IT was finding out about a serious heart condition that led Roberta Carradine to leave a high-flying job and look to her roots.

Five years later she has been instrumental in the setting up of Wyre Forest Permaculture Group and LETS, sustainable forms of agriculture and trade respectively.

Energetic and brimming with ideas on how to turn people's gardens turn into something to make The Good Life idylls look like backward-thinking nightmares, Mrs Carradine designs gardens and teaches how to do-it-yourself.

She uses her back garden in Mitton Gardens, Stourport, and a smallholding at Great Witley to keep bees, chickens and Shetland sheep and grow crops cheaply and, above all, with the minimum of energy and time.

"This way you put in a bit of energy and stand back while it does the rest itself," she said.

It has to work because if it didn't she couldn't possibly have the time and energy to run the small courses she does, build a ten called a yurt, geodesic domes and other sustainable buildings, go to teepee camps, do reiki (hands-on healing), fleece weaving and meditate.

Mrs Carradine is not a new-age eco-warrior of modern stereotype, however.

Excusing the pun, she is very down to earth, with solid ideas for change and reasons why lifestyles and food production techniques must change.

"This is not a romantic notion, it is a necessary step,'' she explained. ''The last 60 years have been a disaster and we are trying to show how we can make agriculture and buildings sustainable.''

Married to James with a 17-year-old son, Jack, she moved back to Stourport after university and working in the north-east. She had taught general studies and worked for Worcestershire County Council before her heart condition made her slow down.

"I was no different, I used to be a heavy-input gardener, having to dig, dig, dig,'' she said. "It doesn't have to be that way.''

Her sheep act as lawnmowers, she encourages worms to do the digging for her, chickens eat the compost which rejuvenates the soil with nutrients and her plots of land are designed so that vegetable patches and herb gardens are right on the doorstep.

She has an edible garden. "When my friend comes round we say we'll go for a graze in the garden,'' she laughs. Picnicking has never been this easy. Young dandelion leaves, lilies and violets are favourites.

More people are turning to gardening and a garden per acre would always be more productive than a farm, she said. It also had the advantage of not being sprayed or genetically modified.