What is a city girl doing trying to grow her own food?
14/11/2019
This was the question I mulled over, as I scattered some seeds and pulled what I suspected were weeds from some freshly turned earth. I had moved from London to a small village in Bedfordshire and the overgrown garden was encroaching onto the patio with an unrelenting green insistence. A bit of hacking, a lot of digging, a touch of swearing and a small plot was finally cleared for growing vegetables. That first season was instructive. Some crops thrived, many did not. I cheerily ate what I could harvest. The slugs and snails, however, most certainly ate better than I. Is this how gastropods earned their name?
Being soft hearted, I do no more than pick them up and launch them into the fields over the fence, but secretly I’ve been wishing for a little help from a natural predator—the deceptively cute hedgehog. The day before my masters in Future Food Sustainability at Cranfield started, I found a small and hungry juvenile shuffling through my lilies. Not yet large enough to make it through hibernation I’ve taken to feeding him some cat food each evening. I’m hoping we both make it through to spring. He can help care for my crops in a sustainable fashion, while I try to focus on the larger picture.
Categories & Tags:
Leave a comment on this post:
You might also like…
Sustainability by royal request: Managing an event fit for a King
The Coronation of King Charles III on May 6th 2023, was watched by millions of people around the world with tens of thousands of people travelling to Central London to witness the pageantry firsthand. ...
Getting started on your Master’s thesis
Please note: This post is intended to provide advice to all students undertaking a thesis in the Schools of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing; Water, Energy and Environment, and Defence and Security. There is separate advice ...
Finding your tribe: “Joining the sustainability community was the best decision”
For students on Cranfield’s Sustainability Business Specialist Apprenticeship, community and camaraderie is a vital component for success. Designed in consultation with industry, the part-time Level 7 apprenticeship aims to deepen participants’ knowledge of the ...
“My sustainability studies gave me the confidence to take on Amazon”
Not everyone would have the confidence to challenge a big global power like Amazon but, for Colin Featherstone, Senior Technology Manager and Tech Sustainability Lead at Morrisons, his Cranfield studies equipped him with the ...
My Apprenticeship Journey – Broadening Horizons
Laura, Senior Systems Engineer at a leading aircraft manufacturing company, joined Cranfield on the Systems Engineering Master’s Apprenticeship after initially considering taking a year off from her role to complete an MSc. Apprenticeship over MSc? ...
The Library app is back!
The Library app is back! It's exactly the same as before (although it will get a fresh look in a few months) and if you hadn't removed it from an existing device it should just ...