Events season is upon us! Ranging from allotment or community open days to large flower festivals.

Garden Organic volunteers attend events across the country promoting composting, seed saving, and inspiring more people to grow organically. The skills and enthusiasm that volunteers share has a lasting impact and we’re incredibly grateful for their support.

North West

In Cumbria, Master Composters joined celebrations at the Cold Springs Nature Reserve Bottle Shaking Festival. Volunteers had a stand next to the composting bays on the new reserve in Penrith managed by Cumbria Wildlife Trust. Many visitors were keen to look at all the creepy crawlies under the microscope and play our composting game. I’m told that the bottle shaking celebrates a traditional custom of gathering fresh water and shaking it with sweets!

South West

In contrast to the relaxed community events, you’ll sometimes find us at much larger events too. In May, we were fortunate to speak to visitors at the RHS Malvern Spring Show, and lots of them over a busy four days. We were invited by Martyn Wilson, a well-established garden designer, to host a stand in his main feature garden at the show. Martyn had designed the garden around the theme of ‘working with clay’ and demonstrating how to improve the structure of clay with compost and mulches. The Gloucestershire volunteer team had a fantastic few days within a beautiful garden structure clad and roofed with locally produced clay tiles.

In Gloucestershire, celebrations have been taking place for the Brimscombe & Thrupp Community Composters on their first year of operation. Tables spilled over with an amazing range of plants for sale and cakes and drinks galore. There was a composting stand and useful signage to guide visitors around the site to see the composting infrastructure which included a recently acquired sieve, still to be put into use.

Everyone enjoyed the games which included a human fruit machine, a snail race (turns out smaller snails are faster than bigger ones which failed to read the rules and didn’t get beyond the starting plate) and a competition to find the most worms in a bucket of compost. Nobody left emptyhanded or without having a chat with a neighbour or without having learnt more about how compost is made at the site. And the BATCOM team were thrilled at the end of the day to find they had raised nearly £1000.

Back to events and in North Somerset, creative composting was the name of the game at the North Somerset Show in May. Master Composter volunteer and professional water management specialist, Janet Manning, constructed a bug hotel and compost bay from buddleia, hazel and other woody prunings from her garden, to demonstrate creative ways to avoid waste. Visitors commented that they were sometimes put off by the idea of an unsightly black bin or pallet bay in their garden but many felt inspired to get creative and give it a go having seen that even composting can be beautiful! An attractive, compostable Compost sign, crafted from papier-mache over the course of many industrious evenings by Master Composter, Kate Davies, told of the passion our volunteers have for sharing the Composting message.

Our Brimscombe & Thrupp Community Composters in the community.

West Midlands

In Worcester, volunteers recently gave a talk to 80 local allotment tenants on composting and organic growing, covering all aspects of why and how to compost, and provided different samples of composts for attendees to inspect. The City Council supported the talk, which took place in the Guildhall, and our Chief Executive Fiona was also able to attend. The allotmenteers present were very knowledgeable and interested in composting at home, on their plots and in communal settings; there was also much interest in using home grown fertiliser such as comfrey.

East of England

Alongside events and in-person workshops we also like to host online training sessions offer as much accessibility as possible. Norfolk Master Composters hosted a lunchtime webinar, Home Composting for Beginners, welcoming 36 Norfolk residents keen to learn more about composting at home.

During the one-hour session, participants discovered the many benefits of home composting, learned which materials can be added to a compost bin, and explored the different composting methods suitable for gardens and households of all sizes. The webinar was led by Master Composter Bee Springwood, who also answered a range of questions from attendees during a lively Q&A session.

Attendees rated their composting knowledge before and after the session, average confidence increased from 3 out of 10, to 7 out of 10 demonstrating the impact of the training and the value of practical composting advice.

One participant commented, “Brilliant! Thank you.” Another said, “This talk has been useful to alert us to the science of composting. Previously I chucked pretty much everything into the compost, which was good but not as good as it could be.”

The webinar was part of Norfolk Master Composters’ ongoing work to help residents reduce waste, recycle more at home, and create nutrient-rich compost for their gardens.

Scotland

Many of you will have been tracking the progress of the HSL seed relay as it meanders it’s way across the UK, this month it hit the ground in Scotland in true Scottish ceremonial fashion! Scottish horticulturalist and Beechgrove Garden presenter George Anderson led a ceremonial ‘Piping in the Seed’ procession into the Walled Garden at Scone Palace, accompanied by a traditional piper and drummer, carrying our rare heritage vegetable seeds – ‘MacGregor’s Favourite Beet’, Purple Mangetout and the ‘Alex’ pea. Our golden packet will now head off on its journey across Scotland all the way t the Shetland Islands. Keep following our facebook page for updates along the way.

UK-wide

In partnership with fellow charity Learning Through Landscapes we recently sent out nearly 100 ‘Get Growing’ and ‘Grow to Cook’ kits to schools across the UK. As part of the Local Schools Nature Grants Programme, schools get to apply for up to £500 worth of resources to support their outdoor learning. Our kits include lots of guidance for term-time growing, a wide selection of seeds, and big bundle of growing cards.

Get involved!

If you’d like to get involved promoting organic growing in your community then please get in touch via [email protected].

If we haven’t got a funded programme in your area, you can sign up to our ‘UK-wide network’ to become part of our active network, and we’ll support you with webinars, newsletters and links to the most up to date educational resources and engagement tools.