Allotment - the Where, When, Why and How - Who are Garden Organic

Garden Organic is the new working name of the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA). It's a registered charity, and Europe's largest organic membership organisation - researching and promoting organic gardening, farming and food.

Their Information and Education Section provides advice to over 30,500 members and regularly helps the media, industry and statutory bodies - and let me tell you, the advice they give is backed up by decades of experience; they really know their stuff! In addition, Garden Organic staff write books and articles and appear regularly on television and radio. They have something called the Sustainable Waste Management team which encourages home composting through Master Composter schemes and research related to home composting. To find out what they are doing in your area, visit: www.homecomposting.org.uk.

The real heart of Garden Organic though, is the three organic display gardens at Ryton near Coventry, Yalding near Maidstone, and Audley End near Saffron Walden, all open to the public and attracting thousands of visitors each year - it's a complete day out, and not just for gardeners!

The Heritage Seed Library saves hundreds of old and unusual vegetable varieties for posterity, also distributing them to its members and the International Programme carries out research and advisory work with organisations across the tropics to develop and promote organic practices of benefit to small and micro scale farmers.

Learn more, or join up at - http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/

organic wine allotment photograph by Ricardo.martins, used under a creative commons attribution licence