(gentle music)
- Hello, my name's Becky,
you might know me from my Instagram account, sow_much_more
and this is my garden here in Hampshire,
it's a suburban garden and I only moved here,
just under two years ago,
when we moved in this whole patch was rubble
and a few plastic raised beds mainly weeds
and last year when I first moved in,
I decided that I didn't have time to revamp the garden,
so, I cleared the weeds and used the beds as they were,
added a little bit of compost and this year in winter,
I decided that everything was coming out,
so, I completely flattened this whole area
and built all of these raised beds
from materials that I could get my hands on for free,
so, I got some concrete blocks
from various different building projects,
I got some old scaffold boards from Facebook marketplace
and put together these raised beds almost for free
and I finished in about February,
took me most of January and a little bit of February
and by March started planting and this is it in September.
I have been wanting to get my own piece of land,
to grow more food on since as long as I can remember,
my parents had a vegetable patch,
my grandparents had a vegetable patch
and I've always wanted to grow food because to me,
it's the most sustainable use of a piece of land
if I have a stewardship over a piece of land,
then I want to use it in the best way possible,
so, if I can grow my own food
and reduce my carbon footprint of what I'm eating
and increase biodiversity
and encourage wildlife into my garden,
whilst also getting delicious ingredients to cook with
and feed my children really nutritious food,
then that just seems like the perfect outcome for me.
So my garden here is about 120 square meters,
which is not big,
it's about the size of an average suburban garden
and I really like to cram everything in,
so I like to use tall things next to short things,
make sure that when something
is gonna be coming to the end of cropping,
that I've got something else to go in to replace it with
and I like to constantly have a supply of seedlings,
so, that if there's any empty spaces come up in my beds,
I've got something to put in there to fill that in,
I'm not very good at planning
because I usually like to sit down and make a plan
and then throw it out the window
and just go with whatever I feel like at the time,
it's important to me that it looks nice as well
because this is my garden at the end of the day
and when I have friends around,
they come and enjoy my garden and we sit out
and we have a cup of tea or something,
so, I still need this to be a functioning space for me,
so, I like it to look nice,
I like to cram a lot of food in there
and I think in this space I grow approximately,
85 to 90% of my family's fruit and veggies.
So, it was never really much of a choice for me,
as to whether to grow organic or not,
I studied ecology at university
and I've always had a real passion for the environment
and saving the world,
so, for me understanding a little bit about the way,
that ecosystems work and the soil works,
there was never any question as to whether,
I was gonna be organic or not
and what I tried to do on my Instagram
is to teach people about organic,
about organic gardening and mainly the reasons why,
it's important to garden organically
not only is it sustainable for the world
but it's also easier for us as gardeners,
saves us an awful lot of money
and we get really, really good results,
providing that we are looking after the soil
and that's all it really comes down to,
so, I decided to start doing something called Sunday science
because in my head it's quite fun,
to impart scientific wisdom on people,
when they might be hungover.
So, basically it was a way of me,
being able to cover a subject as succinctly as possible
and give people some information
and teach them a little bit about plants
and not how to grow them
but actually how they work themselves,
it's really important that I have a good soil structure
and a soil with lots of nutrients,
that are available to the plants
and it's the microbiology in the soil,
that feeds these nutrients to the plants
and I'm talking about fungi and about soil bacteria
and all the other things that live inside soil,
like earthworms as well,
these are the things that if we look after them,
by feeding them compost,
they will cycle those nutrients back to our plants
and plants are pretty incredible too
because the carbohydrates that they make from photosynthesis
they send down three their roots back to the microbiology
in the soil as well to feed that,
so, what we end up with is a cycle,
where the plants are feeding the microbes,
the microbes are feeding the plants
and we end up with healthy soil and healthy plants,
all we have to do is not mess up the balance
and try and keep roots in the soil as much as possible,
so, that we've always got something pumping,
that carbon into the ground.
So, one of the things that I started to learn
and to understand when I looked more closely into ecology
and into gardening is that gardening really could solve,
a lot of the world's problems
if more people were to grow their own food,
then we could reduce the carbon impact
from large scale agriculture we could increase biodiversity,
we could improve our own mental health,
by spending more time outside,
we could have more healthy, nutritious food
and we could improve our community feel as well,
by bartering and trading foods
and enjoying living in a neighborhood
with people who also grow food
and it's a really empowering thing,
knowing that even if the entire world,
falls down around your ears,
you can still feed yourself and your family.
So, after I studied ecology at university,
one of my first jobs was working
in large scale agricultural farms and all I could think,
every day was I'm wandering through these ecological deserts
that are growing food but it's low nutrient food,
the soil is really poor
and a lot of it's going to feed animals rather than humans
and it's got me to thinking about,
how we could change things,
so, that we can have more nutritious food,
we can feed more people
and we can reduce our impact on the environment
and one thing that I really would like people to know
and that I'm really keen to impart on people,
when I talk to them or run to them
is the importance of growing organically
and how even just growing a small amount of food,
makes a huge difference to your impact on the environment
and if you can buy local,
as well as growing a bit of your own food,
then you're gonna make a huge difference,
to how you are impacting the planet.