Meet the producer
Amanda Stradling has been passionate about plants for as long as she can remember. “I used to insist on picking every single daisy before my dad mowed the lawn,” she recalls. “A friend and I used to sell them at a penny a bunch. That’s where my entrepreneurial skills started!”
Her green ingers have been her livelihood since, variously as a gardener, lorist, photographer and plant buyer. In 2010, having set up home near Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, Amanda started selling plants that would appeal to food lovers.
BLOSSOMING BUSINESS
Nine years later, Amanda’s four-and-a-half acres are home to more than 150 varieties of edible plant. Chervil and dahlias spring up next to ornamental kales like an English garden in wild, exuberant bloom. Amanda brushes a hand across several leaves. “This one’s lime basil,” she says, plucking some for me to taste.