Sissinghurst

A beautiful day at Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent, the former home of Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson. This garden is designated Grade I on Historic England’s register of historic parks and gardens.

Particularly impressed with the vegetable garden and that most of the veg, fruit and herbs they grow are used by chefs in the kitchen to produce fresh local meals for visitors, any surplus is sold in their plant shop. They have a no dig approach in the veg garden – the beneficial reasons for this include:

• A reduction in the germination of weed seeds due to them not being brought to the surface and therefore exposed to the light.
• An increase in worms and other soil fauna, which in turn aerate the soil.
• The preservation of beneficial fungi and bacteria, such as mycorrhizae, which form a symbiotic relationship with plants and enable them to extract nutrients and water, even in unfavourable soil conditions.
• Less effort of digging the composts/manures into the soil – much appreciated on the heavy Wealden clay