Over the last five years we’ve gradually been converting a conventional suburban garden into a working garden that provides a diversity of herbs, vegetables, berries, flowers and wildlife habitat. We dug up the lawn and ripped out the drive to make space for raised beds. And the privet hedge was replaced by a traditional hedgerow.
Taking inspiration from both forest gardening and traditional cottage gardens we planted 13 apple trees, 3 plums,  4 damsons,  a quince, a medlar, a morello cherry and 2 crab apples. Last year we converted our small greenhouse into a chicken enclosure for our four hens. We’re now experimenting with various heritage cabbages and are excited about training the apple trees in the front garden as cordons and step overs.
