Join us for this exciting 3 day Introduction to Market Gardening course, with a chance to see three different approaches to vegetable growing and marketing from different market gardens.
How you choose to market garden may depend on soil types, area of land available, local markets and personal preferences such as whether you want to grow veg all year round, whether you want to use only hand tools or larger machinery and the like. This course will show how all of these variables must be taken into consideration and how they lead to different techniques in market gardening from crop planning to cultivation techniques.
The course will show that there is not one simple way of growing vegetables, but it can be approached using many different techniques depending on soil type, proximity to market, scale and personal preference.
DAY ONE will be based at Trill Farm Garden, a 5 acre market garden started by Ashley Wheeler and Kate Norman. Ashley will lead the day and focus on crop plans, soil fertility, propagation, tools, bed prep, weed control and much more. We will spend some time in the classroom looking at crop plans and rotation, but much of the day will be in the garden looking at how we implement our crop plans to grow vegetables for restaurants, cafes, shops and a box scheme.
DAY TWOwill be based at Pitney Farm Market Garden (near Langport). Rita and Adi run the market garden here and will give an insight into there approach to growing for a farm shop and onsite cafe, producing year round crops and having field scale production. DAY THREEwill return to Trill Farm Garden to focus on polytunnel production and selling to both restaurants and through their box scheme. In the afternoon you will then go to nearbyFresh and Green (Ottery St Mary), where Ruth has run a local box scheme on much lighter soils than Trill and Pitney since 2006. Fresh and Green is a twelve acre farm, six of which produce seasonal veg, year round for the veg box scheme that she runs. There is 600 m 2 of protected cropping, in the form of polytunnels. Most of the propagation is done on site, direct sown, or in the dedicated greenhouse, and with the exception of ware potatoes all of the vegetables marketed through the veg box scheme are produced by the business. Over fifty different types of vegetables and herbs are grown on a six year rotation, with egg laying chickens, and green manures incorporated into the rotation scheme.
If you need accommodation there are plenty of B&Bs locally to us and we can recommend Monkton Wyld Court for simple, but comfortable accommodation with good food (dinner is also available if needed).
Course cost
£270 for three days including lunch on each day. An option to book on individual days is also available at £90 per day.
There is a 10% discount available to Landworkers' Alliance and Organic Growers Alliance members and those living within 15 miles of the farm, please contact us with details of your LWA/OGA membership or your address to receive the discount code.
One bursary ticket (half price) will also be offered to those who cannot afford the full ticket price. To apply for this please email ashley@trillfarmgarden.co.uk with a little bit about yourself, what you would like to get from the course, and why you think you should be considered for the bursary.
Ashley Wheeler has run Trill Farm Garden with his partner Kate since 2010. Brought up on an organic smallholding, he learnt a huge amount from his parents who ran a box scheme in the 1990's. After his Horticulture degree at Reading University he and Kate came across the opportunity at Trill Farm to rent 2.5 acres to run their own market gardening business. They now sell salad and other vegetables and herbs to around 20 different restaurants, cafes and caterers almost all within 8 miles of the farm. In 2020 they also setup a veg bag scheme, now delivering around 70 bags of veg locally. They have run traineeships at Trill Farm for the past few years, and these along with the courses are an integral part of the market garden in terms of helping others to access some of the opportunities that Ashley and Kate have been able to access. Another important part of the market garden is the seed production which they have been doing for a few years now and alongside saving seed for their own use they also produce seed for small UK based seed companies such as the Real Seed Catalogue in Wales.
Pitney Market Garden is run by Adi & Rita; both are first generation farmers who have almost 20 years combined organic horticultural experience. Their ethos is to produce high quality, fresh vegetables for the local community whilst caring for the climate, biodiversity and the soil.
Ruth Hancock is the lead grower at, and founder of, Fresh and Green Vegetables, established in 2003 in East Devon. The market gardening business is run from a twelve acre farm, six of which produce seasonal veg, year round for the veg box scheme that she runs. With 600 m 2 of protected cropping, in the form of polytunnels. Most of the propagation is done on site, direct sown, or in the dedicated greenhouse, and with the exception of ware potatoes all of the vegetables marketed through the veg box scheme are produced by the business.
Over fifty different types of vegetables and herbs are grown on a six year rotation, with egg laying chickens, and green manures incorporated into the rotation scheme.