A Day With A Market Gardener

I've tried to do a lot of learning over the summer. The way I figure is that I invested a lot of time to learn to become a carpenter, well if I want to be a market gardener then I need to invest some time into learning how to do that properly.

Last year I was lucky enough to go on a course run by Phill Allen in the garden he runs at Apley. 

I'd left that day feeling totally inspired and armed with his email and some pretty patchy communications between the two of us we'd managed to stay in contact. I was dead keen to go back up there and "help out" if he could put up with me for a day. Luckily we found a day we could both do (last Thursday). 

So I set out early in the morning and drove up to near Ironbridge to pester Phil with questions all day! 

The idea was that I'd shadow him for the day and see how he operates. doing some jobs with him and asking lots of questions as we did them! 

Picking and washing carrots

It was amazing just to be back in that walled garden, and we were joined by four volunteers who come once a week to help out with some of the bigger tasks, they were doing a great job of weeding huge areas! I could have done with them at mine! 

Big stands of herbs growing ready for picking 

 It was great to see the layout of the garden again and to see how things look in a different season, last time I went it was the end of April so completely different to the end of the summer. There were crops everywhere, either in blocks or rows and Phil knew where everything was, although like me I think he keeps a lot in his head rather than on paper!

The gardens were looking good! 

Sweet corn that we'd harvested that morning

Edible flowers for sale

Another doorway into another garden on the estate

Polytunnel full of tomatoes that we pruned. 

I went with a list in my head of what I wanted to find out and I feel that I came away with the answers I needed, mainly about pricing and marketing of some of the more unusual things I grow here. But also other things I hadn't really thought of selling and how I should set up areas of my little homestead. I need to establish more areas of perennial herbs and plants that can be a good fall back if other crops fail. He had huge stands of herbs around the place and I'm thinking I'd much rather have that than the huge stands of nettles I've got at the moment! I'll be sheeting some areas over ready for planting in next spring outside of my normal garden area. 

When I got back I was really fired up about the whole thing, I got straight on the phone and spoke to a local restaurant to arrange a meeting and to drop off a big box of veggies for them to try. Hopefully I'm going to speak to them and see what type of things they'd be interested in if I started to grow a few things for them next year. I didn't feel confidant enough before as I had no idea what some things should be priced at and didn't want to go in without some of the answers to obvious questions. . 

Hopefully Phil and I are going to keep in contact and swap growing tips, marketing advice as well as seeds and plants in the future. 

A great day and I really appreciate his time in trying to make me a better gardener! 

Garden Talk By Phil Allen

Last night I went to my mothers gardening club to sit in on a talk they were having. 

She quite often tells me when there's a talk I might be interested in and I have been before although only once. When I do go I think I must half the average age in there, there's lots of hushed "is that her son" going on as well! 

I'm doing a talk at her club later in the year on unusual vegetables so I'm look forward to that, hopefully i'll make it funny and informative. 

Head Gardener - Phil Allen at the entrance to the garden area

I was really keen to go this time because the talk was by Phil Allen, the head gardener at Apley Walled garden. I went last year and spent the day with him (you can read the post here) and it was one of the most interesting and inspiring days I'd had in a long time. 

He's a really passionate guy with a great sense of humour and this really came through in the talk he gave about the history of the walled garden. I had loads of questions for him afterwards and he also gave me some great ideas and revenue streams that i could follow up on. 

I also said I'd love to volunteer up there for a few days to see him in action and learn even more, he seemed keen on this so we've swapped details and I'm already looking forward to learning more from him, there is no better way to learn in my mind that to go and do something and to be shown by someone who can do it well.

Has anyone else been to a good talk/lecture about something they're interested in and given them loads of ideas?

Apley Walled Garden - A Days Tuition

Back at Christmas mum gave me a voucher for a days gardening tuition at walled garden over by Bridgnorth in Apley, She was also coming with me, so it was a great way to spend time together (and she loves anything to do with gardening) and hopefully I'd learn lots.

I thought this was a great present but it turned out to be so much better than I thought. Apparently she'd booked the course just before they cancelled running it, but they decide to honour our places. This meant that we got a private course for just the two of us for the whole day!

Head Gardener - Phil Allen at the entrance to the garden area

We met the head gardener, Phil Allen, at Apley farm shop, had a drink, discussed what we wanted to learn and talk about during the day and then headed down to the walled garden. As soon as I met him I knew it was going to be a good day, he's completely passionate about what he does and it was obvious from the start that he had a wealth of knowledge and a willingness to share it.

The garden is amazing, four years ago it had been completely over grown, untouched for forty years. Now the whole four acres were under cultivation and looked after by Phil pretty much on his own. Add to that the fact that the garden is starting to make a profit and supply the farm shop and local restaurants and it gets really interesting. 

I think the thing I like most was that this was a proper working model of how large scale gardening/small scale agriculture can work in the UK. Every plant or area had a purpose, a simple example was in the one poly tunnel where there was a load of Pak choi that had bolted, but this had been deliberate so a local Thai restaurant could buy it as they like to use the flowers on their dishes. The garden wasn't weed free either, and he made no excuses about this, the time isn't there for it to be like a show garden, that's not it's purpose.

Fruit cage area - this picture showing peas growing under the cage.

The garden was split into different areas, with roughly a quarter split off for fruit production where he single handedly picks over a hundred punnets of raspberries a week in high summer! There was also a large area where he was experimenting with a no dig method of gardening and other areas where he was trying a biodynamic approach to gardening. 

In it's day there was many (and I mean many) glass houses, all with different purposes, from melon houses to ones for house plants and over 33 staff to run them and the gardens. There isn't any glass left in any of them and they're all in various stages of disrepair. Instead of letting them sit empty though, Phill has covered some of them in plastic and is using the space inside to grow many crops that either need the warmth to grow or to grow crops early to catch the best marketability for a certain crop. 

Glasshouse in use

A glass house not in use yet

Early crops

Seedlings ready for potting on - well over twenty varieties of tomatoes being grown here. 

I think what I liked best about the whole garden is it's willingness to try to find a market for something different. As Phil said to me at one point in the day "We live in an area of farmers, so why is a restaurant going to buy carrots off me when he can buy them cheaper off a farmer whose growing a field of them, I have to offer something different. Baby carrots, different colours, ones grown for taste and not transport." He was offering so many different and unusual plants to restaurants, ones they couldn't get from wholesalers, so they were using him to set themselves apart as well. The one Thai restaurant had been winning awards with their food and they attribute good local produce to helping them win. 

I learnt so much from the whole day that I'm still trying to digest the information that I was given, but the main feeling I've been left with is that of inspiration. I feel inspired that I could make my patch of land here make some money so I can reduce the amount of time I have to spend away from here. I've been given ideas about market areas and revenue streams that I never even considered and I think I have the energy, drive and enthusiasm to make it work. 

He really embodied a "Farm better not bigger" attitude and it's one I'd love to emulate when I take back over with childcare from September, getting things in place to slowly change how I provide my income, even if it's just a tiny percentage of it to start with, and produce food for more people than just my family.

I'll do some more posts on some of the tips I learnt at a later date - the one is amazing and I can't wait to share it with you all!