Providing plants with a balanced food supply by feeding the many creatures that live in soil, manure and other organic material.

Choosing renewable resources, thereby creating a sustainable future.

Reducing pollution of the environment, by recycling garden, household and other waste, rather than dumping or burning them.

Creating a safe and pleasant environment in which to work and play.

Moving with the times – taking new scientific discoveries into account, as well as the best traditional knowledge.

Recognising the importance for the preservation of threatened plant varieties.

The whole garden – flowers, trees, shrubs and lawns, as well as vegetables, fruit and herbs.

(Inspiration from the Henry Doubleday Foundation).

Great reasons to grow your own organic fruit and vegetables

You can grow things without pesticides.
It means your food is free of any genetic modifications (G.M. free)
Homegrown food is cheap and nutritious.
You can decide what the family eats.
Your food will be truly local.
You can grow things that you can’t buy in the shops.
You can grow for flavour; commercial growers tend to grow for a long shelf life in the shops.
Children learn where food really comes from.
You’ll get plenty of fresh air and exercise.


Tip
If you haven't grown any vegetables before, start with a few seeds of salad plants such as lettuce. They will grow happily in a pot and you can pick the fresh leaves, as you need them, leaving the plant to grow on.

Keep them well watered. If you want to involve children, mustard and cress seeds can be sprinkled onto tissue or cotton wool placed in a saucer, watered and left on the windowsill.

Don’t throw the shells away after you have had a boiled egg, fill them up with soil and sow the mustard and cress seeds into them, paint a face on the egg and within a few days you will see the hair begin to grow!