Meet Rhiannon - the woman behind Devon and Earth.

Hi! I’m Rhiannon from Devon, England and I am the face behind the name - Devon and Earth! I am an allotment holder, grower, founder of a community garden, and educator. 6 years ago, on whim, I took on an allotment in my village having never grown a thing in the years before and with no idea of the transformation it would bring to my life.

Picking sweet peas in my first ever growing season!

As a child, I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in gardening. In fact, I actively hated it! I couldn’t understand why people would want to garden and it just felt like another chore to me. Well, it actually sort of was, one of my chores to earn my pocket money was sweeping the garden path. My poor mother tried desperately to get my brother and I just a little bit excited about gardening and growing anything at all, but to no avail! She had a beloved vegetable patch at the end of the garden in our family home and gave my brother and I our own little patches of earth in the patch to grow in. Despite her best efforts, my patch remained untouched and unloved, and my brothers? A mud pie factory. She tried relentlessly to encourage me to spend some time in my patch with her, telling us how magical seeds were, that a teeny, tiny seed could grow into a huge, beautiful flower with just some water and earth, but I just didn’t care. When she gave us £5 to buy a garden ornament for our patches in an attempt to encourage us to spend some time there, I chose what can only be described as the saddest looking little dog which pretty much summed up how my patch of earth must have felt at being left alone, dry and unused.

Mum never gave up hope though and in my 20’s she was joined by my dear friend Joscelyn who also tried her hardest to excite me about gardening and growing flowers. We often spent afternoons planting flowers around the river and brightening up the pots adorning her patio, all the while her chirping “isn’t it wonderful watching something grow and flourish”. Quite frankly, and I’m ashamed to say it now, I thought she had just developed the habits of an older person too early on in life and I still didn’t get it - the joy of gardening. That was, until my mid-30s when an unexpected move to a warm and welcoming Devon village led me to the local allotments and a decision that has changed my life, in so many ways.

The journey that took me to the plots undoubtedly changed my life, all thanks to the friend I was walking with who asked if we could quickly stop by to water her plants on the way back from our stomp around the fields that lie on the outskirts of our village. “Of course!” I piped as we mooched through the gate, up the path that winds along the hedge line bordering the allotment site, and down the narrow grassy path to her plot. When I first saw the allotments, I was struck by the location of them, the beautiful rolling countryside of Devon, which will always have my heart. The forest on the hilltop, reaching out into the distant horizon, which is lit up by the flaming sunsets on summer evenings when I’m harvesting my dinner fresh from the plot. The sound of sheep bleating in the distance and the cattle strolling over the green grass. I remembering looking out across the plots and thinking what a peaceful place to be. I don’t know if it was the experience of the allotments itself, seeing someone my age growing food, or just that I had grown up a bit and realised there were more meaningful and satisfying ways to live, but with that visit and a quick email to the town council, my name was on the waiting list for an allotment. The rest is history!

The view from my allotment in beautiful Devon, England.

Fast forward to 2025 and I am now in my 6th growing season and have learnt so many skills to be able to grow my own food. It has changed my mindset, my diet, my physical and mental health and also my trajectory in life. I have started a community growing project, Devon Dig and Donate CIC, to grow fresh, nutritious food for those experiencing food poverty in Devon. I am sharing my knowledge and the skills I have already learnt, and am still learning a myriad of new skills as I delve deeper into the world of self-sufficiency. I am now truly converted to gardening and growing and want to show people that it isn’t as scary or difficult as we might think! Finding this connection with nature, with the earth and the seasons, has helped me to connect to something that I think was missing in my life. A step away from the fast paced, commercial and capitalist driven impulses of modern society. A step into something more fulfilling and gratifying than anything I have experienced before. What I hadn’t planned on when I took on this unloved and long forgotten plot, was how much I would grow in my own identity as I cultivated this small patch of burnt red Devon earth.

Now firmly rooted in tending the land (pun most definitely intended!), I truly believe that a growing our own food is the key to improving not only our diet and physical health, but our mental health and connection to nature and the earth on which we live. When I’m not on the allotment or community garden, I work full time as a deputy SENDCo in a mainstream secondary school. I have witnessed first hand by weaving opportunities for growing and gardening into the curriculum, the transformative power of gardening for the young people I work with. Pupils who couldn’t bear to touch compost with even gloved hands, who in a few short months were able to plant out 50 seedlings into fresh soil with their bare hands, having overcome their sensory overwhelm by learning how to grow and nurture seedlings from sowing, through germination, to potting on. Pupils who had no interest in growing whatsoever - reminding me very much of my younger self- who were so excited to harvest and taste the crops they had grown that the tomatoes didn’t even make it home for them to use in that night’s dinner! Pupils who simply can not cope with the demands of a classroom and struggle to remain regulated in that context, who when outside become problem solvers, leaders, facilitators and encouragers. My dream is to see gardening and growing taught as a life skill in our schools - for children and young people to have a robust understanding of where their food comes from, how to feed themselves and their families, and how to contribute to sustainability and climate action. After all, our planet is their future and we owe it to them.

When I’m not working in school, on the plot or at the community garden, you will often find me outside enjoying the joys of the ocean, the forest and the beautiful countryside. I am forever grateful to my parents for instilling their love of the outdoors in my brother and I, even if we did complain at being dragged on walks or explorations every weekend when we were small! The joy of pottering along a riverside trail, a homemade packed lunch in the backpack and the promise of a cool drink in character filled country pub is one of the many pleasures in life, in my humble opinion. That and spending a day by the sea, paddleboarding, swimming, enjoying the fresh sea air. And on a rainy, stormy day?…well, I’ll most likely be snuggle up with the cats!

Head grower Jasper overseeing seed sowing.