Emma Cooper

Emma Cooper is a freelance writer, photographer, blogger and podcaster. A keen gardener, Emma focuses on edible and useful plants, and in 2013 she completed a Masters degree and is now a fully-fledged ethnobotanist. She's in the process of building a new garden from scratch, and you can follow her progress on her blog: theunconventionalgardener.com.

Emma's latest book, 'The Small Harvest Notebook: Vol 1', embarks on a journey to a different style of kitchen garden, one that takes in the modern realities of smaller gardens and households, and sees the garden as a multipurpose space that produces delight, interest and tasty treats. For people who have no need to maximize their harvest in terms of weight or volume, joy is a better measure of success.

Emma is a Master Composter and loves making compost, a habit which supports her efforts to grow edible and useful plants in an environmentally-friendly way. Her first book, 'The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A to Z', covers a wide range of topics from green gardening techniques to unusual edibles and was published by Permanent Publications in 2009.

'Jade Pearls and Alien Eyeballs', is all about unusual edible plants and the people who grow them. It's not your average gardening manual, as you can probably tell from the bright pink cover. It's more a guidebook of sorts, for intrepid gardeners who'd like to step off the garden path and explore the world of lesser-known edibles.

'The Allotment Pocket Bible' was published by Crimson Publishing in June 2011 and is part of a series of books that "bring you fun facts and fascinating advice, ensuring even the most knowledgeable person will find out something new".

Emma is also the author of Dennis Publishing's magbook 'Growing Vegetables is Fun', aimed at children of all ages and designed to get them outside, having fun and growing their own food. The third edition was published in spring 2010.

Normally, if Emma's not out in the garden, making compost and growing odd plants, or writing books, then she'll be updating her garden blog. She also writes gardening and green living articles, and has been published in the Guardian, the Ecologist and Permaculture Magazine (among others) as well as appearing on the BBC Gardening and Reader's Digest Gardening blogs.