You’d have thought it would be easy but have a look inside any garden shed and you’ll find teetering stacks of single-use flowerpots, piles of plastic bags full of compost (often far from peat-free), plastic handled tools from far and wide, plus a poisonous pharmacopoeia of remedies.
The horticultural industry is slowly mending its ways, but it takes trailblazers like David Ware & Chris Williams of Edibleculture in Faversham to prove it can be done. They believe plants should be grown organically and in-house, the ideal garden product should be locally and ethically produced, and packaging should be re-usable and end its life in your compost heap.
Buy an organic herb or veg plant from Edibleculture and it will have been grown in a black square pot because that’s where plants like to grow best: the pots are stackable, take up little space and will be used over and over again by the nursery, but you won’t take them home to put in the landfill bin: your plant will be de-canted into a locally produced paper container, called ‘POSIpot®’ that will rot down in the soil.
POSipot®, created by Edibleculture, is a simple solution to stem the tide of the 100’s of millions of single use plastic pots (and labels) being sold with plants every year. The huge majority of which end up being incinerated, sent to landfill or exported across the world to be ‘recycled’.. all simply to transport a plant from shop to garden to be planted.
Buy compost from Edibleculture – Melcourt organic peat-free, the one the trade uses, and you’ll get a re-usable 50 litre portable bag that will have been filled from a bulk container. The same bag can also be filled with locally grown and produced chestnut woodchip mulch, so no single-use plastic packaging for landfill.
With long and varied horticultural pedigrees, Brogdale-trained Chris and David are a mine of information on all plants edible and will deliver, plant and maintain gardens and orchards in their electric van. A visit to Edibleculture, housed in the redundant horticultural classrooms and greenhouses at Abbey School and rooted deep in the local community offers a snapshot of what’s in season with ideas, recipes and the chance of a chat over a cup of tea. An exciting rollcall of events and festivals, training and talks celebrate the seasons.
Edibleculture is based at the Abbey School in Faversham, Kent, ME13 8RZ
Tel: 01795 537 662
See November/ December 2019 issue
