Own Grown Gardening

Right now, the Government is consulting on our vision for England's future land use and how to achieve it. The consultation closes 25 April 2025, so there is still plenty of time remaining to contribute. If you wish to do so, head over to DEFRA's website . It is well worth it. Several questions were seriously on point. So much so, I felt the need to throw my own ideas into the ring. I've included them below. I highly recommend submitting your own thoughts too. Question What are the policies, incentives and other changes that are needed to support decision makers in the agricultural sector to deliver this scale of land use change, while considering the importance of food production? My Response Money is of course the biggest incentive regardless of how depressing it is to say it. If landscape stewardship schemes provide farmers and land owners enough financial incentive to adopt them, they will embrace them whether or not they fundamentally believe in their benefits. If, how...

The title of this post sounds like a children's fairytale. Entirely unintended. I guess, in a way though, it is rather fitting because although ragwort ( Senecio jacobaea ) with it's delightful, and prolific, yellow flowers has many benefits, it also possessed what some consider a dark side. We have all the ingredients of a Grimm's fairytale me thinks, hahah! Ragwort, although native to the UK, is classified by the government as an injurious weed . Why, you might ask, is it so vilified? It's because the plant contains toxins, called pyrrolizidine alkaloids , that cause liver damage and even death to grazing animals such as horses and cattle. My neighbour remembers back in the day the government advising the public to destroy any ragwort plants they encountered. Even now, DEFRA publishes a Code of Practice on How to Prevent the Spread of Ragwort . However, many environmental conservation groups, such as Buglife , rail against this advice. This is because ragwort is such ...