POPPY OKOTCHA
I am an ecological home grower, forager and home cook, trained in horticulture and regenerative growing practices like permaculture, and forest gardening.
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I love creating, tending and learning from edible & medicinal spaces that are truly sustainable, beautiful, and useful.
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Central to my understanding of a regenerative, ecological garden are growing organically, soil health, the use of local renewable resources, increased biodiversity, water harvest, seed saving and sparking community.
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Wild and semi-wild spaces are my inspiration. The living world and those who have been listening to it for a long while have so much to teach us about how to live sustainably.
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I write and speak about these passions.
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My journey:
In 2016, searching for personal wellbeing and a way to live more gently on the Earth, I began to notice parallels between our extractive relationship with ourselves and our home, Planet Earth.
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Growing food became a way to nourish my body, reconnect with the seasons and living world while doing more than sustaining but actually rebuilding healthy soils and ecosystems. It was a way to reduce my carbon footprint and explore the possibilities of shifting to a more local, equitable food system and way of life. It was my first step on the path of detangling myself from a culture I could see was harming so many lives on Earth.
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To me, human wellbeing is totally connected to that of the Earth’s soils, ecosystems and the whole planet at large because we are nature.
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I find understanding where our food comes from offers the fastest route into grasping a truly symbiotic relationship with nature, a necessary shift in our time.
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“Food through love, love through food."
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I began my formal horticulture studies with the Royal Horticultural Society and spent time in community gardens while living on a canal boat in London, I am a qualified Permaculture Designer.
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I now share what I’ve learned (and am learning!), hoping to inspire reconnection to the natural world and to ignite a desire to shift to a more regenerative way of living, for human and planetary wellbeing.
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I am an ambassador for WWF UK and Nature Is A Human Right, have contributed to Gardener’s World (BBC Two), speak on the RHS podcast and co-hosted The Great Garden Revolution (Channel 4).
I have written for publications like Livingect, Gardens Illustrated and The Sunday Times, I have a regular column with Riverford Organic's magazine Wicked Leeks and speak at events and festivals.
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My online course with Create Academy "A Seasonal Guide to Wild Gardening" is available here.
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In July 2020 I relocated to Devon where I am designing and cultivating an edible and medicinal forest garden in a 30m x 5m space. You can follow along with the garden's journey on my Instagram.
I also grow veg as part of the Grow Share Collective.
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EARTH FOOD
“In a culture driven by overconsumption and waste, composting becomes an act of revolution”
The Earth Food Handbook is a simple guide to composting, growing life from waste.
This is an introduction into the simple “how to” of composting. Exploring traditional composting, alternative composting systems for limited space, limited time and how to use your compost (and any byproducts!).
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The guide is available as a downloadable e-book which can also be printed and folded into a pocket sized booklet (folding instructions included).
