Highland Seedlings

An education-led micro-smallholding in the Scottish Highlands.

People

I’m Mairi, an academic, veg grower and community builder. I live slowly and quietly at Highland Seedlings together with my partner, Seamus, and our many pets. I’m a writer, teacher and imagineer.

Fearn Free Food Garden

We run a small community garden in Hill of Fearn, in the Scottish Highlands, where we grow free food for our local community with a group of volunteers.

Community

Our slow-living community is hosted on Patreon, where we teach courses in all sorts of slow living skills, and write about living quietly.

Follow us on Instagram (@highlandseedlings)

I didn’t expect Kitty to throw themselves at the garden with gleeful abandon - but they have, and we love it. They’ve discovered the overwintered Brussels sprouts and kale and are munching their way through what is left in the outdoor beds. To be fair, so do we - my favourite way to eat anything is ‘in the garden, straight from the plant’. I think I might need to revise my kale sowing in the light of this - I was going to be restrained this year and only sow 20, but I’m sure I can cram in a few more somewhere. There’ll be a second sowing in July, too.

I whipped up a small batch of super hot kraut last night, with a cabbage from the @fearnfreefoodgarden Share Stall. It’ll be ready to eat in a week or so, but far too hot more me - a special treat for Seamus.

I’ve been afraid of using our axe forever, but yesterday I channeled my inner @allthatisbraw and split some logs for kindling. And you know what? I enjoyed it! I’m often like this about practical maintenance tasks (as opposed to creative things) - I worry about them for ages and then they turn out not to be that hard (and, sometimes, they’re fun!).

How's that for #mendingmarch ? A whole pile of freshly mended socks! They've been sitting in my mending basket for many, many weeks. They all wore through in the same way - on the heel - so the patches are all in the same place. Some socks, like the second and third from the top, have been mended several times already, but they keep going. I try to use different colours for each mend so that the mends build up into a visual record of the work that's gone into preserving them, one patch at a time.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a new #skillsfromthehills tutorial. If you’re new here, these are occasional courses that I share with my patreon supporters, in all kinds of things that I’ve learnt to do. I’ve been so chuffed with my pants adventure that I thought you might like to learn, too, so I’ve put together a video tutorial that takes you through drafting a pattern and sewing up your pieces. I hope you enjoy.

I have somehow become the kind of person for whom making a pair of pants is easier than going out to buy one. Between my body’s idiosyncrasies and needs, venturing into town for this is a lot of work - and I wouldn’t be able to buy my preferred kind because they’re not sold anywhere. Buying on the internet means chancing sizing and fit, and - much more often than not - being disappointed in how things work on my body. So I learnt to make them myself, based on a self-drafted patterns that I adjusted several times until it was, like the porridge in the story, just right. This is a skill that’s somehow eluded me for years, but now that I have it there’s no going back!

Its been raining for what feels like a week straight and the pets and I are hiding in our big shared basket. The tunnel beckons, and so does more sowing, but at the moment starting put is winning.

Our new polytunnel is being built, and I'm loving every minute of it. Or rather, I'm loving every minute of WATCHING it, because the funding to build the tunnel also paid for a lovely local person, Bryan, to build it! The tunnel is 4mx30ft (just over 9m), and 2.6m tall - absolutely massive. The poles have been concreted in and the arches attached. Bryan is hoping to have the whole thing done a week from Sunday, weather-permitting.

There is something about sunny days at this time of year, when it feels warm enough to be out in a jumper even though it’s only 8C. Or in a shawl, as the case may be. I really like to wear my shawls like this when I’m working in the garden - a bit of extra warmth but none of the bulk that a jumper brings, particularly when I’m wearing a dress.

Living quietly is an act of resistance.

We live slowly and intentionally, and we want to help others do the same – from growing their own food to resisting capitalism in small, everyday ways.