Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival

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Why Women Grow is a much-needed exploration of why women turn to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. This book emerged from a deeply rooted desire to share the stories of women who are silenced and overlooked. In doing so, Alice fosters connections with gardeners that unfurl into a tender exploration of women’s lives, their gardens and what the ground has offered them, with conversations spanning creation and loss, celebration and grief, power, protest, identity and renaissance. Women have always gardened, but our stories have been buried with our work. Alice Vincent is on a quest to change that. To understand what encourages women to go out, work the soil, plant seeds and nurture them, even when so many other responsibilities sit upon their shoulders. To recover the histories that have been lost among the soil. A compelling, enriching read. Above all, this is a wonderful tribute to the perseverance and tenacity of women [...] a joy, full of restless curiosity about gardening, life, the longing for meaning, and the simple yet quietly feminist act of creating a space for yourself" I did skim through the last third of the book, as after a while I started wondering why it still felt like the author was saying the same exact things that she was at the beginning, and why it still felt like I was reading the introduction of a work rather than unraveling the core of it.

We’re very excited to welcome Alice Vincent, writer and Maya Thomas, herbologist, chef and writer for a talk on the book ‘Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival’, 2023. Poppy Okotcha describes herself as an ecological home grower working to inspire reconnection to the land and the living world through the story of food and herbs. She came to gardening after a shift in her personal life: having moved between the UK and South Africa during her childhood, Poppy had a career as a model. When she was left burnt out by the fashion industry, she began to cultivate a slower kind of life, growing organically on top of a canal boat in London and learning about biodynamic and regenerative growing. We were invited into her magical, Tardis-like garden in South Devon, where Poppy tends to a space that has been grown on for centuries, sharing her gentle stewardship of the land with her considerable social media platform. Why Women Grow shows the beauty and grit of tending the soil in difficult times. Alice Vincent shows us that the cure for uncertainty is to get mud under our nails"

Sui Searle

I have always learned about plants through their stories: how they came here, what they represent, what silent powers they hold and who they mean something to. I have made my career as a storyteller: as a journalist, I have told stories daily for more than a decade. Now, I wanted to hear – perhaps even tell – these women’s stories. I wanted to learn more about what had driven these women to garden, perhaps to better understand my own need for the soil, perhaps to better understand what it was to be a woman. The creative mind behind Hill House Vintage and author of Hill House Living, Paula Sutton is a stylist, writer and - perhaps most of all - a purveyor of joy. After navigating a career in the fast-paced and glamorous world of fashion magazines, Paula relocated from the streets of South London to Hill House, an idyllic Georgian home in Norfolk 12 years ago. There, she decided that she was going to live - and raise her three young children - with a focus on what made her happy. Gardening is something that she has discovered later in life but has, she explains, become a crucial part of living in a more meaningful way. I was nervous before every meeting. More than anything, I was overwhelmed by the generosity of these women, who shared their lives with a stranger, and trusted her with their stories. Often, I’d share myself too, talking through my thoughts and fears about getting married and having children more intimately with these women than I had with anybody else. Sometimes, after I switched the dictaphone off, we’d sit and share a more balanced conver­sation, where advice and wisdom were doled out with care – often towards me, as I sought out the experiences of women who had been through what I hadn’t. These women and the conversations I had with them helped me to see my life differently, but they also helped me to see my garden differently. It’s definitely poetically written but it is wayyyy too inwardly focused. If she could use her writing talent to get out of her own head and experiences, this would have been a great book. I’m saddened by the perfunctory glances at very interesting women, overshadowed by Alice, Alice, Alice.

A poignant exploration of the relationship between healing and growing, and the power and mystery of nature" Why Women Grow shows the beauty and grit of tending the soil in difficult times. Alice Vincent shows us that the cure for uncertainty is to get mud under our nails.’ KATHERINE MAY, author of Wintering

Alice Vincent

The history of horticulture has often overlooked the contribution made by women, and this book offers a timely antidote" One simple concept, a million cookbooks sold: Rukmini Iyer’s Roasting Tin recipe books have transformed dinner times around the country. But the writer and food stylist is also a keen amateur gardener, growing first on a balcony and, later, in a garden on a quiet street in leafy South London. Iyer’s adventures in growing food to eat collided with the arrival of her first child, and gardening has given her a new perspective on what it is to feed and nourish. We catch up with the author of India Express at home to discuss her strategies for raising enough aubergines to feed a crowd, and why she’ll always prefer to grow from seed.

Alice Vincent is a writer. Her books include Rootbound: Rewilding a Life (which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize and named as a book of the year by the FT and the Independent) and the forthcoming Why Women Grow. A columnist for Gardens Illustrated, Alice writes for The FT, The New Statesman, Vogue, The Guardian, The Telegraph and other titles, and is the features editor of Penguin.co.uk and the creator of @noughticulture. Women have always gardened, but our stories have been buried with our work. Why Women Grow is Alice Vincent's much-needed exploration of why women turn to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. Join us for a book talk and signing event celebrating Alice's new book Why Women Grow. There will be time for a 15 min Q&A at the end of the evening. Don’t expect tips on mulching or how to sweet-talk your dahlias. Vincent bills herself an explorer not expert, keener on people than imparting techniques. Her last work, Rootbound, was a hybrid of heartache memoir and horticultural history. This time around the narrative unfurls like a vagabond anthology of potted biographies, confessions jostling alongside social commentary. Its driving question is what gardening reveals about female motivation. Above all, Vincent hoped to untangle her own ambivalence, as a freshly engaged thirtysomething, nervously eyeing up “heteronormative” marriage and motherhood, and troubled by her privilege in being able to garden at all. Could life lessons from strangers spur personal growth?Why Women Grow is a much-needed exploration of why women turn to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. This book emerged from a deeply rooted desire to share the stories of women who are silenced and overlooked. In doing so, Alice fosters connections with gardeners that unfurl into a tender exploration of women's lives, their gardens and what the ground has offered them, with conversations spanning creation and loss, celebration and grief, power, protest, identity and renaissance.