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Dear Sue

We are a small-scale nursery and garden shop based in Faversham, Kent. We have done shows with you, promoted your training services and been advocates of what you have done for some years including attending policy launches.

I don’t know if you viewed our piece on Gardeners’ World where we displayed some of our processes which allow us to basically stop the sale of single use plastic, a modern first in the UK. We run a peat free compost bag for life scheme, we have invented and made the POSIpot which stops the sale of a plastic pot at point of sale, we sell feeds and sprays in refills or brown bags.. we have done numerous radical steps that has seen our sales go through the roof, customers being incredibly positive and us taking full responsibility for the plastic in our business.. we have broken the plastic chain.

When we started this last year, we didn’t want to do this half-heartedly, we think that climate and nature collapse demands a radical and inconvenient approach. I say inconvenient approach deliberately; we firmly feel that the small extras efforts involved has had a huge positive with our business… We talk more with our customers; we work more with community.. an example is we don’t throw away surplus plants, we plant up community spaces.. we work with the school we are based to design garden waste recycling processes including ironically a black plastic recycling centre.

We firmly believe that our green model for garden centres and nurseries is the future, the UK nursery business is declining rapidly as your recent report described, very few young people are opening them. What can make UK nurseries community based, relevant and distinctive as compared to the massive import market from the EU and the big players like Crocus online and B&Q on the high street? Respectfully, I have to challenge the RHS to look at how they can rise above the greenwash like taupe pots or the fact that plants pour in from abroad when we should be growing them here, peat free, pesticide free and selling them plastic free.

I have contacted the RHS numerous times to gauge support for our business and share the positives.. I have faced nothing but negatives or not being responded to. I am considering handing back my membership which is a real shame and even if I don’t receive anything from this, I am going to visit nurseries and shout about what we are doing. It is the future…

Kind Regards

David Ware

a week of edible bliss…

Over the week of national garden week we will focused on supporting people to grow herbs, veg, fruit trees and hedgerow crops. We will have special display stations and sample beds to show you how to get the best from your edible haven!

We will be showing how to successfully prune trees with our very own tree whisperer Chris. Come in with problems and questions and we can help you.

Our big focus is plastics and growing sustainably, we can give tips on how you can reduce, reuse and if need be… recycle. We will be swapping seeds and even swapping plants.

Free Parking, Charity tea stall, toilets and undercover activities if it rains.

We will be open from 9 to 5 everyday.. why not come along.

This is the first time since we started our year zero approach I have been able to sit down and bosh out my reflection on our plastic free selling journey so far. We have just had Gardeners World come in and do some filming of our processes and for the first time actually run through our motives and methods with people we didn’t know! I feel galvanised for some reaction when its broadcast.

The guys doing the filming were brilliant and massively patient, Chris and I both felt very nervous about defining motive, it is obvious that worry plays a huge part in why we doing this, a worry about the impact horticulture has on the environment… and being honest people accusing us of greenwash.

Things that are working include the POSIpot sleeves which feel brilliant to pass on, the public reaction is so good and the process of decanting the plant in to the pot takes a fraction longer than when we use to sell plants with plastic pots. We have a healthy stack of pots for washing and reusing.

The compost bag for life scheme is working, bags are coming back to us for refilling, again its got a huge thumbs up from all that use it.

The scoop and save element are going well, people are getting cheaper feeds and seeds and we are making money to.. it all feels the right thing to do.

Things we need to sort are plant labeling within the nursery, we use to print around 7000 plastic labels a year but now we are having to group plant varieties together and when we sell a plant write up a wooden label. We are thinking of a customer self writing process by putting IKEA style pencils and wooden labels for customers to label plants up themselves.

Transferring our larger plants is proving tricky, we have hessian wrapping for soft fruit and fruit trees once they have rooted (should be with the next few weeks) but at the moment the potted on bare root stock we sell cant be de-potted.

We will find solutions and find benefits within the solution, decanting our plants allow us to examine root health before we sell.

Our waste sorting has really come on, we are separating plastics for ‘in house’ processing. I am really enjoying this element as our land fill waste is nearly zero. Cardboard is sorted and recycled and we are really pushing our suppliers not to pointlessly over pack elements we need.

A really big joy is our new electric van, its a Kangoo and the best driving experience I have ever had. Brilliant for playing music in!

In conclusion it has been a challenging process changing our practices, it seems to be working as our the customer feedback is really good and our we are growing the biggest range of plants we have ever attempted. We have a great new staff member as well and this is really helping us.

The cutting of waste and carbon is going to be the only way businesses are going to keep going.. make those changes sooner rather than later.

We have called 2019 our ‘plastic year zero‘ – we have taken a narrative that ‘from 2019 it is now illegal to sell single use plastic as a product or packaging‘

 

Its a huge leap for us a company to do this, our idea is to take all plastics out of the equation when selling to customers and strip plastic and fossil fuels use to the absolute minimum when it comes to how we work. Nearly every element that we have done as a shop and nursery has some plastic content… pots, compost bags, packaging for feeds etc. We know that the plastics industry is desperately trying to mitigate what has been a PR nightmare for them with a growing awareness of unnecessary plastic use.

As a company we say take plastics out of the selling system completely… but don’t deny the benefits careful use of plastic can have as a productive tool, it is not a case of ‘green-wash’ for us, we are looking at every element of what we do from our suppliers being aware of our demands regarding packaging to how we deliver – including increased use of bikes by us to visit customers to replacing our van with a electric vehicle. Our shop signage will now be handmade, we will not produce plastic stick in labels but offer wooden ones, we have so much to change but these are our key areas..

Pots

If we take pots as a example… what we have to except is that no alternative container material exists for growing the plant on from seed, cutting or bareroot. Plastic is the only option for us as a nursery to do this and we have collected 1000’s of pots from you (our customers) with our in-house recycling scheme. We have tried growing in coir, earth block growing, cow dung pots and wooden pots and they are all unsuitable for commercial use, we will continue to grow the plants in our normal way but when we sell the plant we will remove the plug/plant with root and earth from the pot and prime with Mycorrhizal fungi put in a recycled and compost-able paper sleeve to be planted (completely) within 1 week of purchase. The pot returns with us to nursery for re-use. We think we can get around 8 years of use from a pot.. as a nursery we can get the pots recycled within the industry. At the moment only 10% of councils take pots for recycling. We see bamboo, rice and taupe pots as another problem waiting to happen.

Composts and Mulches

We are starting a compost ‘Bag for Life Scheme’ – Last year we sold over 40,000 litres of compost. All of it split in to 50l bags, all of these bags were un-recyclable. When you buy compost from us in 2019 the initial purchase will be the same compost, same volume at the same price. The difference is it will come in a resealable ‘bag for life’ in a handy cube shape, bring the bag back and you will be able to buy the compost for less the price of the bag and we will exchange it for another bag (no waiting for it to be filled).

Feeds, Seeds and Liquid fertilizers

We are going to be transferring this to a weighed or volume system. Our small seeds already come in paper sleeves but our seed potatoes and onions will be sold by weight in to paper bags or your own container. We will not be doing any products in nets.

When you purchase feeds it will be sold in refillable Kilner style jars which again will be cheaper when you refill on return.

Bare-root fruit trees and soft fruit

When you buy a bareroot tree the dormant plant is sold in the depths of winter with no pot or earth surrounding it, it should be the perfect plastic free product. In fact when sold they are wrapped in a large amount of plastic and are expensive to send due to volume. What we will be doing is returning to Hessian wrapping our plants and not mailing our plants. In the summer when the trees are potted they will be wrapped in Hessian within the pot and removed at point of sale.

 

Potted trees

All our potted trees will now be sold without a pot but contained within a biodegradable hessian bag. This diagram breaks down the elements with the kit. It is your choice what elements you want and we can really help with any questions you have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas trees will be sold this year wrapped in Hessian, our potted Christmas trees will be sold in our wooden pots.

Geraint Richards the head Forester for the Duchy of Cornwall mentioned in Gardeners World (July 2018) ‘start buying plants on values.. not value’. This was within a piece in reaction to the governments campaign to counter the ‘smuggling’ in of plant material from abroad. A further report suggests that the importing of plants for the domestic market is the weak link in the UK’s biosecurity network.

As a personal reaction to this I need to admit a couple of things, I have bought back material from abroad over the years, wild grass seeds collected from alpine meadows, cuttings from Greek Mountainsides of wild Oregano and Thyme.. tucked into my wash bag and wrapped in a tissue. I have seen this as one of the nicest mementoes of any trip, I get bored by beaches after a day! I wont be doing it any more, the threat of Xylella Fastidiosa is immediate and on our doorstep.. it seems.

The second thing I need to admit is my doubts, my doubts are raised by convenient isolationism and my (horrific) memories of the perceived and promoted effect of rabies on the UK. Growing up in the 70’s Rabies was something that mainland Europe had and only our channel stopped it sweeping across the nation,  we were one step away from hydrophobia, mad dogs and frothing at the mouth.

I know this did not happen, Rabies (as was the threat of nuclear annihilation) hung over us.. chased us.. worried us.. but it seems that a disease sits over the channel with the ability to strike fear in to every gardener, grower, farmer, wildlife lover and its effects will be profound. But it is all happening at a juncture (not unlike the 70’s) when we our (have) questioned our relationship with Europe and to isolate ourselves further emotionally could look like a blunt tool. When does biosecurity become a political tool? Disease is as a important facet of nature as any part? Is the balance in our hands or nature? crikey thats deep!

I see loads of cheap imported plants from abroad when I visit shows and garden centres, they are normally in full bloom, healthy and doing what blooms do.. selling themselves! They can offer great value for money but I would say 99% of people purchasing don’t ask or care where they were grown.. it is what it is. The importer wants to sell units to pay his lorry costs, passed on to the growers staff at the nursery, pesticide bills, heating bills and then make a profit (normally subsidised by his/her government). If you are a garden centre in the UK that defined, reliable and consistent stock is a godsend! trolleys of units, plants flying off the shelves with not to many questions.

So is the government focus on this issue what it seems? As a business who grows the vast majority of what it sells (on a small scale) I am happy to see the focus return to UK growing of plants. Will this be matched by the kind of subsidies that European nurseries get? as a company we get nothing… no support. I have seen so many brilliant growers who are struggling in the UK and I hope that Government and consumer soon recognise the value of our own growers.

I thought I better put a post in as the last one is about Christmas trees! It has been a brilliant winter, spring and summer (so far). The plants we have grown all seem to be a big hit. I do a lot of markets and the solid reaction I get for fruit trees, tomatoes, chillies and herbs is ‘they are doing really well’. I don’t know why I am surprised, the plants are slow grown, they are weathered and acclimatised.. some bugs have had a nibble.. so they are ready to plant and the advice I try to give seems to work.

We did a interview for Faversham life – https://favershamlife.org/edibleculture/  and I seem to go on about imported plants, we have a few imported plants like Kiwi and Lingonberry (which we have propagated from) but my bugbear is fully in bloom trolleys of plants from Holland or Italy rolling off the lorry straight in to market or garden centre.

No acclimatisation or consideration for carbon footprint.. I wonder what value they have? Is it a plant likely to survive? the fact people are buying plants is positive? Is because I am so close to the growing process I am being to fervent.. to sandle wearing, righteous and a snob.. maybe. People get real pleasure from the purchase, the setting in position.. years of healthy growth and a talking point for visitors.. maybe. I do hope so, but the truth could be not that positive.

A UK based nursery industry with strong ethics regarding what they grow and how things are grown will be a necessity as resources dwindle, I hold my hands up and say I start propagating chillies in January, I use a tiny amount of electricity to achieve some really big plants, these are not native to the UK but what I have found is they love growing outdoors, so long warmish damp summers suit outdoor chilli growth.

Main points I have to remind myself about why we started Edibleculture was.. To enjoy what we do, promote low impact growing, make people consider diversity in food growth and how this can enrich what we eat and keep learning.