About Us

This site aims to document our daily life as we grow some of our own food, keep pampered free range hens and forage for firewood.  Whatever we write, it is not a counsel of perfection! We stumble often, never have enough time to get on top of weeds and become distracted by other things, but we have a lot of fun and are grateful to have the space to grow our own veg and fruit and to live in a welcoming community.  When we came to Scotland 20 years ago, we hoped we would find somewhere to live that had space to grow food, which we did.

If one word summed up our life here, it would be “seasonal”: not only seasonal food growing but seasonal living, too.  Summer is full-on in the garden while winter and autumn allow for a gentler pace in the garden and time to forage for wood.  Our favourite months of the year are February, May and October when the countryside is at its best, the evenings are often stunningly beautiful and the mornings can be bright, sometimes crisp but full of promise. 

We grow and sow in the West of Scotland countryside, just north of Glasgow, not far from the West Highland Way. Veg, fruit growing and hen keeping are conducted under organic guidelines and we sow a high percentage of our veg plants (but not all).  We garden on chocolate boulder clay full of stones and weed seeds.  We have never lived anywhere where weeds are as rampant as this part of the world. We do a lot of weeding but never enough!

Our veg plot is probably one of the coldest in the district, so it presents challenges.  Fortunately, we have an unheated greenhouse, which helps.  Our house also has a decades-old, unheated conservatory attached.  The wood is dodgy in places but the conservatory has something special: a Hamburgh grapevine that was planted many years ago by the previous owner.  In a good season the grapes ripen well and taste delicious.  Apart from pruning, thinning and occasional feeding when we remember, we don’t do a lot to the vine and it thrives.  It provides shade in summer and a place to hang fairy lights at Christmas.

We are committed to supporting British farmers, growers and producers.  This site aims to support local and national producers and re-makers.  One of the organisations we champion is Glasgow Wood Recycling. This is a social enterprise in Glasgow that recycles wood in a variety of ways.  GWR have provided ex-scaffolding planks and raised beds that we’ve used in gardens.  They’ve also made us indoor furniture with recycled wood.  We hope to raise awareness of local crafters and makers in the future via our blog.

We live in the countryside in an agricultural area where people have worked the land for generations. We support British farmers and growers and believe that supermarkets and large retailers need to be encouraged to support locally-grown, sustainable food and high-welfare animal husbandry.

Another of the aims of this website is to promote allotment growing and community gardening.  When green space is limited in cities, it is important that allotments and community gardens offer opportunities for people to get together to grow their own food.  See here for more information.

Please join us as we plant, sow, cook, saw and weed our way on our not-so-perfect plot.