Mulching and slow water

Resilience #1 November 2024 Welcome to my first monthly newsletter. In this inaugural edition I delve into mulching and how it helps our gardens slow the flow of water amongst other things.

I can’t believe it’s a year since I starting writing my weekly post on Substack and in that time I have met some amazing people and gained new friends. As the number of paid subscribers creeps up week by week, I felt it was time to offer you more.

My new monthly newsletter is called Resilience. I know it’s a word that’s bandied around a lot, but for me as a gardener, it has particular significance.  We need our gardens and allotments to be resilient spaces that will cope with all that the climate will toss our way, and be able to bounce back. We will have to cope with failures as well as successes, and be adaptable, as it’s likely that our weather will be variable, and a few extreme events may come our way.

I’m going to be delving a bit deeper into a topic, putting on my botanist’s hat to explore the science, to learn more about my favourite groups of plants and may be feature a garden that I have visited. So please let me know if there is a topic you would like me to delve into.

If you are a paid subscriber, as well as having access to the whole archive, you will receive this monthly newsletter and in the new year, access to recorded talks. I do hope this might be enough to tempt some of you to upgrade - it’s less that a pack of organic seeds a month!

Spanish floods

First, I am starting with the horrific Spanish floods that have taken so many lives and destroyed entire communities. An unbelievable amount of water fell - a year’s worth in 8 hours in some places, causing floods that hit with little warning.