Tree Amble

Series 4 Episode 3 Growing Well

Wellbeing / Community / Vegetables 
We met with Paul Cambre at the Growing Well plant nursery at Tebay Services to discuss the work of Growing Well and their recent move to create more projects at Tebay and Egremont in Cumbria. This fabulous charity works with people to improve their mental health and wellbeing through programmes based in cultivation of vegetables. Paul's experience and enthusiasm runs through this thoroughly enjoyable and uplifting chat. Please listen and enjoy!

Series 4 Episode 2 Chris Jones Farming with Beavers

Beavers / Re-introduction / Farming with Nature 
We had a lovely meeting with Chris on our Oxford Real Farming podcast and decided then to have a longer follow up chat with him - and here it is. Because we are geographically about as far apart as we can be in England this chat was over TEAMS... the joys of modern comms! Chris is very much the farmer but as you'll hear in this conversation he absolutely sees the value in and of farming with nature. He has brought back those amazing eco engineers, beavers, to his Cornwall farm and clearly loves it! Please take a listen.

Dal Festival with Wakelyns Suffolk Lentils

Lentils / Dal / Protein / Legumes / Climate positive Agriculture
Welcome to a delicious edition of Tree Amble! In July we headed off to the second annual Dal festival on Wakelyns Farm in Suffolk. David and his team, with support from Hodmedods, started growing lentils in their agroforestry system in 2023 and held their first Dal celebration in 2023. We joined them to celebrate the second festival and on the way got to talk Dal with 5 chefs creating dishes fom India, Africa and Afghanistan as well and climate and diet with some of the 150 people attending. We hope this edition gets the taste buds going!  

Series 4 River Restoration with George Heritage

Rivers / River Restoration / Habitat Creation / Fish / Climate Change 
In this episode of Tree Amble, the first of Series 4, we meet George Heritage who has made a career out of understanding rivers and now works to restore them for biodiversity and water management and we go out to the riverside with a team from West Cumbria Rivers Trust and volunteers to monitor a stretch of river for its fish population. Jonny and Ruth use a method call "eclectro fishing" to count fish of all sizes in a stretch of river and then, through repeat surveys see how fish populations change over time and over the catchment. They can easily see the effect of poor habitat or pollution incidents and then work to change it with farmers and land owners. 
In other words this one is all about rivers and what we can do to help restore and revitalise them. Have a listen!

Series 3 Episode 10 Working in North Scotland at Scale

Landscape Scale Restoration / Community Projects / Upland Scotland / Rural Community 
In this Tree Amble episode we hear from a range of great people engaged on landscape scale restoration in North West Scotland - notably on the Assynt Foundation land and the Woodland Trusts Loch Arkaig woodland restoration project.
We hear about community engagement, tree planting and woodland management, specialist kit removing timber across lochs, living and working in remote communities and wild life management. 
We hope you enjoy this Tree Amble into the far north west! 

Series 3 Episode 9 Organic Dairy Dan

Organic Dairy / Milk / Manging Organic Land / Bore Place 
In this Tree Amble we meet Dan Burdett who is the farm manger on the 500-acre regeneratively managed historic estate of Bore Place, an hour south London. Dan is an experienced organic dairy man with his feet in two farms - we meet him at work at Bore Place. 
The farm's focus is on organic farming and regenerative land management whilst supporting people to live happy, fulfilling, and sustainable lives. It offer educational programmes for school children and young people, holiday stays, group retreat accommodation, marked trails to explore the estate and farm, and a programme of public events.
The recording on this podcast is a little marred by the dairy chiller in the back ground.. but, hey ho - it shows we were where we said we were! 

Series 3 Episode 8 Tree Pilgrim

Trees / Veteran Trees / Ancient Trees / journey on foot 
Martin Hügi took a four-month sabbatical to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Dubbed the ‘Tree Pilgrim’ he set out to meet thousands of incredible trees on his special journey. He wanted to spend time connecting with some of our oldest living things in the countryside - to learn more about them and the people and landscape around them and to bring about a greater level of protection for them. Martin accepts that he is obsessed by trees.
Did he get to John O'Groats... well no... he didn't but he had an amazing journey none the less...!

Series 3 Episode 7 How the Earth Thinks

Soils / Earth Worms / Fungi / Compost / Nematodes 
In today's episode we meet Kate Roberts and have a brilliant conversation about what is going on beneath our feet! Kate is delightfully obsessed by how soils work and what drives fertility at a soil and then field level. She has created her own "not for profit" to train people in the diversity of life below the soil surface and in what we can do to increase and look after it - we talk about nematodes, arthropods and earthworms as well as composts and compost teas. This conversation was a real eye opener for Tree Amble!