Rewilding in Castlethorpe - by Annie Handyside

Rewilding is restoration by letting go, allowing nature to take the driving seat’, Rewilding Britain. Avril Francome’s garden in Hanslope Road is a living demonstration of this quote.

Avril and husband Chris moved from London in 1993, originally caring for chickens, ducks, goats, sheep and ponies on their two acre paddock. Gradually, Avril came to favour a more natural approach, focusing on wildlife over livestock. She researched rewilding, attended composting courses, and the paddock became ‘the Nature Reserve’: a haven for birds, frogs, newts, and insects.

Round the house grow apple, plum and walnut trees. Beside patio doors, herbs, comfrey and blueberries grow in two raised semi-circular beds. A small pond lies in front, thick with water iris and bounded by stones. There are roses by a table, and a fence hidden by thick ivy, which Avril explains is a great plant for wildlife, providing food and shelter to insects and birds: ‘it’s the only real food supply for pollinators in the winter’.

Stepping stones take you to a fence and a wide gate, and now you are in the Nature Reserve proper, where Chris has mown a path (the only section that gets cut) through the grass and wild plants.

To the left is a greenhouse and composting area. A great believer in the benefits of composting, Avril uses three large wooden bins, a compost tumbler and a heat bin to create rich material to feed her garden. There are containers where nettles, comfrey and borage are left to soak in water, producing liquid rich in nutrients and nitrogen.

On the right, inside a walk-in fruit cage there are two raised beds where broccoli, land cress, perpetual spinach and raspberries are grown. Outside Avril grows runner beans, French beans and potatoes. Her aim is to disturb the structure of the soil as little as possible, ‘If I want to put a plant in, I just clear a space… I cover weeds with cardboard to kill them and only pull them up if they’re really invasive’. Bare earth is an anathema to her. Plants are watered in dry spells from the ten water butts dotted about the plot. As for the gardener’s great enemies, slugs and snails, Avril waits for dark then picking them off, putting them out on the grass verges for birds to feast on. ‘In late spring I collect about 100 per night, by the end of November I’m down to about 20.’

Beyond a large wildlife pond stands a polytunnel with a watering system. Here Avril grows tomatoes, not digging them out at the end of the season but leaving them (as with all she grows) to rot and provide food for micro-organisms and insects: ‘what seems to be dead to us is alive to wildlife’.

The rest of the garden is completely given over to nature. One corner is dedicated to a mad scramble of brambles: ‘ideal for insects, while birds really enjoy the berries’. Nettles are given free rein: ‘butterflies love them, they make great liquid fertiliser and also can be used in cooking’. There are many trees (Avril and Chris originally planted a boundary) and all over the garden fallen branches are left for wildlife, with extra benefits for the garden: ‘one huge pile took about twenty years to rot down and then we found that the soil underneath was very rich indeed’.

Avril accepts her way is counter-intuitive for many gardeners but urges us to resist the urge to tidy up at the end of the summer. She points out that once flowering is over plants offer rich pickings in seeds both for the birds and also the crafty gardener: collecting seeds to sow the following season is a bonus and free.

Avril is waiting to go on a permaculture course and is committed and passionate about rewilding. She and Chris welcome visitors by prior arrangement to look round the Nature Reserve and learn how to make gardens more nature friendly.

Avril’s Tip: No matter how small your garden, keep a wild corner that is not mown or weeded. It’s about what you don’t do rather than what you do do. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, 60% of insects were lost in the last 20 years and we’re in the bottom 10% of nature-friendly countries globally.