******Congratulations to Ceri who won the giveaway. The competition is now closed. Thank you to all who entered*****
To celebrate two years since we moved to the Half Acre Homestead here in Ceredigion, Wales and the start of my gardening courses here next weekend, I am running a giveaway – win one of our course vouchers (rrp £95)!
Two years in beautiful Wales
Those two years have flown by. When I moved here in March 2021 the garden was mostly weedy lawn with some established fruit trees and flower borders. Starting my first no dig bed on March 31st 2021, there are now productive veg beds which provide much of our plant based needs. The garden was featured on BBC Gardeners’ World in December 2022, with “a masterclass on how to grow a wide range of vegetables through all the winter months” Monty Don.
After the feature on Gardeners’ World Monty Don said about my garden and work here:
“Well that’s inspiring. I think everybody, even if we’ve grown vegetables all our lives, can learn something from that.“
My goal here is to produce 80% of our veg, fruit, herbs and edible flowers.
I am so excited to be hosting a series of courses here. The first two dates have sold out, and we are already receiving bookings from the United States – it’s an international gardening school! The homestead is situated in one of the most beautiful parts of Wales, with mountains, waterfalls, beaches and ancient history close by.
About the courses
Learn how to grow your own food, whatever size your plot and the skills you need to harvest healthy delicious homegrown food year round, using sustainable, planet friendly, no dig gardening.
Growing some of your own food is a wonderful cost efficient way to add delicious nutrient-rich ingredients to your diet, learn new skills and have fun. In this day course I share share decades of expert knowledge in my incredibly productive no dig garden, started on March 31st 2021. Find out how you can grow your own year round, affordably and in harmony with nature, whatever size space you have.
The course is located at my half acre homestead – which was created entirely by me (with occasional help from my children!), using no dig methods and on a limited budget.
Find out more about the organic gardening courses here.
How to enter
A chance to win a no dig gardening course voucher, and learn how to grow your own food year round, using wildlife, climate and budget friendly methods, with organic no dig gardening expert Stephanie Hafferty
To enter:
1. like this blog post
2. follow the blog if you don’t already (see “subscribe” in the panel at the bottom of the page)
3. comment below, answering this question: What is your favourite plant for wildlife?
The winner will be drawn at random at 6pm on Sunday March 26th (British Summer Time – the clocks go forward that weekend). The winner will be notified on the blog here first, and then by Stephanie. We will not contact the winner until after their name has been posted on this website. Please take care and watch out for scammers.
Please note: all comments to the website are moderated to avoid spam. It may take a while for your comment to appear here.
More chances to win an organic gardening course voucher
I am also running a giveaway for a no dig gardening course voucher on my Instagram account. Find out more here. You may enter both giveaways.
Terms and Conditions
Please see full T&C for the voucher giveaway here. There are also T&C for the vouchers and the courses.
Only one comment per person. Multiple comments will be disqualified.
The voucher is for one of the courses here at my homestead which retail at £95. There is no cash alternative and the voucher can not be refunded for cash.
The prize is for the course voucher only and does not include travel, accommodation or meals. It is valid for 12 months from issue.
This giveaway is only from my website NoDigHome and is not linked with any other website, blog or social media accounts.
Ivy! I just planted some last winter in my hedgerow, after seeing so many pollinators enjoying it elsewhere. Birds also like to nest/ roost in it and the berries are great for the birds, too.
[While that is growing I also planted some native honeysuckle, to let the wildlife know this was place to check in on!]
I live borage, an absolute magnet for all the busy buzzy things in the garden and it’s makes me smile every time I see it’s stunning blue flowers (can I include myself in the wildlife category?) 😏🙃
What a wonderful prize!!! Our family have a love of the prolific, explosive salvia x jamensis ‘Hot Lips’. It’s very attractive and its tiny flowers are beautiful red and white fairy-sized cups of nectar, which are scattered across the bushy plant like a galaxy of gaudy stars. The flowers are beloved of much wildlife, which include the usual pollinators (the bees and wasps and butterflies flock for months) and my feral children who, as they do with honeysuckle, pluck off the flowers and suck at the sweet nectar. It might be the Essex girl in me but hot lips is a gorgeous and hardy species.
Borage. Bees and other pollinators love it and I use it in salads and iced drinks
Verbena! I love the long wispy stems and the butterflies and bees are never far away from it!
That’s a wonderful prize to win! I love ivy, which feeds and houses a lot of bugs and birds and it’s easy to just let it do its thing. It can take over quickly, but grown in the right place is and amazing plant.
That’s a fabulous prize! I think that native plants, or plants that grow naturally in an area where one lives, are the best for attracting wildlife to a garden. Believe it or not, I favour Dandelion! Although most would consider it a weed it’s very important to birds, moths, butterflies, beetles and bees. It’s often the first flower in Spring and the last in Autumn and is essential to bees as they emerge from hibernation. It’s also very tasty on the tea table and all of the plant is edible. So wildlife and people can all share and enjoy the lovely Dandelion!
Hawthorn, bees love it, birds nest in it and eat the berries In addition fairies make their home in it
Sunflowers! I love sowing the seeds with the children in spring and the flowers are beautiful, especially the reads and chocolates. I plant some outside my office window and in winter I watch the birds pick at the seeds from the comfort of my desk.
Comfrey, the bees love it andvits great as a fertiliser too.
Borage is my favourite! It can seed itself about. but the honey bees go wild for it, and the flowers (if you can see them for the bees!) are gorgeous little blue flowers, perfect for a Pimms. Cheers!
My favourite plant for wildlife is most definitely the stinging nettle / Urtica diocia – it is misunderstood by most, but such a wonderful plant. Good to make fertiliser yourself, providing a much needed food source for the Red admiral, tortoise shell and peacock butterfly and many other beneficial insects. They’re full of caterpillars every year who use this plant as a main or sole food source.
On top of that it can be used as a nutritious edible (leaves and seeds), so really deserves more recognition and should be grown in every garden 😊
Hawthorn. Feeds so many different creatures
Catmint is very popular in my garden with the bees, butterflies and moths. Such a beautiful plant too.
I love nettles. Abundant, nutritious and useful. 🙂
Corn flowers. So many type of bees use it, and birds like finches love the seeds!
What a lovely prize! I love my lavendar plants and spend hours watching the bees on the flowers. The scent adds to the soothing effect as well 🥰
Nasturtium, I love seeing all of the bees visiting them and then the abundance of caterpillars and butterflies we get too.
I plant them as a sacrificial plant but the cabbage whites have to compete with my child for the flowers, she adores them in a salad or just straight from the plant.
I’ve planted quite a few different plants for the wildlife at my allotment. The bees and butterflies absolutely love my verbana and oregano and when they are in flower they are covered with lots of varieties of flying insects.
A tough one! I was going to say fennel, but hawthorn has to be the one. It doesn’t just provide food for a vast range of birds and insects and small mammals, but also shelter and nest sites. You can also eat the bright green young leaves!
What a fabulous prize. My favourite plant for wildlife has to be chives. In lockdown I discovered a new hobby of spending many happy hours watching the bees enjoying the flowers whilst I drank tea and tried to identify the different varieties that constantly visited. The bees were also happy to share some of the chives for me to use in my salads – Win,win!
Hi Stephanie
My favourite is the nettle!!!
So essential for the cinnabar moth
Best of luck with the new venture
Rachel
Hi Steph I love Borage as it is so loved by the bees and it’s leaves are lovely in a g and t.
For me, it has to be the tall, vibrant and beautiful Rosebay Willowherb. It grows in abundance around the wilds of Wales where I live. Not only is it attractive to small insects but it is also loved by the Elephant hawk-moth, one of my favourite moths. The leaves can be dried into a lovely tea for us humans too.
So many to choose from, but dandelion is a good start for the bees to help them along after a long winter.
Blackberry. Has something for everyone!
Borage is the ⭐️ for me for its gorgeous flowers!
I know most people would grow it as a green manure but for me every time my choice would be *phacelia*. It’s a such a pretty flowering plant anyway but its benefits are multiple – it can apparently suppress weeds AND improve the structure of the soil as a mature plant. I once grew some and it was smothered with bees and if they could elbow their way in hoverflies and other insects. It has a long flowering period and produces high quality nectar and pollen.
I love borage, such a pretty flower and the bees love it. It seems to self seed in the most useful of places.
Love forget me nots for the pollinators early on ⭐️
Calendula, I have them growing everywhere including my Polytunnel. Magnets for the Bees, Butterflies & more 😊
I love sunflowers for wildlife, feeding the bees with their flowers, feeding the birds with their seeds and feeding our hearts with their joy x
My favourite has to be Hawthorn…loved by the pollinators, nested in by the birds and nibbled by my sheep😂
I’d have to say ivy as although hated by most I love listening to the carpet of bees enjoying it
So many to choose from, but oregano/marjoram is probably the most popular in my garden.
My favourite wild plant is poppy- resilient, beautiful & amazing source of food for pollinators
Crab apple tree … I love the blossom, crab apple jelly one of my favourites and the insects, birds and mammals all benefit too.
I love verbena Bonariensis for wildlife it self seeds freely and attracts a range of insects to our garden including the hummingbird bee moth
So many plants to choose from. I think that I have to opt for poached egg plant, it flowers early enough to take over from the dead nettles which are the first sources of pollen on my allotment and the flowers lift my heart at the start of spring.
Borage and Echium flowers are very popular with the bees, especially the honey bees from my neighbour’s hives. Also Verbena bonariensis for the butterflies as well.
It’s difficult to choose between borage and verbena. I adore borage, as do the bees and I love the fact that it sows itself so generously and is also delicious and beautiful. My kids love to eat the flowers and pick them for salads. Verbena is gorgeous and I love to watch the butterflies and moths on it. It’s also a generous self seeder and has a delightfully long growing season and the height and colour adds interest to the beds.
Echinops! They are so structural, beautiful and colourful. They are like a bee magnet and offer interest in the border for a long period of time.
Teazles, love to see our local goldfinches balancing while the raid the seeds. Is a bit of a thug plant though!
That’s a hard question! I feel like everything living has its niche and its role… Perhaps I’d choose yellow rattle, as it suppresses the growth of grass, favouring other wildflowers to grow – so it’s a bit of a catalyst for systemic change.
A hard choice to make.. I’m going to choose lavender
Bluebell (English not Spanish) one of the first flowers of the year for the insects. Just planted 100 of them. Every little helps
On balance I’d have to say Verbena Bonarensis the bees and butterflies love it and the the tits enjoy the seed heads. I find it’s very therapeutic just to sit and watch all the wildlife enjoying its flowers and it requires very little effort on my part.
Purple Toadflax. Lasts for months and the bees love it!
My favourite plant for wildlife is the only one I’ve planted in my garden this year – comfrey. I’m about to embark on my first big adventure into ‘no dig’ and I’ve jumped in the deep end making two 1.2 x 9 m beds! I’ve planted three comfrey cuttings and they’re already growing really well. The plan is that they will attract lots of bees to my garden and also provide me with lovely liquid fertiliser!
Primrose. A carpet of colour and hope following the long days of winter and a valuable source of forage to bees in early spring. Happy foraging 🐝🐝🐝
Borage… Love it, even though it is unruly!
The giveaway closed yesterday, I’m afraid