Research

>GREEN

NGE2009

Green - Gardens for Research, Experiential
Education and Nutrition

GREEN began in 2004 as a partnership project involving The Good Gardeners Association, The Bio-dynamic Agricultural Association, The Hiram Trust and The Waldorf College. The garden is being managed bio-dynamically and provides opportunities for nutritional research and education in both science and art. It’s supported financially by The Hiram Trust and other sources.

Using conventional and holistic science techniques the GGA have been developing a methodology for tracking the flow of essential nutrients, including trace minerals and vitality, from soil to crop. Four beds were created to represent different methods of growing food. These are no-dig, single dig, double dig and a control. This disturbs the soil micro-life to different depths so we are able to test this response by looking at the effect on nutrition for the same crops, grown in each bed.

This first original project was designed to last four years (2004 to 2008) but the garden and research will be ongoing beyond this subject to funds. Some preliminary findings (after two years) were published in a series of articles that appeared in The Good Gardeners Association News Journal. Some of it’s key findings suggest that:

• In all plots we have higher levels of beneficial nutrients (for potatoes and leeks) than anything grown or eaten since UK records began in the 1930’s. You can find out more about the loss of over 40% of key minerals from the UK food chain in the article by David Thomas (pdf document).