Grow your own food and herbs with Lovely Greens
Organic Cottage Gardening
Lovely Greens shares creative ideas for growing herbs, vegetables, fruit, and flowers in a beautiful cottage garden. The methods shared emphasize soil health, chemical-free alternatives, and no-dig (no-till) gardening.
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Gardening Tips
How-tos and advice on creating a garden and growing edible plants, herbs, and flowers.
Garden Projects
Step-by-step projects showing how to build garden features and structures.
Skincare Plants
Growing and using skin-beneficial plants in handmade soap and skincare.
Grow an Organic Garden
Some gardeners love houseplants, while others love herbaceous borders, or are fascinated by a single type of flower. I’m the kind of gardener who likes to put the garden to use. Growing a garden is as much about creating a beautiful green space as it is about improving our lives! That means growing your own food but also nurturing mental and physical well-being.
I also like to grow plants that serve at least two purposes—to look great and be edible, or to be healing, therapeutic, or provide food for wildlife. When I speak about useful plants, as I do in my book, I mean plants that humans can use. A way to reap a reward for the effort of growing a garden.
Although I love creating a beautiful space to relax in and enjoy, I need to grow plants that I can eat and use to nurture my creativity. At the very least, they should also provide habitat and food for the beneficial wildlife in my garden.
Organic Gardening
As gardeners, I believe we should practice organic gardening and avoid pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. This prevents pollution and environmental damage, helps us grow the healthiest food possible, and keeps the animals visiting our gardens safe. Organic gardening can also be cost-effective, making it a win-win.
Grow a Skincare Garden
You can use many homegrown herbs, flowers, and vegetables to make soap and beauty products. Peppermint in zesty soap, chamomile in lotion, and even rose petals to make a skin toner. On Lovely Greens, I share ideas for growing skin-beneficial plants and using them in beauty recipes. Many of the plants I use in handmade soap and skincare recipes can also be used in food or other ways, so you can grow plants for dual purposes.
Gardening Projects
Building and creating your garden is a labor of love, but it can also be expensive. Buying containers, plants, tools, and even bigger pieces of kit, like greenhouses and sheds! That’s why I try to DIY as much as possible in the garden, especially when I can use free, reclaimed, eco-friendly materials. I do everything from making newspaper plant pots to pallet planters and propagating new plants! Browse all gardening projects.
Gardening and Garden DIY Videos
You can read about ideas here or watch videos that demonstrate how to do it! You may see videos embedded into articles, but you can find many more on the Lovely Greens YouTube channel. Please subscribe and click the bell icon on my channel to get notifications when I post new videos.
My videos often appear in articles on this website, such as how to grow an organic garden, make newspaper plant pots, or cultivate perennial vegetables for your garden. You can also browse all articles with videos.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I see more of your garden?
- I have two growing spaces, a rented space (the allotment) and my home garden. Aside from the website, the best place to see both is on my YouTube Channel. I also share many photos and tips on Instagram and Facebook; you can learn more about me here.
Where should I start if I’m a complete gardening beginner?
- Read and watch videos from trusted sources. Get inspiration from blogs like Lovely Greens, gardening books, and gardening TV. YouTube is a great place for information! I also recommend reading this article 15 Mistakes that Beginner Gardeners Make. It will help you avoid some of the pitfalls.
What gardening zone are you in?
- I live in the Isle of Man, a Crown Dependency of the United Kingdom. We’re located in the middle of the sea between England and Ireland, with a unique climate. Technically, we’re in USDA zone 9a, thanks to the Gulf Stream that flows around the British Isles. However, we share the same latitude (54.3240° N) as central Canada. That means our winters are long and dark, with longer periods of cold. To put our climate in perspective, we’re almost as far north as southern Alaska but share the same gardening zone as parts of northern Florida. The climate and growing conditions here are very similar to those of the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
📷 Image at the top is by Christelle Baxter