Sensory Garden

Last Friday I visited the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust for a meeting about my Nuffield Scholarship. I was captivated by the pioneering work of the trust. I was also fascinated by their sensory garden and how much it could engage people. I have included some photographs so you can see what it was like. The benches all had different animal footprints.

June photos

Here is a picture post from the farm - everything is growing and spring has moved into summer.

The wheat is growing!


Special sunset - the sun caught the clouds beautifully

The trees have all filled out now and are majestic.

Open Farm Sunday

We had a great morning with a farm walk for the parish. We had about twenty-five people who came and walked around some of the fields on the farm looking at the wheat, potatoes and the oil seed rape. Thank you to everyone who helped with the refreshments and the cakes and the ploughman's lunch.


What did we talk about - many of the common themes, food security, farm subsidies, biofuel vs food, environmental management, food production, water footprint - a really excellent morning.

Vegetables/salad growing

The salad and vegetables in the raised beds are growing fast. We have been busy eating spinach, leafy salad, spring onions, radishes for a few weeks. My carrots haven't appeared yet but the new batch of spring onions are gaining momentum. This week I have planted the brussels sprouts and runner beans. Check the photos

Belated birthday celebration

This blog had reached its first year of activity on the 12th April. Where has a year gone? I have enjoyed writing a journal about the seasons on the farm. There is much more to write about in the summer than the winter and the scenery and habitats will change almost daily now. Another year is upon us and I will try to highlight all the areas that are different this year.

Spring has finally arrived

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The trees and hedges have thickened out in the last ten days and Spring has finally arrived. It is still quite cold if you are in the wind, but nature seems to be revolving. The lilac has bloomed and started to lose its colour and the apple blossom has gone too. The walnut tree seems to be the last tree to gain its leaves. Tonight when I was in the garden I heard the cuckoo.

Will food shortages change consumer views on GM?

I have been to several conferences and meetings this week where there has been a discussion on genetically modified foods. With the current food shortages and rising food prices there has been a focus on whether we in Europe in order to improve yields and efficiency should grow GM crops.

Whenever I try to have a balanced discussion on GM foods, I find it almost impossible and because I am a food scientist people often ask me questions such as:

What is GM food?

How do we know if we have eaten it, or meat from an animal that has eaten it?

Should food be labelled so that we can make a choice if we want to eat it?

Who benefits most from the GM revolution?

What information should we trust? Who should we trust?

The GM debate is as much about fear, dread and trust i.e. perception as it is about science and risk probably more so. Recent US research has concluded that in the US that only 52% of Americans realised that genetically modified foods are sold in grocery stores and only 26% believed that they have ever eaten genetically modified foods. The site WebMD has published a very interesting article on this research and generally on GM foods from a US perspective which seeks to answer some of these questions.

Marion Nestle, a leading US nutritionist and writer has a very informative blog. She writes about a range of food issues including GM.

Tolstoy once said that "True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important." I believe he is right.

First published in The Human Imprint