Alys Fowler is a gardener, writer and presenter. She writes a weekly column on gardening for the Guardian Weekend magazine. She has contributed to Gardens Illustrated, The Observer Food Monthly, The National Geographic and Country Living. Alys trained at Royal Horticultural Society, Wisley, The New York Botanical Gardens and The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. She has written seven books including The Thrifty Gardener, The Edible Garden, The Thrifty Forager, Abundance, Hidden Nature and A Modern Herbal. She has presented on BBC's Gardeners' World, The Great British Garden Revival, Our Food, and her own six-part series The Edible Garden. She has keen interest in agriculture and food politics and is setting up an urban farm in Birmingham. She is fascinated by urban nature and how we make space for it and was a creative consultant on public spaces and recently helped design the Greenwich Peninsula Gardens. She is president of the Herb Society.