Dear Matthew

Greetings from Assella. Thank you for replying to my letter and for sending me the GGA newsletter and no-dig gardening book. I do like your newsletter format. It is easy to follow, interesting and informative.

I am very excited to introduce the GGA to Ethiopia. I really love the name GGA itself. It’s good because I feel it motivates and attracts the locals to going organic, especially if I tell them there may be an opportunity to work in association with the UK . Generally speaking there is an awareness of going organic in the locals’ minds but they lack leadership and I feel this is the area I can play a part with your support.

Sadly we are having little success with no-dig in Ethiopia - the reason being the long, harsh, dry weather. We have over 8 months of dry season with very little rain that hardly wets the ground and the earth cracks open. The locals refuse to plant anything without giving the ground a good dig first. There are so many grasses lying dormant waiting for rain or watering that spring up and compete with the vegetables and without hoeing, the water runs off without getting down to the roots of the plant. I would like to know how successful no-dig is in UK .

Plants like geranium and busy Lizzy grow up to 3 - 4 feet and people use it for fencing, but because of the dry season local people grow no vegetables unless they live by a river or wetland. I am struggling with early morning and moonlight watering. We need a pump.

Yes, I feel that good quality food based on standards of nutrition and vitality is the direction I should like to lead on. Health should be on the top of everybody’s list.

Here it is difficult to work with men. I am hoping to work with school children in the near future. The women work so hard - they are the pillars of every home.

I feel everyone should come and try the life in Africa . Everything has to be done from scratch, nothing is ready made. Despite that I have managed to grow over 20 kinds of vegetable by composting the resources around. I am happy.

God bless. Tewedaj , Ethiopia.

Editor’s comment

Dear Tewadaj,

I am sorry to hear you are not having success with no-dig gardening. Please remember it takes time to establish a healthy soil ecosystem that is productive especially if the soil has been continually dug year on year. Using compost as a mulch and fertiliser will help to increase water retention in the soil saving precious reserves and labour, required to fetch it. In addition the act of digging is responsible for turning up new weed seeds so that over time, by not digging, the weed problem will be reduced.

I appreciate there is a ‘real’ need to grow food and so this must be your priority, by which ever means possible, but I would like to recommend you devote a small piece of land and set this aside for a no dig experiment growing just a few varieties of vegetables that you know are easy to grow. This will give you hope and encouragement and above all an example for everyone else to see with their own eyes that it can work. Please let me know the types of vegetables you are growing, we may be able to give more specific advice but for now I can tell you the principles used here in the UK .

In the UK we should apply between two and four cm’s of well made compost in the Autumn ready for planting crops in the spring. This allows time for the soil ecology to develop and incorporate the nutrients into the depths of the soil where it is needed by the roots of plants. Please excuse my ignorance but I do not know how the seasons work in Africa , do things grow all year round? If so there may be a need to adjust the timing for compost applications. Perhaps you should consider dividing the no-dig plot in two applying compost before and after the rainy season. It may further help to cover the plot with a sheet (if possible) to prevent light stimulating weed growth, retain moisture and allow microbial populations to flourish. Allow this to continue for maybe three months before planting. You then have a choice - rear plants in seed trays and plant through the sheet or remove the sheet and sow seeds direct. With reference to hoeing, this is acceptable in the top two to five cm’s as soil ecology thrives at a lower depth. One final point to give us UK gardeners something to think about, do you have many slugs in Africa ? Please let us know how you get on.

Dear Matthew

I have just read newsletter no. 151. I find it an excellently produced publication, very useful articles, easy to read and the non-glossy paper enables me to read it without having to get into distortions, introduce specialist lighting and is perfect for making pencil markings for future reference.

Reference Alison Ensor’s query about de-hulling sunflower seeds, I have been advised (though not tried myself) to roast them gently under the grill just sufficiently to make the hulls brittle - then apply a rolling pin.

Yours sincerely

Dennis C Nightingale-Smith, Worcestershire

Dear Matthew

I am in agreement with regard to subs going up and personally have no problem with £21. Am I happy with paying the extra as an addition? That’s the more complex bit! Will I remember in May each year, and will I also have to say each time ‘gift aid’. The answer should be ‘No’ I think.

Yours sincerely

Mr J S White, Glos.

Editor: Reminder letters are sent out on a regular basis to those paying by cheque so if you do forget you will be reminded. Of course if you decide to pay by standing order payment is made automatically which saves us time and money. Once you have ticked and signed for Gift Aid that’s it. You need do nothing more for years, until your circumstances change and you find yourself no longer paying tax.

Dear Mr Adams

Thank you for the winter newsletter, which makes encouraging reading. Especially the GREEN-UG and Schools Project sections.

I think this has to be the way forward - teaching young people the value of truly nutritious growing of the food we eat. Very few schools teach gardening in their everyday curriculum so the actual hands on side is good because the older ways of actually doing the job are not passed on today.

Thanking you once again for a very good newsletter.

Yours sincerely

F. J. Moule, Wocestershire

PS I think the new rates are very reasonable.

Dear Matthew

We are both in our seventies are on a pension and still we have an allotment each. We would not object to the price for membership of The Good Gardeners going up. It has improved so much in both quality of print and pictures recently. Also yours is the only gardening magazine that seriously challenges the quality of our soil and how to treat it. Kitchen Gardens is good but it does not go into any great detail.

Keep up the good work.

Pam & Malcolm Mcleod. Redcar , Yorkshire.

Dear Mr Adams

Would you deliver another Winter Newsletter to me please - I want to send it to our M P, Mr Chris Grayling, who I am in touch with about organic food.

In January 2002 he signed the Early Day Motion 366 to increase Organic Food and Farming Targets. He is a member of Epsom Rotary Club and is the M P for Shadow assistant Health Minister and Shadow assistant Higher Education Minister.

Yours sincerely

Brian Walton, Surrey

Editor: Of course! Networking is an excellent example of how members can help promote the GGA, there is no better way then word of mouth.

Another good example of promoting the GGA happened in February when suddenly a flood of calls came in to the office all asking to buy a copy of the no dig book. It transpired that GGA member, D Healey of Doncaster, had written an article for his local magazine about gardening. In it he mentioned the book, No Digging and details of how to get it via the GGA office. Thank you Mr Healey.

If anyone else would like to do something similar please feel free to do so. We look forward to hearing how inventive and enthusiastic GGA members can be.

Questionnaire Results

We had a tremendous response to a questionnaire with a return of 23%. Many thanks to all those able to complete and return them we have found it very useful to gain a picture of the membership, your interests and help provide us with direction for the future.

About the GGA

To find your strongest interests we asked you to rank the following issues in order (lowest score best).

It was very clear, and perhaps not surprising, that Gardening came out as your number one interest followed by nutrition. This is very reassuring as it concurs with our aim to promote and grow nutritious food.

In 3^rd place came the issue of Sustainable Development. It is very encouraging that so many of you have an appreciation for the concept of sustainability and can see that by no dig gardening we are able to contribute to this process. Our green waste is recycled in the compost, this helps to increase soil fertility and grow healthier food without chemicals. The more we can grow and consume means we rely less on imported food, reducing harmful emissions of green house gasses into the atmosphere. Also the greater the quality of our food the better the chance we have of staying healthy or recovering quickly from bouts of illness.

Vitality was next, a difficult concept to comprehend but is extremely important. We hope to explore and expand on this issue in future articles.

Newsletter coverage

Almost 100% of you are happy with the content of the newsletter. Thank you, this is very important feed back. There were however, a few additional comments such as, "can it be more in depth with more test results and more pages". In answer to this we would say "yes, if we had more resources". We are still a small charity as compared to the likes of HDRA and Soil Association but we do have a unique angle which aims to link nutrition (in particular trace elements) to healthy food to achieve vitality in our food. This is going beyond the term organic, which in the main is to do with the removal of chemicals from the growing system.

The GGA is more concerned with the quality of the end product. A pre-requisite for this would be that it has to be grown under organic conditions but with higher levels of nutrition and vitality.

Gardening

100% of the returns said they were gardeners and that the size of their gardens ranged from growing in pots and tubs to having a small holding of a couple of acres.

90% have a garden
30% have an allotment as well
3% have a small holding.

What do you like to grow in your gardens?

93% vegetables
67% fruit
63% flowers
60% herbs

Overwhelmingly our member’s primary focus is to grow vegetables. This was followed with a very narrow margin between fruit, flowers and herbs. Many of you raised the point that they grew flowers for the purpose of companion planting whilst at the same time making the garden more visually attractive.

Compost

As you are all aware, I am sure, the starting point for no dig gardening is with the compost heap. However, from the results we have identified the following:

Most of you are making compost but nearly 2/3 of you find it difficult to make enough and a 1/3 are not happy with the quality. The reason why some are still digging is because they can not source enough compost.

This is an area of concern as ideally we would like to think all were able to make or source enough compost. Some comments regarding this issue included:

"I do not have enough space in my garden"; "can we encourage farmers to produce and market compost" ; "I now collect leaves and extra materials from outside the garden".

We will be addressing these issues in future newsletters and to help us do this we are very pleased to have the help and support of Richard Higgins (see introductory article by Richard in this issue (page 9)

Comments on the benefits of no dig gardening agreed there were;

"Less back ache, healthier worm population, less weeds, and less clods"

"Compost was excellent to improve heavy soils"

Benefits and potential benefits

In looking to the future we need to maintain and attract new members to the GGA. We asked for your feelings on existing and potential services that may complement the benefits currently on offer.

There are of course indirect benefits that we do on your behalf to promote good gardening such as, the schools projects ‘sowing the seed’, attending exhibitions and giving talks.

Existing benefits (% happy with)

Well, what can I say. Thank you for being so positive about the newsletter. There is a great deal of work that goes into producing it and it is very nice to have such positive feedback.

Potential benefits (% saying yes)

Due to restricted resources we will attempt to introduce only the benefits which scored highest. From this it is quite clear that more than _ of you would like to have your soil analysed for mineral content. I have already begun looking into this and have established that what will be of most benefit is to have the soil analysed for mineral and biological content which includes mycorrhiza. The current thinking is that until you get the soil’s biological content in good shape you will not achieve the desired uptake of minerals and trace elements into the plants.

Age and gender

This was left as an optional question which most returns answered. From this we have determined that the average age of the GGA is 66 with the youngest being 37 and the oldest 89. The split between male and female is almost 50/50.

Summary

The response to the questionnaire was very good and from it we have found that your preferences are 1^st gardening followed by nutrition, sustainable development, vitality and then spirituality. All are happy with the newsletter.

All of you are gardeners with a specific interest in growing vegetables, fruit, flowers and herbs, in that order.

Most make their own compost and practice no dig gardening. One third are not happy with the quality of their compost and two thirds of our returns can not make enough.

You are happy with the literature we offer and nearly 2/3rds appreciate getting discounts on Pinetum Products. From a list of potential benefits the idea of developing a soil mineral analysis service scored the most. This will become a focus for the Good Gardeners’ Association to develop for the future.