean that you will need to feed more of it to provide the same nutrition.Aguilar-Stoen M, Moe SR, Camargo-Ricalde SL: Home gardens sustain crop diversity and improve farm resilience in Candelaria Loxicha, Oaxaca, Mexico. Hum Ecol. 2009, 37: 55-77. 10.1007/s10745-008-9197-y. Chef Joseph Otway is constantly telling his kitchen staff at Higher Ground, his restaurant in Manchester, to “embrace the chaos”. It is an unusual rallying cry from a place that only months after opening was voted 51st in the top 100 at the 2023 National Restaurant Awards. Christanty L, Abdoellah OL, Marten GG, Iskandar J: Traditional agroforestry in West Java: the Pekaranagan (home garden) and Kebun-Talun (annual-perennial rotatio If you put food out for hedgehogs, chances are they will take it, so it’s important to offer food that is good for them.

Fernandes ECM, Nair PKR: An evaluation of the structure and function of tropical homegardens. Agr Syst. 1986, 21: 279-310. 10.1016/0308-521X(86)90104-6. There are a couple of points here. First, lots of fish flavoured cat food doesn’t actually contain all that much fish; the clue is in the “fish flavour” label. There is a vast body of literature presenting research and case studies focusing on the role of home gardens as agroforestry or food production systems, or a combination of both. Home gardens are ecologically divided into two categories: tropical and temperate [ 13]. Much of the literature focuses on home gardens in the tropical areas in Central and South America [ 22– 25]. There is also a substantial interest for home gardens in South and South-East Asia [ 26– 29] and Africa [ 30– 34]. Conversely, only a few documented studies exist on home gardens from temperate regions [ 35– 38] and from developed countries [ 32, 39– 42]. The news you didn’t want to hear is that the world’s favourite coffee – Arabica ( Coffea arabica) is under threat from climate change. Thankfully, measures are in place to safeguard our morning brew. Kew researchers have recently found that a rare species of wild coffee from Upper West Africa, known as Sierra Leone coffee ( Coffea stenophylla), can tolerate much warmer temperatures than Arabica. This opens up the potential to breed and produce new, climate-resilient coffee crops for global consumption, helping to protect coffee farming from the climate crisis. FonioEither wet or dry hedgehog food is fine. Lots of people say hedgehogs prefer the wet food. It certainly has a stronger smell and could do a better job of attracting hedgehogs to your feeding station in the first place. Of course, this also makes it more of a magnet for other animals. Leiva JM, Azurdia C, Ovando W, López E, Ayala H: Contribution of Home Gardens to in situ Conservation in Traditional Farming Systems—Guatemalan Component. 2001, Witzenhausen, Germany: Paper presented at Proceedings of the Second International Home Gardens Workshop, Gupta AK: Scientists’ views of farmers’ practices in India: barriers to effective interaction. Farmer First. Farmer Innovation and Agricultural Research. Edited by: Chambers R, Pacey A, Thrupp LA. 1989, London, UK: Intermediate Technology Publications tho Seeth H, Chachnov S, Surinov A: Russian poverty: muddling through economic transition with garden plots. World Dev. 1998, 26 (9): 1611-1623. 10.1016/S0305-750X(98)00083-7. Seaweed could become more prevalent in our daily diet in the coming years. With more than a third of the world’s soil in a state of moderate to high degradation, more and more people are turning to the seas and oceans for growing food. Seaweed is already a popular feature in Japanese cuisine in the form of nori – dried, edible sheets used to wrap sushi and added as condiments to soups and other dishes. Wild rice

And people who grow fruits and veggies themselves are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables. This is especially true of children, who are five times more likely to eat produce if they have a hand (or two) in growing them. Kids who grow up exposed to fresh produce and edible gardening have more familiarity with fresh, healthy whole foods. They know what different fruits and vegetables look like, taste like, and how to grow and prepare them — skills that will serve them for a lifetime. Nair PKR: Agroforestry Systems in the Tropics. 1989, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers

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There’s also a chance to improve air quality, decrease “ food miles” and subsequent air pollution, and reduce neighborhood waste through composting. Vogl CR, Vogl-Lukasser B: Tradition, dynamics and sustainability of plant species composition and management in homegardens on organic and non-organic small scale farms in Alpine Eastern Tyrol. Austria. Biol Agric Hortic. 2003, 21: 149-166. Torquebiau E: Are tropical agroforestry gardens sustainable?. Agric Ecosyst Environ. 1992, 41: 189-207. 10.1016/0167-8809(92)90109-O. Fernandes ECM, Oktingati A, Maghembe J: The Chagga homegardens: a multistoried agroforestry cropping system on Mt. Kilimanjaro, Northern Tanzania. Agrofor Syst. 1984, 2: 73-86.