Kitchen Garden Workshop: Gardening with Wildlife in the Winter – Some for the Birds, Some for the Bugs and Some for Us

Join us for a workshop on the benefits of gardening with wildlife here at Asthall
Manor Kitchen Garden.

Complete beginners through to keen amateurs all welcome.

A thriving and diverse population of insects and animals, big and small is key to
the growing of healthy, nutritious (aka tasty) food. Healthy wildlife means
healthy plants means healthy people.

In this all-day workshop you will learn the fundamental benefits of gardening
with wildlife while growing food for people. You’ll develop an understanding of
why our wild bird, animal and insect friends are not just either pests or a nice
aside to have in the garden but are in fact critical, hard-working colleagues who
play a vital role in the guarding and growing of nutritious food or are simply a
key link in a beneficial creature’s food chain. You’ll learn the different roles that
many creatures play and what they need in turn, to keep them happy all year
round, with an emphasis on the winter months. The day will entail a healthy mix
of theory, games and investigations. You will also carry out some fun, practical
work to apply your learning and to help increase the diversity and vitality of our
wild friends, right here in the kitchen garden.

Places are limited to 10 in order to maintain a quality experience for those
attending the workshop.

Tea, coffee, snacks and a hearty lunch of soup, bread and kitchen garden salad
will be provided.

Please dress appropriately for the weather on the day with sturdy shoes or
boots that don’t mind getting muddy and be prepared to get your hands dirty.
Please do consider using public transport or bicycle to get here and if you’re
coming by car, please park in the tree-lined avenue nearby. More travel
information here

Asthall Manor Kitchen Garden is currently in the early stages of becoming a
social enterprise with the aim of helping to create a healthier, happier food
system for all. We grow wildlife-friendly and people-friendly food using Organic
methods and Permaculture principles. We grow for a small, local box scheme,
for the Potting Shed Café, for chefs and for the Manor kitchen. We do this while
providing a mixture of wild habitats such as ponds, log piles, flowering weeds,
seed heads and uncut margins for beneficial creatures to feed, hunt, sleep, bask,
breed and hibernate in.

The funds raised from this workshop will go towards delivering the aims of
Asthall Wild CIC. For more information, click here.

The course will be delivered by Tim Mitchell, a qualified Level 2 Organic food
growing tutor with 8 years of teaching experience. He has worked in community
food growing and commercial Organic food production for the last 9 years.