2025 - 11
Alys Fowler has been in my head when I am in my garden for as long as I can remember. As a someone with a small backyard her 'Thrifty Gardener' with plants on her fire escape in New York, creating something out of nothing made sense of what I was grappling with. It is her gentle approach to plants that got me growing carrots in a pot and chard amongst my marigolds. The Edible Garden made me realise that I could eat the seeds and the leaves of my wayward fennel.
Now I am gripped by her new book Peatlands, where dead material blooms and locks away carbon dioxide. I am now in love with bogs, and mire and waterlogged places. As Alys says: “This is an old story, of finding faith in the seemingly miraculous life that swirls around us.”
What a discussion we had looking at how Alys finds her subjects, immerses herself and sits down and writes and how her own gardening has changed since discovering the exquisiteness of a place left alone for centuries.