FUTURE-PROOFING AT FERRIS FARM

Gardening Scotland launched its Gardener of the Year award in 2017, and the first winner was a woman whose nominations made much of the word ‘inspirational’. Catriona Ferris created her kitchen garden as a counterbalance to the demands of her job as a hospital consultant. Three years ago, she took early retirement after being diagnosed with MS, and since then, her garden has become the day job. “Both my grandfathers were keen gardeners,” she says. “I remember as a child, visiting their lovely gardens, picking the fruit and veg. And my mum gardens – so it seems to be in the blood.”

The garden that she refers to, laughingly, as ‘Ferris Farm’ is a third of an acre, on the outskirts of an East Ayrshire village 25 miles south of Glasgow, where she moved 13 years ago. “I inherited an anarchic cottage garden, which had not been loved for a very long time. The veg patch was completely overgrown. I remember clearing