Four months ago Scott and I made the somewhat spontaneous decision to buy the legendary Red Shed Nursery, created and grown by Permaculture Pioneers Graham Bell and Nancy Woodhead. We had started creating our own forest garden at our Permaculture Demonstration site, Echo Earth Care, 6 years ago, and were looking for more trees and plants to fill some of the gaps.
In December 2021 we went to the Red Shed to pick out our plants and were having lunch with Kate, the current owner, when she mentioned that sadly the nursery was no longer a good fit with her life plans as she was focussing on teaching. We finished our lunch, picked out our trees and headed back home…..but a seed had been sown in our minds that perhaps this was an opportunity for us. We had always intended on developing a forest garden nursery and this seemed like fate (or Kate) was trying to tell us something.
After a month or so of not very much deliberation we called Kate and asked if we could buy the nursery. After even less deliberation Kate agreed and we transferred the nursery stock to Aberdour late January. Since then we have been on a very steep learning curve, learning to graft trees, propagate from cuttings and propagate some tricky perennials from seed, not to mention how to write blogs (this is our first!) and market our new business.
However, these challenges have become blessings as it turns out that the greatest yields or benefits that we receive from the nursery are the inspiring people we meet and the uplifting and enriching connections that we are making on a daily basis.
The secret of healthy soils, plants and forests is in the myriad of connections that exist in the underground soil food web, between fungi, bacteria, nematodes, anthropods, plants and a whole host of organisms. Without this network life above the soil would cease to function. It turns out that the secret to a healthy forest garden nursery is a spiritual food web of mentors, volunteers, neighbours, beekeepers, students and customers.
Graham Bell, the original founder of the nursery, who has no obligation to us at all, has been unbelievably generous, giving freely of his time to share his great wealth of knowledge and experience in forest gardening, propagating, natural soil building, Permaculture and how to run and market what was originally his nursery. Had we not taken on the nursery then it is unlikely that I would have had the opportunity to spend time with Graham and Nancy and so I am eternally grateful for this strengthened bond between us.
In deciding to grow more perennial edible plants we had the pleasure in forging links with Aberdeen based forest garden pioneer Alan Carter, author of “A Food Forest in your Garden”. Alan not only has a forest garden allotment but experiments with breeding new, higher yielding, cold hardy perennial edibles. If you’re interested in temperate forest gardening then his blog, A Food Forest in Scotland, is the one to follow.
We are also really appreciative of the connections with those very generous souls who come to volunteer and learn with us. Everyone who comes to learn from us teaches us so much more in return. Jo imparts her knowledge of lichens, butterflies and birdsong….and lights up garden with her smile when she sees something that makes her happy (usually a butterfly or cake). Jock taught us to build a shed. Brian how to use a cement mixer. Sarah shares her humour. Roberta her avocado plant, Iain his polytunnel building skills.
These new relationships have been incredibly rewarding. However, what has been the most inspirational, are the people who come to our nursery looking for plants. Sometimes it’s Scottish Heritage fruit trees that people are after, sometimes it’s cider making apples or edible hedging, perennial vegetable or any number of things. But one thing that all of our visitors have in common is their uniqueness and their quest to make the world a better place in their own way. It turns out that such a special nursery attracts very special people.
Today was a case in point. Deborah was visiting on her way home from a lime plastering course (unlike Ed last week who visited on his way home from a cob building course). Deborah is a lady who I immediately felt an instinctive connection with. Her intellect, grace and connection with the land and space around her just seemed to radiate from her inner core. As we toured around the forest garden she was telling me of her experiences learning from native American healers. At this point a bee appeared from nowhere (well, probably from one of our hives if I’m honest) and stung me in the neck.
Our local beekeeper Brian has kept bees on our site for around 5 years now and it is very rare for me to be stung (once in 5 years until today). Today this bee seemed to come looking for me just to sting. If you’ve ever had a bee sting then you’ll know how painful it can be. And this is where the magic started to happen…Deborah asked if I had cleavers (aka “sticky willow”) on site. We have loads. We set off to get some and she instructed me to eat them. I’ve known for some time that cleavers are useful for the urinary tract but I’ve never actually eaten them.
I started chomping away on my plentiful supply of young cleaver tops and lo and behold the pain disappeared. I have no swelling and no after effects at all. It turns out that cleavers have high levels of natural antihistamine. Who knew? (Well, Deborah, obviously, but who else would know this?). Why is this so important? Because Scott, my husband, indomitable force of nature and the source of all the hard work at Echo Earth Care, developed an allergy to bee-stings following a bout of Covid. Now we have an instant onsite cure. Was it coincidence that I was stung for no apparent reason when I had a lady with a cure standing next to me and a husband with a bee allergy? Perhaps, but a very happy coincidence.
And it’s not just bee-stings it can help. Deborah herself learned of the curative antihistamine effect of cleavers when, whilst experiencing an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts, a tribal elder had her eat cleavers and the inflammation reversed rapidly.
And so, as I review our progress to date I am uplifted by the progress we have made, measured not in the number of trees we have planted, or jostaberries we have sold, but in the network we are building. As the underground mycellium based soil food web is critically important but not visible to the naked eye, so is the invisible above ground human friendship web crucial. With every connection we transfer knowledge, healing and love. We build a web of resilience and interconnectivity.
I am humbled to have a garden that fosters and attracts such wisdom, curiosity and positivity and look forward with joy to my next encounter whoever visits next….what will you teach me when you visit?
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