Last weekend was spent at RHS Rosemoor in Devon, speaking with many types of gardeners. Our stall was in the apple orchard, and further on down the path was their vegetable garden.
As it was our first time doing an RHS show, it was fantastic to meet up with onsite gardeners as well as the public. What was really heart warming, is how excited gardeners get when we talk to them about our mother cultures and what Precious Earth can do, not only to boost the health of their flowers and vegetables, but also the garden itself...and their compost piles. As many of the folks we talked to at the Devon show had big gardens, many of them also were making their own compost. It was interesting that quite a few were having problems with activating the piles and getting it to break down properly for use in the garden. They were delighted to hear how their compost can be given a boost of all the microbes contained in our Precious Earth, will then give all the beneficial bacteria needed for successful growing.
For people with small gardens, our boxes give them everything they need for ultimate health for their flowers and veg patches.
The shine that our mix gives to salads and vegetables, and the vibrancy that comes from plants grown in earth or compost that has had it added, is remarkable. Yesterday I was told that Precious Earth is "simply magic. Every plant it is put on blooms." this was by a lovely lady who used to resort to chemical treatments for her garden plants, but now has done away with all that since she has discovered what can be done with our mother cultures.
This is our vegetable, salad and herb garden growing outside our Mother Culture Shed.
This is the RHS vegetable garden at Rosemoor (below). They are growing in heavy clay and when we spoke with the gardening team and said how our mother culture would not only boost the plants, but would also increase the drainage in the soil and the nutrient availability for the vegetables, they were vey excited to give it a try!
We were invited to come back next year to do some talks on "Gardening with Gaia" which we are vey excited about, as the more people realise how simple this can be, and how effective, the more we can achieve to help bring back a natural balance to gardens.
We also had a lot of bees that visited our stand while we were there, as I had bought some flowering plants from one of the few organic nurseries in the country, Taw Valley Organics in North Devon, to brighten up the stand, it was reassuring to know that the bees could collect the pollen from the flowers without any danger of poisoning from chemicals added to so many composts and "bee friendly" flowers.
The more people realise how important it is to buy and garden organic: for both the pollinators and for our own health, I hope that nurseries like www.tawvalleyorganics.com will be properly valued for what they do.
It was also interesting asking people what they thought a "mother culture" actually was. Some said like the bread starter for dough, others like the "Mother" in apple cider vinegars or kombucha, but most folks did not have a clue. When they understood how what we have made in our boxes was a concentrate that could supercharge over ten times the amount of soil/compost with all the microbiology, worm eggs and more....the boxes flew off our stall. We were sold out before the show had ended and the last two boxes ended up in a bidding battle!
The reason we refer to Precious Earth as a mother culture is because it is a horticultural term, but also because it reflects perfectly what we are creating at Gaia's Garden. It's all about how to garden by nurturing the earth and the plants, protecting the pollinators and birds, gardening with Mother Nature, Gaia herself, rather than against. For too long, the attitudes in horticulture have been about control, domination of the garden, through the use of man-made chemicals and synthetics. Now many gardeners are realising that we need to integrate our practices within the natural rhythms and cycles, mulching to protect the life under the soil, enriching the soil biodiversity rather than leaching it and regenerating this vital life giving earth.
Thank you RHS Rosemoor, we look forward to collaborating with you moving forward and to enjoying your beautiful gardens again next year!
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