The lovely garden of my mentor Charlotte Molesworth is featured here in the Financial Times in the last week or so… She has been interviewed lots of times but I thought this was a particularly great piece, with some photos done at unusual angles and different parts… so well worth a read. It’s only when tidy gardeners are encouraged and supported to look past current norms and gaze deeper into the tangled web of nature that they begin to see the promise, the beneficial relationships, ability to regenerate healthy soil naturally that they come to understand that it’s not lazy gardening but totally practical – many will gradually develop a preference once they have the opportunity to study permaculture practice and visit demonstration sites. Patrick appeared in several BBC TV programmes, popular gardening videos, and taught many permaculture and other practical courses, throughout the UK.

the true significance of Whitefield s ideas was not adequately acknowledged during his lifetime, but his influence will survive him. Patrick Whitefield (1949 – 2015) was an early pioneer of permaculture, adapting Bill Mollison’s teachings with a strong Southern Hemisphere bias to the cooler, maritime climate of the British Isles. But unlike some allotmenteers who seem to delight in the graft of annual double-digging and love a good leaning-on-the-gate type grumble about the poor weather and the slugs, he was all for taking the grunt out of it and focusing on the joy of letting nature do the hard work while we enjoy the bounty. Patrick was a contributor to Permaculture Magazine and wrote quarterly seasonal articles about gardening, particularly drawing upon his own gardening experience and the wealth of experienced gained from his years as a permaculture teacher and consultant. Patrick Holden from The Sustainable Food Trust wrote, "It is only towards the end of his life that the wider significance of permaculture ideas began to emerge .Like most people, Patrick did not have access to a huge amount of land to support himself from but, like many people, he did manage to grow an awful lot of fresh food. Perfect for watching and dreaming up new ideas during the winter months… As a follow-up to my Topiary Provocations video (which you can see on Youtube for free) I was asked to do a video for their Masterclass series on how to make topiary. The introduction of the book talk how friends were visiting the author and his wife at a rented home.

As for making compost – throw the material on the ground and it will turn into compost right where it sits – why do you need to give it a special place to do what it wants to do anyway? This is the first in a collection of Patrick Whitefield’s pioneering writings, celebrating his life.Next I turned to the pruning section, an area I have yet to learn and practice myself, I was not really sure why people pruned fruit trees but now I understand how pruning increases crops, reduces diseases and makes harvesting easier. This book was written for the English climate, there’s some crossover for me but the varieties he recommended are not likely to be available in the states.

If you purchase an audiobook from our site, it will only be available through our partner, Glassboxx via the Glassboxx player for iOS, Android, Windows, or Mac.Patrick describes his minimalist ways – and the sometimes mysterious sounding permaculture principles and tactics – in simple, common sense, gardening terms. He wrote a number of seminal books, Permaculture in a Nutshell (1993), How to Make a Forest Garden (1996), a new edition of Tipi Living (2000), The Living Landscape (2009), How To Read the Landscape (2014) and his magnum opus, The Earth Care Manual (2004), an authoritative resource on practical, tested, cool temperate permaculture. You should not sit down to read this book without a notepad to hand – you will probably need to keep a dedicated notebook for all the ideas and tips you will pick up and want to record and try out next season.

And I don’t think it really lives up to the title, there’s stuff about permaculture and raised beds and perennial vegetables but overall it’s the authors personal garden experience and specific way of doing things that he’s passing on. Through observing, season after season, he found the middle road, the sweet spot between productivity and ease.the true significance of Whitefield's ideas was not adequately acknowledged during his lifetime, but his influence will survive him. They look as though they would just need a good scrubbing to prepare and are apparently very tasty, sweet and a good source of carbs cooked or raw. He qualified in agriculture at Shuttleworth College, Bedfordshire and after several years working in agriculture in the Middle East and Africa, he settled in central Somerset.