Well I guess I should also answer the questions I posed, so here goes -
1.Well I inherited quite a large completely overgrown garden that had not been tended for about twenty years when we moved into this house, it was a mass of tangled bramble and nettle and overgrown shrubs. The pergola was rotten, the shed was too, the pond was a solid mass of roots no water left, and after clearing the jungle we found an old well in the garden
2. What have I learned ? I learned it was not just my garden but it was home to a lot of wildlife too, newts played deep in the well, slow worms and other amphibians abounded, lots of birds and insects too, I respect the fact it's their home and try not to disturb or harm them, I garden around the wildlife. In the first year I learned how resilient nature is, it was a hot summer the sparse topsoil of clay baked hard and I learned how worms survive drought, they excavate a small chamber and literally get knotted into a ball to conserve moisture and hibernate till rain comes. I learned that if I wanted any decent soil i had to incorporate a huge amount of compost etc I kept the wild plants, teasles, the foxgloves and the mallow poppies etc for the wildlife. I learned to tame the lovely old grapevine we inherited, and get an early and a later outside crop from it
3. What have we achieved, a fertile and productive soil that produces good crops of vegetables fruit and herbs, and has enough humus in it to retain moisture, so the poor worms don't suffer like they did and are growing in number, also an increase in pollinators and wildlife. I learned to do less and to work with nature, I don't dig now I just mulch and let the worms do the tilling, I cut plants at root level and let them rot in the soil to feed the organisms in the soil and open channels to deeper levels The garden works vertically as well as horizontally as I have planted fruit trees, canes, bushes and vines too
4. What do we hope to bequeath to the future generations of gardeners ?
Ah well God willing if some land comes up for sale near us I would like to grow a forest food garden, with nuts fruit, bushes vines and other edibles that should provide sustainably for generations. When someone else inherits the garden they will find it well stocked with perennial veg and fruit. They will find deeper soil that is more fertile than it was and they will hopefully enjoy all the little creatures that live here too.
