WORK HORSE balance
Magazine editor & founder Hedgewitch Essentials
How I make it work: By teamwork and hard work. Basically, Mike, my partner, is a fantastic support
The editor of Crop Production Magazine manages to juggle seven horses with running a business which makes plant based, natural products for horses
My job…
I’m never happier than when I’m creating things, and I have been lucky enough to bring this into my working life, whereIwear two different hats — one creates using words and the other formulates products for horses using plant magic. I work full time as an agricultural journalist and as editor of Crop Production Magazine (which comes from the same stable as Your Horse). As its name suggests, my day job involves talking to farmers, researchers and agronomists about growing crops, the soil, pests and diseases, agritech and plant breeding. And then comes the bit I love — writing the articles. But around thisImay be found at my kitchen table surrounded by bottles of essential oils.Imay be bottling, making product or — the best part — creatinganew formulation for my company, Hedgewitch Essentials, which makes plant-based, natural products for horses. I founded Hedgewitch in 2016 with my partner, Mike, and between us we do everything, from creating and making the products to customer care and tracking stray parcels. The inspiration for Hedgewitch came from my third job, an applied equine zoopharmacognosy practitioner. Regrettably, I have little time to do this now, but it is a wonderful way of helping horses to self medicate by offering them plant extracts, including essential oils.
HowIgot here…
Farming and horses have always been a part of my life, having grown up on an arable farm in Kent. It was a natural progression to go to Wye College university to study agriculture and when I graduated I started at the bottom, grading potatoes on a local farm. From thereIhad a spell working in accounts for a farming business before eventually training and working as an agronomist, advising farmers on growing their crops. It wasn’t an easy progression as opportunities for women in agronomy were few and far between in the early 1990s. I stumbled into journalism. In 1998 I was invited to write for Crops Magazine while I was working as an agronomist and I took to it li
