The Story of Treadit Gardening

Through working as a handyman in Wales working in agriculture, small holdings and household gardens Owen experienced the different ways of growing plantlife. In the U.K. things grow well and we have an abundance of biomass however the order of that growth is not often to our liking. Weeds grow where they shouldn’t, Hedgerows need constant maintenance, nettles and brambles take over lawns and our gardens require workforce! After back breaking work i was introduced by a friend to ‘back to eden’ gardening….

This method seemed impossible to me for reasons that were all answered during it’s study. I had to put my faith into nature instead of my own labour and I could do this through the gardens setup. The requirement was to copy nature! The ‘back to eden method’ is incredibly effective in growth and the foundation to my current gardening method. I found i could enjoy this method of growing food and have a ‘survival’ focus as a by-product instead of a main reason to growing food.

This changes an ideology of growing plant-life from replacing natural growth to using natural growth! From Cultivation to Permaculture.

The next step was to develope this method using the foundation of ‘back to eden gardening’ into a more specific method for a long term garden in the UK.

I did this by:

1. Separating weed and pest life from the garden area via raised beds and paths to help protect the garden.
2. Adding compost and microbe enriched forest debris into the layers of the garden to achieve faster accumulation and a larger microbial network.
3. Sourcing materials more specifically making sure that soil does not contain weed seed or chemicals (as with the wood frame) and that it is a loamy, quality soil.
4. Creating a space for ‘Human Habitation’ which meant adding designs and features like seats and sheltered areas to make the garden an expansion of a home that would comfortably introduce people into nature.

I call this method the ‘treadit gardening’ method as to Tread-on-it means to interact with the garden specifically with this method due to the woodchip layer you can tread on the garden with minimal damage to soil.

The Treadit gardening business in (2020) is making trial gardens as the gardening method is new however simular ‘back to eden’ gardens have been tried and tested since 2018. We are growing a team of people including an architect who will be designing the ‘Human Habitat’ style gardenscapes. The plan is to launch the business U.K. wide in 2021 with all the example gardens in place. However i wanted people to be able to use this complete method themselves especially as weedkillers are rightfully being outlawed and gardening is becoming harder and more discouraging under the cultivation methods. So i have made this website for you to see the reasoning, logic, methods and examples for you to make your own garden using this method. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Why a Treadit Garden? click here