It’s been a busy few weeks, lots of travelling about inspiring people (I hope!) to try no dig gardening methods. And we won an award 🙂
On Tuesday 17th September, I am speaking at the Landscape Show at Battersea Park in London, alongside Huw Richards. We’ll be explaining ways of growing whatever the space for maximum yields. You can attend for free, just turn up and register when you arrive. I’ll be spending the day there, looking forward to attending some of the other talks too.
I’ll be speaking about No Dig Gardening at RHS Malvern Autumn Show on Sunday 29th September at 12:00 in The Potting Shed Theatre, too.
I’m writing this blog post in Germany, in the office of a no dig market garden run by Felix, who interned with Charles as part of a university Erasmus program a few years ago. We’ve had a great trip: two days in Luxembourg, one here in Germany, looking at no dig market gardens all run by ex students. I’ve taken loads of photos and will be sharing them in a blog later in the week. We fly back tonight and tomorrow will be so busy – sowing, watering, weeding (I just know those weeds will be creeping in whilst I was away!) and generally catching up before my day in London on Tuesday.
Last week Charles and I attended GLEE at the NEC, Birmingham. It’s a huge trade show, really fascinating seeing so many different kinds of composts, tools, garden products and things I never even knew existed (8 ft high metal dragon for the garden, anyone? that should keep the slugs away!!) Because many products were newly launched at the event, we were not allowed to take photos but I can say that there are some new peat free composts coming into the shops soon, many of them are veganic, and hopefully we should be trialling some this winter. Also good to catch up with fun people.
Our book No Dig Organic Home and Garden had been shortlisted by readers of Grow Your Own magazine to the top 5 Best New Gardening Book, so we were already thrilled to have been voted into the top 5. Â The results of the awards were being announced at GLEE by Ellen Mary (who has a great podcast). Charles had also been shortlisted for Best Garden Writer.
We came second, so pleased! Monty Don came First and Third. And Charles also came second for Best Writer – Monty Don came first. So a different and happy day for us both.
The previous week started with our Open Day at Homeacres which was packed! We’re not sure how many people came – somewhere around 1500-2000. What a great day.
Then I was mostly away on a speaking tour, coming home on the Wednesday to co-run a course at Homeacres with Charles. Here’s what I made, all home grown (recipes like this in The Creative Kitchen).
Two of the talks were to gardening groups, and three at RHS Wisley Flower Show. What a lovely show! The kitchen garden there is all no dig (except for the “dig” part of their dig/no dig experiment. The student gardens there too are dig/no dig. The talks were really well attended which is great – so happy that so many people are interested in this great way of growing.
Next, it was onto Oxford for The Permaculture Convergence, where I gave a gardening talk which was streamed live on You Tube (it is not saved onto You Tube though). I had such a good time that I forgot to take any photos! It was also a great social time. On Friday night I visited friends near Oxford who are setting up a no dig market garden (it’s a bit of a theme….!) and on Saturday stayed with my sister and niece, followed by Sunday lunch with my Mum.
Altogether a great time travelling and meeting so many people interested in growing their own.
Coming up …. I am working on a new series of features for Kitchen Garden magazine, so look out for those starting January 2020 issue and there are some very, very exciting plans afoot for 2020 which I can’t announce yet 🙂