Absolute beginners to vegetable growing: soil and pests

What you will learn:

• How to keep your soil biologically active using composts and other natural additives.
• How to set up a composting system, a worm farm and a bokashi bucket for promoting soil fertility.
• Pest control the natural way.

What you will get:

• Notes to take home and reinforce session content.
• Barrier controls and lures to keep pests away from seedlings.
• ‘Ingredients’ for compost making.

Part 1: improving soil fertility. Good soil is teeming with all manner of microorganisms and keeping them active leads to healthier and more productive plants, also able to withstand garden pests and diseases. This session will show you how easy it is to keep your soil healthy by making compost, keeping a worm farm or a Bokashi bucket. See all methods at work in the garden and learn how to set them up for yourself. You will look at using the product of these organic waste recyclers in your veggie patch.

Part 2: keeping pesky pests at bay. Pests are a natural part of your garden’s ecosystem but spraying harmful chemicals is not and can lead to more problems than the ones you were targeting. You will look at more sensitive ways of tackling garden pests and enlisting the help of nature to do so.

This is the third of three related workshops, the others being on your patch from scratch and seasonal vegetables. Ideally, you would attend all three.