COLUMNISTs: KATRINA & CLAYTON
The garden was a complete blank canvas, and while that felt daunting at first, it was also incredibly exciting. We decided early on that we didn’t just want a garden to look at, we wanted a garden that could feed our family, support wildlife, and give us a way of living more closely in tune with nature.
To give ourselves a head start, Peter enrolled in a Permaculture Design Course with Oregon State University. It was one of the best decisions we made. Permaculture felt like the right fit for us because it’s all about working with nature, not against it. The course gave us confidence to design our space, think about long-term productivity, and care for the soil in ways that would create abundance with less work as the years went on.
I then took the Permaculture Design Course (Professional) in 2024 to give us further knowledge, alongside learning about how to plan other people’s areas, not just our own.
Our first big project was the food forest. Inspired by natural woodland, it’s a layered garden that provides food year after year. We began by planting apple, pear, plum and cherry trees, knowing they would take time to establish. Beneath them we tucked in berry bushes, rhubarb, and wild strawberries, while herbs like rosemary and chives spread naturally around the tree bases.
Nitrogen fixing plants like clover and lupins help enrich the soil, and flowers such as calendula and borage keep the pollinators happy. I love how everything works together in harmony, just as it would in nature. With each season, this space fills out a little more and rewards us with harvests and beauty.
The garden though, has given us much more than food. It has been transformative for our eldest son, Clayton. Diagnosed with Autism and Sensory Processing Disorder at three, and still pre-verbal at eighteen, he has found peace and confidence in the garden.
Clayton thrives on patterns and rhythms, and gardening is full of them: the cycle of sowing, watering, growing, and harvesting. He knows exactly what needs to be done and when, whether it’s time to water, to sow seeds, or to bring in the harvest. That sense of structure gives him security and purpose and our space is not just a place to grow food but one of education.
For Clayton, gardening is also sensory in the best possible way. He loves the feel of soil between his hands, the colours of flowers, the scent of herbs. These experiences calm rather than overwhelm him. Planting seeds is one of his favourite tasks, he enjoys seeing a clear beginning, middle, and end, which suits his way of thinking.
Some of his proudest achievements include filling our kitchen courtyard with salad crops, building raised beds with me, and growing a lavender hedge from seed. He especially loves picking bunches of sweet peas for his bedroom, a simple joy that means the world to him.
As a vegan family, food growing is central to our lives. Our raised beds produce staples like sweetcorn, potatoes, beetroot, and squashes, while herbs and salad leaves grow close to the kitchen for daily use. The food forest brings us perennial crops, fruits, berries, and rhubarb which need a little work but give so much in return. The mix of zones across our garden makes it manageable rather than overwhelming.
Permaculture has taught us that a garden doesn’t need to be high maintenance to be productive. By designing thoughtfully and planting for the long-term, much of our space looks after itself. Weeds are suppressed by mulch and dense planting, pests are controlled naturally through companion plants, and the soil is protected with cover crops in winter. It’s a system that benefits us, the wildlife, and the land itself.
For me, gardening has become about far more than produce. It’s about connection, with nature, with my family, and especially with Clayton. Together we’ve built not only a garden, but also memories, confidence, and joy.
The joy has even grown into something beyond the garden. Clayton and I now write children’s storybooks together, inspired by our experiences outdoors and the role autism plays in our journey. We’ve published four so far, covering themes like growing, sowing, harvesting, and composting, along with a gardening record book for children to chart their own seasons. Just as our garden has flourished from a blank canvas so too have these stories, little seeds of hope and connection we can share with others.
Look out for Part 2 in the December Issue for more details on each of the areas we have developed.
Katrina and Clayton live with their family in East Ayrshire and share their daily life in the garden on Instagram, practicing permaculture principles in the garden, reducing and repurposing waste whenever they can.
Clayton is 18, autistic, non-verbal, and has been home-educated for the last 7 years. Home-educating in nature has helped Clayton thrive: he has completed the 'Grow and Learn' course with the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society and is working on Level 2 'Nurture'.
You can hear directly from Katrina on home educating in nature and on permaculture principles on the Scotland Grows Show.
Katrina and Clayton featured on BBC 'Beechgrove' (Ep23 2022, and Ep17 2023), and are authors of the children’s series 'Clayton's Gardening Adventures: Stories of Autism and Gardening' available on Amazon.
Keep up with Katrina and Clayton on Instagram, Facebook, and on their website.