Welcome, why and where.

Hello! Welcome to Making Roots.

This is a space for everything sustainable lifestyle and the ingredients for making it so. Green tips, food, travel, JOY, ecology and more. Written by me, Molly.

The person behind the keyboard

I am ecologist by trade and training, which has driven my 10+ year career working in sustainability. I have a degree in ecology and conservation and a first class masters degree in sustainable development and I adore writing, so I mostly created Making Roots for me.

I try to practice what I preach. This means often living imperfectly, with wildly different versions of sustainable that flow and flux with life and what resources, passions and capacity I have at each chapter of my life. Things don't always go to plan, but that's OK as there is no perfect sustainable lifestyle- we don't even know what that looks like, additionally yours will look different to mine. So I always try my best, which looks different daily, monthly and year to year. I have been through many life changes, lived in many places and so, a version of my best last year is not the same today. Try your best too, and the rest will fall into place with a little help.

So how do I live my values and why do I write about sustainability, conservation and ecology? Aside from my professional qualifications, I live as eco as I can.

I live in a tiny little home, that is hundreds of years old and used to be a farm shed, specifically for turkeys.

I have a tiny patio vegetable garden with plans for something bigger. I grow a huge range of produce without any chemical input, which often means sharing some with garden inhabitants. I am a very moderate gardener but that doesn't matter because I adore the process of growing and having my hands in the soil. I have plans to grow more, growing your own food can be an amazing act of sustainability. In 2025 I grew flowers for the first time and it bought me incredible joy.

My little patio vegetable patch, from 2024. Utilising a tiny space to grow things I can eat and bring me joy!

I proudly wear mostly secondhand clothes. If it’s not handed down from my best friend, my grandma, bought in a charity shop or on a secondhand app, it will be old or ethically made. I can sew and would love to make my own clothes. Sometimes, but rarely, I just buy from a shop. I avoid fast fashion at any cost but sometimes needs must and it is a great example of the flux and flow of doing my best. My life and my passion doesn't revolve around fast changing clothes or fashions, and so I will mostly be found in my faithful cord dungarees. A sustainable fashion influencer, I am not.

I love compost and have composted for many years and now have a worm composter too. I have tried my best to compost whilst living in many places around the world, including whilst actively travelling. This is one of the reasons I don't line my bins with plastic bags, to reduce the temptation to chuck valuable compostable resources (and to save plastic). I can't say I'm an expert compostor, I am more of a chuck it on composter.

I care for things I own as much as possible. I take pleasure in fixing, sewing up holes, re-applying buttons, cleaning shoes. I am a naturally messy person so that can be tricky in a tiny home, but this one is certainly a work in progress. I love minimalism from afar, but I love pebbles too much.

I forage for food when I can and I am passionate about every persons access and enjoyment of wild food (and the outdoors in general). I know many of the wild fruit trees or mushroom spots in my local area, I look forward to visiting them each year.

I am a volunteer co-founder and co-coordinator of the Lingfield Larder, along with a fab committee, and previously I was co founder and co director of the Forest Row Community Fridge. I believe community is one of the most important parts of sustainable living.

Graduating from my masters, on Brighton Beach

It hasn't always been vegetable gardens and compost though. I spent the majority of my twenties travelling and living in many places including Malaysia and Australia. I love travel, from backpacking in hostels to fancy hotels. I am so grateful to have spent so much time seeing different cultures, and getting to know myself in challenging situations. This time taught me so much and I am a huge supporter of budget travel to experience different cultures. I try and travel whenever I can as I find it nourishing.

A hike in the Cairngorms, during a budget van holiday in 2025, representing a very happy Molly.

As well my community work and all things sustainability, I love bats and plants. My background is ecology and conservation, which was my first degree. I love the mindfulness that often comes with observing the natural world. I have a FISC level 3, which is a botany exam which means I can work professionally as a botanist. Little girl Molly would be so proud of this one in particular. Big girl Molly is too, I have the printed off certificate on my desk.

I also help on our family farm, working on our environmental practices. Because after everything, family is ultimately the most important thing to me, especially those who run my life, our dogs.

Me in my little home filled with plants and things I've found on the beach

Life is joyfully busy. I do many things, which is lucky as I find it hard to sit still.

But, I am not just sustainability, like everyone I am multifaceted (although almost everything I love does relate back in some way). I bake, I cook, I paint- for me. I love sewing, crafting, art, poetry, reading, travel, films. I am a scholar, a gardener, an ecologist, a friend, a daughter and all things in between, sometimes all in a day. I love skincare, although sometimes I have to actively remember to care for myself. I am happiest in the water, whether it's a tropical free dive, a brisk life affirming British coastal dip or at my local leisure centre. I consider myself an intersectional feminist and often my writing will touch on, or comment on this, whether it be my own experiences in life or in my work. I believe everyone's right to choose and to be authentic, whether that is about children, career or skincare. And the right to do that safely, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. This space is a safe space. I am living as authentically to myself as I can, I hope this helps you to do the same.

This corner of the internet is my happy place, through 10 years of life’s up and downs, this has always been where I come to. Writing is my way to express my thoughts, hoping perhaps some of them are helping someone.

Finding bat roosts whilst on holiday, with a cocktail, in my happy place.

I don't aim to live my life, or revolve what create here by what is atheistically pleasing. This has sometimes been a challenge in this kind of space, but I am trying to let go of that need to have everything perfect before I do something. I am not designer in anyway shape or form and like I said before, I am messy. Like in nature, sometimes we need to embrace a little bit of mess. I hope you feel empowered by this too. You are not expected to be perfect to have a go. Sustainability doesn't need to be your whole personality. You can and should be the so many amazing things that makes you, you.

The things we do for the planet should enrich and empower us and others. Lets make being sustainable really truly live up to the name- being sustainable for us and planet. Not to make ourselves smaller. But to bring more to our lives. To empower us to find joy in life (beyond consuming and doing).

With this introduction to myself, I thought it was time to signpost to some parts of the blog that you might be looking for...

For all things waste free living click here.

Click for products reviews.

For blogs about the Lingfield Larder, find them here.

For books I have reviewed.

For blogs about the van conversion I did in 2021 & 2022, head over to Caddy Camper Conversion.

This website truly is my happy place. I hope you find something that helps you.