Multi-purpose fruit…….

Posted on September 12, 2011 by wildlifegardening

Growing fruit in the garden here is done primarily to provide food for ourselves, but there is the added bonus of feeding our local wildlife. At the moment we have apples, plums, damsons and pears to pick (and store in some way) but those that are not good enough to keep or have already started to break down are being visited by butterflies – red admirals and speckled woods, birds – blackbirds and chaffinches especially, and small mammals especially bank voles. As the weather gets colder this free source of natural food will be much in demand as will the berries on hawthorn, dogwood and holly. This means in years when I am overwhelmed by our fruit crop (as I am this autumn) and feel less guilty about leaving some fruit untouched.

About wildlifegardening

Jenny Steel was a Plant Ecologist at Oxford University before becoming a writer. She has more than 20 years experience of writing about and teaching ecology, natural history and wildlife gardening. She is also a photographer, journalist and former plant nursery owner, and a lecturer and tutor in adult education. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television programmes including Gardener’s World with Alan Titchmarsh, and she presented a series of items on the BBC 2 gardening show, How Does Your Garden Grow. She has worked with and written for a variety of organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society, Natural England, Atropos, Ernest Charles, the Adult Residential Colleges Association (ARCA), Haiths, Usborne Books, Complete Gardens, Oxfordshire County Council, the charity Growing Native and several of the Wildlife Trusts. She is also the Garden Bird Guru for the wild bird food company JustAddBirds of which she was a co-founder. The Emmy Award winning film company Panache Productions are currently making a film about her wildlife garden in South Shropshire. She has written 10 books on wildlife gardening. Her website can be found at www.wildlife-gardening.co.uk and her bird food company at www.JustAddBirds.co.uk

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