In Your Garden: Jess Gough

“We moved to the smallholding at the end of 2022. We wanted to create a garden that would feed us, but also something that would be beautiful and attract lots of wildlife.

Creating the garden has been a wonderful journey. Physically it has been hard work but I have really enjoyed it and learned so much. Building the garden from scratch has been very satisfying, particularly watching all the trees and hedging that we have planted grow.

I have always liked the idea of self-sufficiency, and I love being outdoors. I got into gardening in my early 20s, growing flowers, tomatoes and strawberries. I quickly became hooked, particularly on the veg growing. My partner and I have always enjoyed doing DIY projects. For us, gardening and DIY are our creative outlets.

One of my favourite parts of the garden is the pergola we built because it’s a place where we can come together with friends and family and enjoy the garden we have created and the food we have grown. I love being able to put food on the table that has come from our land, whether it’s eggs from our hens and ducks, honey from our bees, vegetables from the kitchen garden, apples from the orchard or beer made from our own barley and hops.

One challenge is that we both work full time so we’re not always able to get things done on the smallholding as quickly as we’d like but I can’t complain!”

—

Follow along with our #GMInYourGarden series on Instagram @gardenmuseum