Bonbithi means a path through the forest. Ours runs straight through our garden.

Long before we had plants to give away, we were trying to run a household that took as little as possible from the outside and threw as little as possible back at it.

It began in the kitchen, as these things do. Peels, tea leaves, eggshells, the ends of vegetables — all of it used to go out in a bag. Now it goes into an old pot in the corner of the yard, layered with dry leaves and soil, and comes back weeks later as dark, sweet-smelling compost. Every plant we hand you was raised in it. We have not bought fertiliser in years, and our kitchen waste has not left the property either.

Water was the next thing. Assam gives us plenty of rain and then, some months, none at all. We dug a soak pit so that the water from washing and rinsing goes back into the ground instead of into a drain — recharging the soil under the garden rather than running away from it. On heavy days the garden practically waters itself; on dry ones we water by hand, in the evening, at the roots, never with a hose left running.

And then there is the plastic. We are not able to make it disappear, so we try to make it stay useful. Shampoo bottles cut in half become seedling trays. Oil containers become hanging planters. Buckets that have cracked hold soil perfectly well. Half of the pots you will see here had another life first, and honestly they look better for it.

None of this is a campaign. It is just how a small family in a garden house ends up living once you start paying attention — and it is the reason we can honestly call what we grow organic. There is nothing in these pots that we would not want in our daughter’s hands.