We’re keen to share your food growing enthusiasm across our mentored networks, websites, and Garden Organic’s membership magazine, ‘The Organic Way’.

In fact, lots of growers are looking for the ingenious watering tips that you’ve passed on – or learnt from your lovely mentored households and community gardens.

Please get in touch today to share your ideas

Email project manager Philip Turvil using the contact form here, including:

• 10-30 words per tip (from windowsills to ambitious spaces; water saving, crop-specific)
• Your full name
• Your programme area, eg Warwickshire, Islington, etc.
• If you have a small photo of you to accompany your tip (only if you fancy!)
• If you rather not have your name or photo published (only if you fancy!)

Oh, and any suggestions for future ‘tip-topics’ are very welcome…

Please send your tips by the 27th February 2012

Seed sowing tips from Master Gardeners

Tips already shared

Thanks to a huge response in autumn 2011, seed-sowing tips from Master Gardeners will soon feature in the spring edition of the ‘The Organic Way’, the national membership magazine of the UK’s leading organic growing charity, Garden Organic.

The tips from 15 volunteers have already featured in the March edition of the national ‘Grow Your Own’ magazine, pages 66 and 67.

Look out for a growing blogs too coming soon…

Local Master Gardeners will be out in abundance helping visitors grow lovely organic food.  Look out for lots of other Garden Organic folk too, including Bob Sherman, Pauline Pears and Philip Turvil.

Scheduled for the beginning of the growing season, the show has lots of money-saving ideas, a mix celebrity gardeners, chefs, livestock experts, growers, unique products, cookery demonstrations and interactive events for the whole family.

Voted the UK’s Most Popular Garden Event of the Year – this ‘must-see’ 2012 show.

Read schedule from Warwickshire Master Gardener website

Visit Garden Organic’s website for more details – and where members can claim ticket discounts

It’s the perfect moment to kick-start the growing year! Come along, grab a seed tray, get your ideal sowing mix of compost and then choose from a variety of veggies to sow, grow and eat at home.

A great event for children and beginners. You’ll be helped and advised by friendly Master Gardeners and Composters!

Visit Ryton Garden’s event web page

10am to 5.00pm

Join us at the Garden Organic AGM (10.30), followed by ‘Growing from the Roots’ (11.30) a conference on how Garden Organic, our members and supporters can play a role in creating local, sustainable communities. Featuring a gardeners’ question time session with Alys Fowler and James Wong.

Sunday 13th May Members’ experience day at Ryton Gardens in Warwickshire

10am to 4pm

Enjoy an exclusive, member only experience with the Garden Organic experts. Spend the day in the beautiful surroundings of Ryton Gardens and enjoy exclusive garden tours, master classes and workshops.

Visit Garden Organic’s event page for booking details

See what else is on at Ryton Gardens

From every group of Master Gardeners, several volunteers want to help pupils, parents, teachers, and the wider community grow their own food in school and at home.

This is great! So we’ve invited experts from the Food For Life Partnership to host a special course at Ryton Gardens in Warwickshire – the home of Garden Organic.

Places are limited!

Please register your interest today with project manager, Philip Turvil, using the contact form here

Course open to Master Gardeners in Warwickshire, London, Norfolk and Lincolnshire. Click here for details about volunteering.

Cut off date for registration: 8 May 2012.

Travel expenses paid.

The lovely Master Composters are also invited! Their local co-ordinators will be in touch in selected areas.

Course outline

1. Essentials for working with schools : actively working with teachers and young people – and doing presentations.
2. Crops that do and don’t work in school
3. How to sustain and grow school food gardening

Please click here to read about our previous school courses in June and October 2011.

Click here for school growing advice from national charity, Garden Organic

Link image to read about our 2011 schools training

We’re inviting volunteers from across the country to share top-tips for supporting communities to grow their own food and make lovely compost.

More details coming soon…

Read about our 2011 National Masters Conference

When? Saturday 30th June 2012.

Where? The beautiful Ryton Gardens in Warwickshire, home to the UK’s leading organic growing charity, Garden Organic.

What? Leading UK speakers, unique workshops, expert guides, and much more with over 200 volunteers expected…

This is your conference. Please get in touch today to share your ideas…

Who? Master Gardeners, Master Composters, Compost Gurus, Gardening Champions, and any other volunteer involved in promoting gardening or composting.

How? Please contact your programme co-ordinator as soon as possible to register your interest. More details coming soon. The conference is free to most volunteers thanks to partner support.

Master Gardeners – your co-ordinator will email your booking form and help arrange transport. Click here to contact.

Come for the cake!

See photos from our National Masters conference 2011

Find out who won the Master Gardener Awards…

See latest news from Ryton Gardens

Kate, Kate, Gabbie, Fiona, Rick and I gathered at the home of Garden Organic for two days, merrily planning how best to recruit, train and support the enthusiastic networks of Master Gardeners and the households they support to grow food.

And here’s what we came up with:

• Plans for our programme extension to February 2013
• Join us! We’re looking for new volunteers in every area
• Grow with us! We’re looking for new households to help
• Spring Master Gardener training and special householder events…
• Next stage in Coventry University research

Our second day was with the lovely Master Composter team – Jane, David and David, alongside other Garden Organic folk.

Pictured top left – Tour by sustainable waste manager, Jane Griffiths, of the new compost demonstration garden at Ryton Gardens.

Many thanks

Philip

Philip Turvil
Project Manager, Master Gardener programme

Visit Garden Organic’s Master Composter networks near you

Get involved with Garden Organic Heritage Seed Library

Find out more about Garden Organic

Team at Ryton Gardens during a tour with the Heritage Seed Library manager, Neil Munro. We then went inside to warm up and meet seed officer, Vicki Cooke for her top seed-saving-tips.

Just pop potatoes ‘rose’ end up – the end with most buds – in a clean egg box. Label the variety and put in a cool, light place for four to six weeks. They’ll grow sturdy green shoots ready to offer a keen start and earlier harvest.

Photos (c) Ray Spence funded by BLF

The Master Gardener team choosing their seed potatoes at Ryton Gardens

Chitting tips:

• Keep your young spuds out of very bright sunlight, but not too dark, otherwise pale brittle shoots develop that easily break off.
• Chit potatoes that are already sprouting straight away. Otherwise leave in a cool, dark place until you are ready to chit them.

Plant your chitted spuds 15cm deep, spacing ‘early’ varieties 30-50cm apart from mid-March for June-July harvest; maincrop’ varieties 35-70cm apart from April for September-October harvest.

More potato growing advice

	See below for potato growing instructions (scrolling PDF)
	Click here for advice choosing varieties from Master Gardeners (opens webpage)
	Click here to read about growing potatoes in containers (opens PDF)
	Click here to read about growing potatoes no-dig (opens PDF)

Growing instructions for potato

Written by Philip Turvil, Project Manager for Master Gardener Programme

More growing advice

More about Master Gardener programme

This is thanks to the ongoing support from the Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food scheme, together with Sheepdrove Trust and our local authority partners. The current programme will now run from September 2009 to February 2013.

The programme team at Garden Organic, the UK’s leading organic growing charity, are delighted to announce the following plans to make the most of this special opportunity.

What this extension means: please click links for details

• Extended period for one-to-one support for all active volunteers – with an extra half day per week for all our local co-ordinators.
• 80 new Master Gardeners in Warwickshire, Norfolk and London.
• Ambitious training and event programme for Master Gardeners – and their mentored households.
• Extended primary research by our team and Coventry University to evaluate the social, environment and health impacts of Master Gardeners supporting communities to grow their food.
• Developing ways and means for sustaining and expanding networks of Master Gardeners where there’s the need.

Find out what’s happening near you:

• Islington events
• South London events
• Norfolk events and socials
• Warwickshire moments

Plus Lincolnshire training, funding by the NHS supported ‘Health and Wellbeing Fund’.

Visit Garden Organic’s Master Composter networks near you

Find out more about Garden Organic

Our autumn/winter reports reports have revealed the latest achievements of the volunteer networks in Warwickshire, Norfolk and London.

Thanks to our partners: local authorities, Sheepdrove Trust, and Big Lottery fund’s Local Food scheme.

Thanks to our team: Kate, Kate, Fiona, and Gabbie. Together with all the keen folk at Garden Organic.

Just the facts – May 2010 to Nov 2011

• 9,051 recorded volunteer hours helping people grow fruit and veg.
• 85% (263) of trained Master Gardeners out and about in their community. Thank you.
• Nearly 250 more households this quarter, totalling 1,134 mentored. Includes 2,532 residents growing food; 816 under 16.
• Another 5,650 conversations, totalling 27,395 people helped.
• 69 new community groups/events supported, totalling 355.

Behind the numbers: case studies

• Local stories – please click here
• Research with Coventry University – please click here
  (interim report due very soon..)

We’re training another 80 Master Gardeners in spring 2012.
Please click here to get involved…

We trained 85 new volunteers during in autumn 2011.
Please click here to find out how…

NEWS! Lincolnshire network makes an impact

Our Lincolnshire programme has grown hugely since beginning in March 2011 thanks to co-ordinator Rick Aron and – now six local authority partners with the Health and Wellbeing Fund/NHS.

• 51 lovely volunteers reporting an amazing 400 hours.
• 41 households with over 100 residents focused on new community gardens.
• Over 1,500 food growing conversations

The future

We’ve put together new proposals for creating local, tailored Master Gardener networks for new funding and operational partners. We’re trialling these at the moment…

Click here to read more about future areas.

With many thanks,

Philip Turvil

Project Manager,
Master Gardener Programme, Garden Organic