Course tutors

Ashley Wheeler
Ashley runs Trill Farm Garden with his partner Kate. They specialise in growing salads to sell to restaurants around Lyme Regis. Ashley is a founding member of Landworkers' Alliance.

Charles Dowding
Charles Dowding, runs a quarter acre, super intensive no dig garden in Somerset, selling salad bags and veg to local restaurants and shops. He writes and teaches extensively on growing vegetables, and on his speciality of no dig.

Hugh Chapman
Hugh has been a field scale organic vegetable producer since 1984, for the last 30 years on a 10 acre smallholding in the Cerne valley near Dorchester, Dorset. Marketing as Longmeadow Organic Vegetables, was originally wholesale, then through a box scheme and farm shop.

Course detail
This workshop will not only cover much of the fundamental principles of crop production, but will also focus on how to run a successful market garden business. One of the critical aspects of running a market garden well is being organised, so record keeping and basic accounts will be talked about as well as crop planning, sowing schedules and crop rotations. The course will be suitable for people who are looking into starting up a small scale market gardening business, as well as those who have already started. Soil types as well as soil health and fertility will be talked about along with other technical aspects of growing vegetables such as propagation, cultivation, protected cropping, pests and disease, seed saving and harvesting, packing and storing vegetables.

The course will be run over three days (early Autumn 2017) and led by three different tutors at three different holdings.

After meeting at Monkton Wyld Court, the participants will go to Trill Farm Garden where Ashley runs a 2.5 acre smallholding with his partner Kate. He will run through setting up their business and running a succesful market garden, growing salad and other high value vegetables including producing in polytunnels.

On the second day, participants will go to Longmeadow Organics near Dorchester where Hugh and Patsy Chapman have been organic vegetable growers for well over 20 years. They will talk about selling vegetables through a farm shop and growing more field scale crops using tractor tools.

On the final day of the course we will be visiting Homeacres, where Charles Dowding grows salad and vegetables using a no dig system. He will talk about the merits of using no dig in a market garden.

Overall the course will cover three very different production systems from tutors with a combined experience of over 70 years of growing vegetables.

LANDWORKERS' ALLIANCE MEMBERS & CSA FARM MEMBERS PLEASE CONTACT ashley@trillfarm.co.uk FOR A DISCOUNT. WE ALSO OFFER A BURSARY TICKET FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT AFFORD THE FULL PRICE - CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS.