GARDEN PHARMACY

Are you fed up with relying on expensive pharmacy remedies for all ailments? According to Linda Gray, ditch the chemist for the garden –and watch your health improve.

Grandmother Linda, who manages a popular gardening website, firmly believes that growing our own food is a huge step towards a healthy body, mind and spirit – and she should know. Thirteen years ago Linda took her three youngest children to rural France, looking for the ideal place to live.

Born and raised in London, Linda was always interested in nature and the environment. After talking her way into a banking job she says she wasn't qualified to do, she learned everything she could and then moved on to motherhood...

She explains, “Before I had a family, I worked in banking, although I was always keen to be an interior designer! It turns out I put my efforts into exterior design in the end - building dry stone walls and terracing the land, which was far more physical than an interior design career would have been!

“Along with my desire to be a stay-at-home mum to my four children, I had a desire to improve my domestic skills and to feed my family on the best food I could possibly lay my hands on.

“In London back in the recession years, that was getting more and more difficult. So as a family we decided to travel though France and England, with the idea of teaching the children different ways of life and how to survive using their instincts should the need ever arise.’’

After looking at a number of different properties and regions, they found an acre of land in Tarea, France - long since forgotten about, and very overgrown. Tarea was close enough to get back to the UK if they neeed to - although they didn't actually return for about four years.

With no running water and no electricity, life wasn’t always easy, but water was connected within a couple of weeks and although electricity didn’t arrive for another 18 months, it was appreciated when it did! The novelty of washing by hand wore off very fast…

While the children settled in at school and began speaking French with ease, Linda tackled the overgrown land. Developing the land into a workable and beautifully landscaped garden enabled Linda to provide her family with daily organic fruit and vegetables, with herbs to excite the taste buds and promote healthy living. Antibiotics never had a place in this environment.

“It needed a lot of planning and hard work to turn it into a workable and enjoyable place to be. The vegetable plot was high on the agenda and by the first full summer there - although still living in a van and caravans - we were eating organic vegetables regularly. And within a few years there wasn’t a day in the year when something could not be picked and eaten.  Keeping a few chickens also provided us with enough eggs to feed us and to give away.’’

Now back in England to be near her children and three grandchildren, Linda has published her first book., “Grow Your Own Pharmacy”

The book was Linda’s  way of making a lot of useful information available for everyone who has an interest in healthy eating, vitamins, gardening and cooking.

”I had found that whenever I wanted to know anything about the vegetables and fruits I was growing and feeding to my children, I needed to find three or four sources of information. I personally needed all that information in one place, so I wrote the book which I needed, and hope that it will help many others along the healthy eating road.’

Linda is confident that anyone can replicate her efforts to provide a healthier way of eating for her family – even on a small scale, and she says that even just a small piece of land can help you to provide a healthy diet for you and your family, and tending to it can offer a source of gym-free exercise!

Linda’s book includes advice on how to grow the fruit and vegetables necessary to provide the vitamins and minerals you and your family need, with a list of the recommended daily vitamin requirements, and charts showing which foods supply them. Recipes and menus have also been included to show to incorporate your produce into your daily diet, along with information on 13 herbs and their uses in treating common ailments.

Find out more about 'Grow your own Pharmacy'