Over three days, great organic and farm produced food and a cohort of new friends we will go on a deep dive into all things fertile! 

Working with microbes has become a hot topic amongst Organic growers. It may feel overwhelming to try to pick your way through aerobic composting tea as advocated by Elaine Ingham, anaerobic fermentation as advocated by Jairo Restrepo, or the JADAM preparations largely coming out of South Korea. Matt Peni and Josh will walk you through these different approaches seeking the positive attributes of all three. Although there are strong feelings as to which is the best approach, in truth they all have good lessons that can be learnt. Microbes don’t do dogma!

We will run some sessions in parallel, and some teaching together. This will give ample opportunity for individual questions, and a chance to really dig into building Garden health and fertility using microbes. Sessions will be largely practical, looking at local ingredients, tricks for good fermentation and how and when to apply.

This is a course with three experienced teachers!

Matt Dunwell ran Ragmans Lane Farm for 34 years, and has experience farming livestock, growing vegetables, and managing a commercial Orchard and juicing business. He has been teaching for 30 years and brings a wealth of knowledge and practical experience. Here is a small video taken six years ago introducing the use of bio fertilisers in the orchards at Ragmans. https://youtu.be/AZRwXkFS58E?si=BUHZE1nrV_nGUgKS

Peni Ediker runs her own small holding, Sŵn y Coed, in the Prescelli Mountains. She grows a wide range of vegetables for a box scheme and markets, and makes fantastic compost and topsoil! Her Gardens and organic veg always inspire visitors, and arefeatured in this video put together by Huw Richards. If you don’t know her work, please take 10 minutes to watch this video. - https://youtu.be/WwkrsqpKeh8?si=YNTVTsl33lyDhvOo

Simon Joshua, (Josh), worked at Ragmans farm for 10 years, and then has developed a detailed knowledge of fermentation, both in the kitchen and in the garden! He brings 20 years of experience growing veg and building soil.

With three teachers, we hope to provide value for money with this weekend course. There will be time for you to have your particular questions answered, regardless of your level of expertise with microbes. We hope that by the end of the weekend you will have five or six relevant and easily adoptable strategies for your own particular situation, as well as many other recipes, and resources for further study.

Ideally be at the farm after 4pm and in time for dinner at 7pm on the Thursday to meet with the group. We will start teaching with intensity on the Friday Morning, we will finish on Sunday afternoon. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided for the duration of the training and nearly all food will be from the farm or from organic sources.

Training Cost: £250 (includes all food and camping in your own tent) For those of you who genuinely can't find this money then we have limited low income tickets at £215.