At Red Oaks, a domestic property, we are utilising the natural resources around to obtain a variety of produce, consciously enriching the soil and producing as little waste as possible in a cyclical system that aims to enhance the area’s biodiversity and thus its health and resilience. The garden is 993 square metres in size and lies 12 metres above sea level 700 metres south east of Loch Creran, a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland between Oban and Fort William. The mountain, Beinn Bhreac, dominates the horizon to the east at 708 metres above sea level.
As well as the sizeable Red Oak tree that gives the property its name (there was only one when we moved here over 20 years' ago), the garden features a mixture of fruit trees and shrubs, perennial and annual vegetables, a polytunnel with a rainwater feed system from the house gutters, a herb border, a comfrey patch and composter, a wildlife/pond area, wood chopping/wood storage sheds and a number of compost and leaf mould heaps. Annual growing experiments are conducted every Spring/Summer under the Garden Organic members' experiments programme.