I've been enjoying my first couple of months getting my teeth into the forest gardens research trials and have been busy getting initial data from all the participants, through telephone interviews or visits to those nearer to Leeds. It has been really interesting hearing about the diversity of forest gardens taking part and how they are getting along in this third year of the trial.

This year we're focusing on the participants' aspirations and their priorities for capturing the wide range of productive, wider ecological, social and economic 'yields' and benefits we hope forest gardens will offer. I'll visiting all ten projects in the summer to trial some soil tests and wildlife surveys (developed with Tom Hughes) and speak to various users of each site, exploring all these potential types of yields in greater depth and how we might accurately capture them. The data collected will help shape the future methodology and direction of the ten-year trial.

I'm currently working on developing the various parts of the methodology further, ready for my summer tour - I can't wait!