Organic Gardening Workshop

So, while I was gone I attended a  great organic gardening workshop.
It was a gift and the perfect gift it was! It was conducted by Bajan-Brit Sharon Cooke who is owner of Garden Wall Designs. 

I consider myself quite knowledgeable in the area of gardening, or maybe the helpless gardeners in my midst have made me the one eyed king in the land of the blind :)!   I was so very impressed with the many new things I learnt, not only from Sharon, but also fellow gardening students. I gleaned a wealth of information regarding plant names, indigenous species and their uses and pest control tips from two elderly ladies who were a comical riot. 

The class was  conducted on a spacious verandah and one of the first things we did was to conduct soil tests on samples brought from our own gardens. This was super easy to perform, requiring only vinegar, and since good soil is key to healthy crops and beautiful blooms, it is something I plan to incorporate in my garden considering my love of zucchini and my inability to fruit them successfully.....sigh.

Each student received a folder of information which we read through and discussed. Talk about new information! Did you know the Mexican Sunflower is an excellent fertiliser? I didn't! And I see them literally all over the place.

We went through quite a few topics and went on a tour of Chrissy lush gardens. Chrissy has so many local fruit trees on her property that she even has a dunks tree. Now who do you know that has a dunks tree in their garden? I would love that! So many trees; annatto, bamboo, sapote, breadfruit, cherry, avocado, casuarina, guava, soursop, pomegranate, sugar apple, golden apple, mahogany, so many trees! She also has an impressive herb garden and a beautiful collection of tropical ornamentals. Oh, on mahogany, did you know you can use the dried pods as firewood? Oh Yes, you can.

After discussing composting, were able to view Chrissy simple and effective compost pile. Composting has also been a challenge for me and seeing it working as simply as a few palettes acting as a dump for leaves,tree trimmings and veggie waste males me think "I can do this." Wire along the bottom was enough to keep out pests and that solved my main concern.. 

We planted seeds, took cuttings and replanted those, transferred plugs to larger pots, a good few hours with hands in dirt...love it. 

I must say a big Kudos and Thank You again to Sharon for a very well organised and informative day. The clearly laid out agenda was maintained to the minute, bottled water was more than amply provided, our host Chrissy (who conducts cooking classes) treated us to wickedly delicious, health snacks and Sharon provided a very impressive take away package of: tonnes of seeds, especially those heirloom varieties, cuttings and all of the projects we worked on during the course of the day. Truly a day well spent. 

You should check Sharon out at http://www.gwdesigncourse.com/

Please forgive the glaring absence of photos. With new things to be learnt and hands in mud, I totally forgot about pictures until I returned home :(