Last autumn, I visited Sissinghurst Castle Garden. November is not traditionally the best time for a pilgrimage to a world-famous garden, but the weather had been mild, so it had held on to the remnants of its summer glories. In the veg gardens, still busy with fennel and chard, I read a little chalkboard scribbled with a note about “companion planting”. The gardeners had planted French marigold near the carrots to deter carrot fly, and poached egg plant to attract hoverflies, the larvae of which have an appetite for aphids. I realised that in my own garden, established but new to me, I had made a mistake. Overexcited by the prospect of growing veg to eat, I neglected to think much about flowers.
“Flowers are really important because they’re a key part of a plant’s life cycle,” says Poppy Okotcha, an ecological grower, forager and home cook, who has a devoted following on Instagram and is cultivating her own edible and medicinal forest garden in Devon. “Understanding those full life cycles, and how they play in with other creatures, whether insects or animals, including ourselves, is really important.”
