THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Sally Nex is a writer at The Garden magazine, the Guardian, Grow Your Own magazine as well as teaching at the online My Gardening School.
We met her via Twitter and through emails a few years ago – and she is lovely. Her writing too is always interesting, worth a read.
Sally gardens in Somerset, on an acre of land, where she says she battles the brambles and also looks after chickens and a flock of Dorset Down rare breed sheep.
And now she has a new book coming out, based on Growing Your Own for Self Sufficiency.
Published by Green Books, a publisher who provide all sorts of wonderful and weird titles in their list, we are sure this book will be a fine one, rooted in practical experience but written with an authors eye.
Worth a read, lovely Modern Minters!
Get the new book about self-sufficiency and growing your own food by Sally Nex now.
The Amelia Project – Episode 88: Didius Julianus
Friends of mine write a sitcom podcast called The Amelia Project (I wrote about this years ago, when they started it….!) December 2024 I had some fun playing the tiny part of Fornio in episode 88 – Didius Julianus. I have not listened to the episode yet, as I am clearly not an actor… and the thought of listening to my dulcet tones for the few minutes I’m in it just… makes me feel ill. But the recording and being in the studio was great fun, the real actors were hilarious and the script is brilliant – not just funny, …
Waltham Place Topiary Workshop 2026
With the European Boxwood and Topiary Society, I run two workshops each year at Waltham Place, one of my favourite gardens. The next topiary workshop there will be on Friday September 4th 2026. Details and how to book yet to be announced, but get in touch with them now to get on the waiting list, as last year we had double the amount of people wanting a place than we had space for. The Waltham Place website is here – topiary workshop 2026. See the teaching page for how else I can help you with the topiary in your garden …
Box Hill – Novella by Adam Mars-Jones
I picked this book up back in 2020 because of the title – Box Hill – fabulous, I thought, a book about boxwood. I’ll peruse this for its respective thoughts on the plant I clip most when I make topiary. I didn’t read the blurb on the back. Didn’t know the author (although I knew the publisher, Fitzcarraldo Editions, as I love many of the essays they have published… so trusted the author would be worth spending time with.) By page 2 I realised this novel wasn’t quite what I had expected. I started the book at 10pm, after getting …