My father was an avid gardener and loved nature, so I grew up knowing the names of many wild flowers and birds. He used to take us out foraging for chestnuts, beech nuts and blackberries.

While travelling I acquired a love of cooking and eating fresh food.

In London it’s difficult to get fresh food without growing it yourself. I have always kept some herbs on the window. Then I started growing my own salad.

As soon as I moved somewhere with a big enough garden I started to try and grow more of my own vegetables, and I got hooked on gardening.

I wanted my children to learn how to grow their own food too. I also found that my fussy eaters will try green stuff if they get to pick it first.

I started going to the Tooting Community Garden on a Sunday morning with the children, as I felt I didn’t have enough room for everything I wanted to grow. The children had somewhere to run around too so it would entertain them for the morning.

Receiving vegetables in return for a bit of gardening every week seemed to me like an excellent deal. But I also received advice from other gardeners.

This gave me the confidence to start growing more myself, and experimenting with different crops.

I also received random vegetables from the Community Garden, as I would take whatever was offered. Some I had never seen before so I had to work out how to cook them. I started experimenting with different recipes. I thought it would be useful to start a directory of simple recipes for fresh veg.

I was raised by scientists, so I like to try lots of different methods to gardening problems to see what works. As I was trying out many different ways preventing snails attacking my peas I thought this information might be useful to other people.

And so this blog was born!