Manatura Homestead

Manatura Homestead 🏡 Our urban homestead journey
🌱 Food-scaping edible gardens
🔨 Workshops online and in person

28/06/2026

The kind of afternoon I used to dream about 🦆🐾🌞📖💗

25/06/2026

Little update- I'm starting a micro flower farm! It's amazing how much progress can happen when you stop focusing on how far there is to go and just tackle the next task 💪🐝🌼

Scenes from a very full season on the homestead 🌱1. Maui, the supervisor, keeping watch while I get seed trays ready2. A...
23/06/2026

Scenes from a very full season on the homestead 🌱
1. Maui, the supervisor, keeping watch while I get seed trays ready
2. A big bunch of Jerusalem artichokes for a gallery opening
3. Maya greeting us home with a mulberry leaf
4. The view from my office desk in the greenhouse
5. Planning and labeling seeds for sowing
6. Flower farm beds prepped and ready
7. Homemade compost bagged and ready to use
8. The last of the peppers and chamomile to harvest
9. A duck's nest tucked away in the greenhouse
10. Lily & Pip resting under the lavender in the food forest

I've moved my desk to the greenhouse and put the pottery wheel in its place in the office. Now we have a dedicated space...
12/11/2025

I've moved my desk to the greenhouse and put the pottery wheel in its place in the office. Now we have a dedicated space for pottery and I've got a new office in the garden. Feeling dreamy, grateful, and blessed to sit in this beautiful space, making wild bouquets for orders overlooking our little seaside homestead. Life is really beautiful, and allowing myself space to slow down and soak it all in 😍💐💖

🌼 Beth

04/11/2025

Living in heaven with my new greenhouse office. Incredibly grateful for such a talented husband. It was his first time building something like this, and he did such an incredible job, basically single-handed! Built from old windows and doors.

He actually finished it a week before our wedding. My friends and I got ready there. Overlooking the fields of flowers that I planted. We left the roof off and draped material to keep the space cool. I dressed the empty space with big bamboo palms, rugs, materials, couches, and a low table, which we sat at to get ready. It was so beautiful.

Now, I feel like the luckiest woman on earth that I get to call this space my office. Sowing seeds, building up nursery stock, growing heat loving veg, creating designs and more. Can't wait to see how it blossoms with time 🌻✨️🍀

03/11/2025

Grounded and enjoying slow-steading. Spring is in full swing, watering the garden & ducks. Trying to bring a slow pace to our lives. We've hustled, lived fast and hard. But we're over it, we'd rather go slow and live simply

Foxgloves are one of the most magical flowers to grow in the garden. They self-seed beautifully and provide perfect home...
28/10/2023

Foxgloves are one of the most magical flowers to grow in the garden. They self-seed beautifully and provide perfect homes for fairies.

Look at this unusual specimen!? Self-seeded in the side of my client's raised beds. I planted foxglove seeds one year and now they are always around. I have grown them for many years but have never seen one like this. It's a big flower facing the sky. Normally, they all hang down and create a tall spire. This one has a large cup on the tip. I immediately thought of it being filled with water and all the fae having a bath under the full moon, sipping herbal drinks, telling stories and enjoying soaking in this rooftop tub.

I'll definitely save seed from this plant to see if I can produce this cup again. It's so unusual and beautiful.
Could anyone please explain to me how this happened? I'm guessing it was caused by a genetic mutation, crossing with another variety with a similar slight mutation, causing the offspring to have this unusual beauty.

The plant is associated with 'white witches' who live in the wild with their fox familiars and use their magic to aid and heal. The foxes of course use the blossoms as gloves to keep dew off their paws. In Norse legend, they also wear them as a foxes-gleow, a "gleow" being a ring of bells that creates a spell of protection against hunters and hounds.

Did you know they are Biennial? This means they will produce lots of luscious leaves in their first year and only produce flowers in their second year, after which they will go to seed and die. Sow seed every year (or let some flowers self-seed every year) to get yearly blooms.

Art:
"Foxglove Fairy" by Cicely Mary Barker
"Foxgloves" by Kelly Louise Judd

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