Joanna, I like the Geoff Hamilton book too. I got that and Bob Flowerdew's Organic Gardening from my local second-hand book shop. I am so pleased that I got them both and didn't go home to think about it and end up with neither!

I also like Joy Larkcom. In one of her books she has a list of edible flowers. I don't have any of her books, and don't know which one it is in, but I wish I had it.

I have just been watching a DVD on forest gardening--A year in a Forest Garden with Martin Crawford. It was fascinating, and convincing. A friend lent it to us, and it was full of interesting tips. I was never convinced by the permaculture section of Ryton Gardens, and I now realise it really wasn't right, trees too close together, too small, too much shade. I don't have room for it, but I might try planting comfrey underneath fruit trees--comfrey has roots deeper than most trees and draws minerals up from the soil, and if it is cut and left as a mulch at the end of the growing season it makes those available to the trees. In practice, I have bulbs around my fruit trees so I won't plant comfrey around them, but maybe if/when I plant some more....

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Sounds wonderful! And as for having corncrakes... fantastic.

There was something in Saturday's Guardian Weekend section about forest gardens and it mentioned Martin Crawford, who did the DVD.  The DVD mentions wineberries as suitable for the berry layer--I remember them as delicious, with viscious thorns, but worth the scratches. The bushes we picked from, 40um years ago, were ridiculously overgrown, however.