Grow Your Own

in conjunction with Transition Town Farnham and Farnham Adult Community Learning Centre

A 6 week course | starting Mon 5th Oct 2009 | 10am -12pm

With rising fuel prices causing food prices to soar it will become increasingly important to build resilience within local communities. As during the food shortages of World War 2, it will be important to know how to ‘grow your own’; using little by way of inputs other than what is naturally around. Organic gardening is nothing new. It is how people grew food for thousands of years. It is only recently that oil based fertilisers and pesticides have been used in commercial and domestic situations.

The course will be accessible, with no prior qualifications or experience required, other than a keen interest in the subject. There is a maximum of 12 students per class, so do book early. Students do not need their own garden as techniques to grow vegetables in limited and unusual spaces will be shown.

Farnham Garden Share also offers gardens to gardeners lacking space of their own. :

A one day Grow Your Own course will be run on Saturday 3rd October, 10am-4pm.

For bookings please phone 01483 518 558

Growing your own fruit and vegetables through Urban Food Growing Projects

Grow your own offers multiple benefits, including:

• educational value for children and adults

• appreciation of how food is produced as part of encouraging a healthy diet,

• improved access to healthy, affordable food

• improvement of physical and mental health as a result of regular outdoor activity, and contact with nature,

• preservation of green space in urban areas, and

• the sense of achievement and empowerment of disadvantaged communities gaining new skills, or using existing skills (particularly within immigrant communities from rural backgrounds).

• Social benefits of getting to know your neighbours, sharing resources, sharing produce, sharing skills

• Environmental benefits as climate change adds an increasingly urgent pressure for us to rethink our current food and farming system. This is now widely agreed to be unsustainable and is reliant on finite supplies of oil, the use of which contributes to climate change.

 The courses cover both the theory and practice of growing vegetables organically.

The course will identify varieties that grow well locally with minimum inputs,  crop rotation and companion planting, and include a visit to a local organic vegetable garden. In the full course modules on design of vegetable growing areas, seed collection and propagation, natural pest control, growing in small and unusual spaces and flexibility of planting plans will also be included.

Grow Your Own Vegetables will be run by House & Garden Design UK's Gayle Souter-Brown, a trained horticulture teacher and local sustainable landscape designer. For more information and bookings, contact the Farnham Adult Education Centre on 01483 518 558.