grow

Desperate to be a Food Grower?

  • Join us for our *new* in-depth outdoor practical learning & growing programme in North Oxford
  • 20 week programme covering all the essentials for food production and food enteprise
  • Weekly structured group lessons covering in detail how to grow different crops & food types for sale

You will receive a certificate for the successful completion of all weeks of the programme.

BOOK NOW

What we cover

  • Fruit, Veg, Herbs, Nuts, Edible Flowers
  • Earning £ from food production
  • Organic growing methods
  • Ecological food production
  • Healthy soils
  • Setting up a food enterprise
  • Polycultures

Apply today for your space

What's included

  • Weekly group teaching sessions
  • Mentoring support 
  • Your own food production growing plot
  • Access to sales routes
  • Business support
  • Tools
  • Seeds

Want to discuss?  Get in touch

Start date: March 2023

Chard, Lettuce, Runner bean and Broad bean seedlings. Buy your vegetable seedlings from edge this yearEdge vegetable raised bed with straw mulch for low maintenance growingFungi growing in one of our edible raised beds - so many plants growing and soil so moist, it has created its own micro climate!Vegetable seedlings growing in a greenhouse - edge sells edible plants

Growing edible plants

  • We grow edible plants in our nursery where we can completely control and regulate the growing environment
  • We use our plants for teaching and our public Forest Garden
  • We grow fruit and vegetables in our public Forest Garden in Florence Park, Oxford
  • We maintain the Forest Garden as part of our teaching courses, and voluntarily
  • We design growing spaces for schools, colleges and universities as well as cooking schools and catering colleges
  • We have experience in growing a wide range of fruit (including citrus), vegetables (annual and perennial), herbs & spices (modern and historic), edible flowers, nuts and honey and egg production

Our growing principles:

  • Chemical free - no pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or insecticides
  • No digging - minimum interference with the soil in order to maintain soil health and ecosystems
  • No bare soil - using mulches and groundcover plants to retain water in soils, reduce weeds & minimise water use
  • No walking on growing beds - soil compaction disturbs the soil food web & prevents effective drainage
  • Polycultures - always desgining for more than one plant in the growing space - for maximum produce, minimum labour & optimum soil health
  • Agroforestry & Perennials - integrating trees within growing systems to maximise produce & using perennials to reduce labour
  • Prioritise heritage & UK varieties & named varieties (not hybrid seeds)
  • Seed Saving
  • Grafting with scion wood (cuttings) from local orchards 
  • Peat free growing media
  • Minimal use of plastic pots, reusing where possible

At present we sell:

Fruit trees

  • Apple, Pear, Plum, Damson, Greengage, Quince, Cherry

Soft fruit bushes

  • Black, Red & White currant, Gooseberry, Jostaberry, Worcesterberry, Thornless Blackberry

Climbers

  • Loganberry, Japanese Wineberry, Tayberry

Perennial vegetables: 

  • Good King Henry, Sweet Cicely, Rhubarb

Herbs

  • Culinary, medicinal and tea varieties of herbs including more unusual herbs such as Lovage, Winter Savoury and a full range of mints – from Lime Mint to Lavender Mint

Edible flower plants

  • Chives, Borage, Calendula and many more – perfect for brightening up a salad!