This year, we’re trying to close the knowledge gap by bringing our ‘choose organic’ message to more people than ever before!

As part of our ‘Put Nature First’ campaign, we’re partnering up with grassroots community gardening charity Incredible Edible Bristol to kick-start more equitable organic gardening learning. We’re supporting a range of online and in-person ‘How to Grow’ courses, as part of a new Yeo Valley Organic bursary scheme offering free funded places.

This partnership has been developed in response to a growing need for accessible and affordable learning options for people who want to know how to grow using organic principles and how our gardening impacts the wider environment. It will help provide confidence for people to get started in their own garden, allotment, balcony, or community garden plot. People from all backgrounds, particularly under-represented communities, are encouraged to apply for free funded places.

The ‘How to Grow’ course is being offered as an in-person course at Edible Bristol’s Learning Space at Speedwell Allotments in Bristol from mid-July 2021 with an online course starting in September. The six-week course covers soil and soil health, seed sowing, composting, propagation, gardening with wildlife and designing your garden space using permaculture principles.

Further courses will run later in the year with Yeo Valley Organic bursary places available on them all. Bursary participants will also be offered the unique opportunity to visit our Organic Garden and spend time with our gardening team in Blagdon.

We’re committed to helping as many people as possible to make positive choices for wildlife and the planet in their kitchen and gardens. We know that choosing to eat and grow organically is one of the best things we can do to address soil health and the changing climate, but many people feel it is either too expensive, or too complicated to try at home.

Our aim, with the help of Incredible Edible Bristol, is to bring high quality, practical growing knowledge, and experience to a more diverse audience.

Therefore, if you are keen to grow organically, but don’t know how to start or don’t have the means to access online or in-person learning, then we would really love to hear from you.

To find out more and apply for a place here.