Own Grown Gardening

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend this year's NHS Forest Conference . It was held online and at its peak had over 250 NHS staff participating from across the country. Quite impressive. I found Karen James'  presentation on the secret garden at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, United Kingdom, the most inspiring. She discovered the garden by mistake out a window, forgotten, abandoned, and overgrown. Then, without a budget, Karen and countless colleagues, volunteers, and benefactors worked to resurrect it from beneath the bramble thicket. Now, this no-longer-secret garden is used by hospital staff and patients alike as a sanctuary away from the stresses of the wards, a place of healing as every hospital should be. I hope you enjoy this inspiring story as much as I do. I'll now let it speak for itself.

I guess I better start with my gardening and food growing philosophy. I consider my outlook dynamic and evolving so I'm sure to return to this subject in the future. Everyone should have the right to grow at least some of their own food. Food is, of course, the literal sustenance of life keeping us healthy and happy. Equally, everyone has a social responsibility to grow at least some of their own food. Each of us, after all, are fundamentally responsible for our own wellbeing when it truely comes down to it. Since food sustains our health, we should logically each be responsible for food production. What are the consequences of this way of thinking? Well, if we as a society made a concerted effort to embrace this philosophy, we would grow far more food within cities because the world's population is already predominantly urban. Today, well over 50% of the world's population lives in urban areas, and the United Nations expects this proportion to rise further, to 68% by as s...