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edibleculture

Naturally Inspired. Simply different.

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Covid questions

15th October 2020 by edibleculture

We sometimes get questions from journalists about what we do at Edibleculture and its interesting to show my (David) responses set against what they choose to say. Horticulture Week is pretty good as it seems balanced.. these questions are from them. Its been a interesting last 6 months and we are more determined to push through our ideas against the tide of profit over planet.

  • Has demand suffered since March/the beginning of the pandemic? If so, why? Like a lot of nurseries and garden centres that offered delivery/pickup from site we had a massive increase in sales via phone and internet. This became evident after about a week where (just) before we had furloughed staff and thought ‘is this the end of our business’? Peat free compost sales were very large (50% up on last year) with new people picking up on our bag for life idea and coming back for lots of refills to create raised beds. Because we had a very up to date list of our plant stock gardeners went for a lot of specialist seed grown stock and wildflower/bee friendly stock.. wildlife gardening is going to be big for us in the coming year and with the relaunch of POSIpot we are going to re-invest and build on the experiences of the last few months.. now is the time to take risks and follow what feels right.
  • If not, do you think any of that is due to the influence of increased coverage from nature and environment programmes? eg Blue Planet 2? I would say that 50% of customers had an awareness of our approach to the environment and our campaigning stance against plastic misuse/greenwash in horticulture.. they obviously have an awareness of just how precarious the earth future looks by watching programmes like Blue Planet. With the remaining 50% we gained a lot of new loyal custom, when we delivered plants in our POSIpots, weighed seed/feed and turned up with bag for life peat free compost.. many had no idea a company was doing this. The best argument is not just talking but doing.. As David Attenborough said.. Covid will be a footnote in human history, climate change will change everything. Gardening became very important to people during lockdown, I spent a lot of time just sitting, relaxing and watching nature.. the concept that a ‘perfect’ outdoor room seems redundant.. we advocate always wildlife friendly.
  • What do you see in the future for Edibleculture? We have had a small grant from our local authority, and we have invested this in a wildlife gardening shop made from a rather beaten up shipping container. I see shipping containers as great selling spaces and have really enjoyed restoring and setting up the space. Wildlife gardening will be big this year as people reflect more on the outdoor spaces they oversee. During lockdown we noticed wildlife thriving and air quality improving.. A lot of people are questioning their actions and how they live at the moment, what do we really need to be happy? I personally took real joy at a very scary time in seeing wildlife closer and more confident..
  • How do you ensure there is no long-term detrimental consequences of your products damaging the environment? Running a business will generate waste/carbon, it can’t be helped. Offsetting will mitigate and luckily by selling and often giving away trees and plants we believe we are carbon positive. Now we have completed the plastic circle within the business we have a handle on any bulk plastics that need specialist recycling. Broken pots, compost bale wrappings and general packaging that comes into us is sorted, graded and sent to specialist companies for recycling. The real problem for the environment from horticulture is..
  1. The re-branding of plastic pots as ‘green’ because they are not black anymore (Taupe) – This is the worst kind of greenwash because it excuses growers (and buyers) to think they are doing something positive.. but in reality, keeping a polluting and destructive product going. Even the miniscule percentage that is recycled wastes a huge amount of energy.
  2. Peat and peat-based compost, destroying a fragile eco system and the best carbon store we have?
  3. Plastic packaging of compost and sundries. Single use and unrecyclable.
  4. Imported cheap plants from countries who have a competitive advantage because their governments support what they do. The UK nursery industry is in sharp decline, it needs to be supported to be greener, experimental and seen as a living wage career.

The nub of this is who sees the true cost of plastic misuse or peat mining? Not the producers or disseminators of these products, whilst a bag of peat compost is cheap from a supermarket what is its true cost??

  • Has there been any concerns from customers regarding the logistical side of implementing your products? We choose not to sell our plants online as we hate the packaging waste and general reliability of the courier system. We receive goods from companies and even after asking for no plastic we get reams of the stuff. We delivered ourselves throughout lockdown in our electric van and I know that sounds really smug but for us it feels the right thing to do, we are lucky living in a relatively affluent area, people like to come to us as we give a lot of advice. Our shop is the big surprise, when we started, we thought we would be tree planting to generate revenue.. it’s the face to face (with a mask on) which is our big earner… we are really open about what we do, and we are not perfect but always try to explain our processes to customers.. I know we could make good money from web sales but it’s not our thing.
  • How does Baaslug anti-slug mulch work? Baaslug is our new product for the spring working with Romney marsh wool company. It’s a wool and bark mulch which we have testing over the summer.. we are really excited about it as it allows us to use on site packaging like our compost bag for life and lined paper bags. With the banning of chemical based slug pellets, we think we have a great product, locally sourced and reasonably priced.

If there’s anything else you think I haven’t covered with these that’s important please feel free to tell me about it too. I may return with some follow-up questions. That’s no problem.. I love having a rant on my days off!

All the best

David

Filed Under: Uncategorised

Christmas Trees

11th November 2020 by edibleculture

Locally grown Christmas Trees for sale 2020! SOLD OUT!

Come on in, we are fully stocked with both cut and potted trees! SOLD OUT!

This year you can reserve a tree (50% deposit – non refundable).. email or phone through your size and shape requests or just turn up and choose!

Everything we sell is single use plastic free.. our trees are bound with hop twine! Find our more here

Christmas trees – We will be opening our Pop up Christmas shop at the Abbey from the 23rd of November to Christmas Eve with an amazing range of…

Local ‘non-drop’ Nordman cut trees – Grown in Kent, our trees support local jobs, are not transported a huge distance and we offer a free recycling service when the season is over.
Amazing gifts  From gift

Square tote planter kit

kits to house-plants, garden tools to locally made soaps we offer something sustainable and plastic free. go to shop stock
Wreaths and table displays – Locally sourced hedgerow wreaths made on site.
Potted trees and seasonal herbs – From tiny potted blue spruces to the best fresh herbs for your Christmas dinner.
Tree stands and decorations – robust UK made treestands and our own home-made tree decs.

So much to see and some really interesting gifts..  This year we have focused on safety and making your visit as enjoyable as possible. We have space to browse!

Open 9 to 5, 7 days a week, free parking, dogs welcome and guaranteed Covid secure yuletime bon ami!

Filed Under: plastic free

Bareroot Season Now On!

22nd December 2019 by edibleculture

bareroot
Lifted bareroot stock

Bareroot – Its been a really good year for us at Edibleculture and now we have that time of the year when the air shifts, the leaves on the trees have all gone and we look forward to selling bareroot! Last year we had some great orchard projects and our thrust this year is to do more bareroot because of its plastic free and establishment benefits. We have seen a real growth in people wanting to create a mixed edible plant, permaculture or agroforestry mix, this year we have a great selection. Have a look at our nursery section. Our bareroot season runs from late December to early March, this year we have..

  • Big range of fruit trees species include apple, pear, damson, medlar, mulberry, cherry, plum, gage and cobs.. any many more. Heritage and popular varieties in bush, half-standard and trained form.
  • Our Treecover native tree selection including Oak, yew and Alder. Buy as kits with our new plastic free rabbit guards.
  • Soft fruit including blackcurrant, white current and gooseberry (red, white and yellow). Lots of interesting fruits like Figs and Paw-paw!
  • Shrubs like Mock orange.
  • Hedgerow plants like Sloe, Wild Roses and native cobs

We have a great range of plastic free planting aids including Kent coppice posts, Eco rabbit guards and mycorrhizal fungi… natures growth promoter.

Like everything we do our aim is not to allow any single use or dubiously recyclable plastic out of our business. This now extends to our new Hessian tree ties.

What is Bareroot.

What is a bareroot plant as compared to a potted plant? Lifting a young fruit tree for example is possible because it is dormant in the winter..  Bareroot trees are field grown and have a innate hardiness that enables successful replanting in your garden. All commercial fruit trees tend to be bareroot for ease of planting and cost. Our methodology is the same, we like the choice we can offer.. the ease of transport.. the environmental consideration of not using pots, compost or heating… best of all our trees are hardened and tough as old boots and we feel fully confident that the 1 year guarantee we offer on all stock wont be needed.

Buy Bareroot

This year our nursery will be open 7 days a week throughout the winter, this is a first for us as we now have staff. Normally we close to plant orchards or complete fruit tree pruning work, this year you can come in, get great advice and buy straight from our bins.

Filed Under: fruit tree work, plastic free Tagged With: apple, bareroot, fruit, pear

Plastics in Horticulture

18th December 2019 by edibleculture

I did a Q and A via email for a horticultural business magazine, I thought it interesting to publish it here…

It would be really great if you could tell us about what your garden centre is doing to help reduce plastic and with it being such a big issue, how are you raising awareness in your shoppers about buying and gardening more sustainably.

We took a long hard look at our practices as a horticultural business last year, we were taking steps before the switch to plastic free selling.. stop using peat and pesticides was the most important. We consider human created climate collapse to be the single biggest threat to our existence on earth and the consequence.. our contribution to the decline/destruction of entire species of animals and plants. Our actions are not a business ‘trend’ or career decision, it is not a business opportunity to capitalise on… frankly, future challenged generations will laugh at the concept of profiting from climate collapse. You may not want to hear this in a business magazine, but free market capitalism and consumerism got us in to this mess, greenwash won’t get us out of it.

The awareness of customers is already there, they can see and feel the change in climate.. they read the evidence from scientists around the world. Our role now should be to accommodate growers to make choices, to choose to reject plastics in any form be it pots, bags, rabbit guards etc. The current horticultural industry is still bound to plastic and waste in a similar way to supermarkets. Since the rise of plastics in the 70’s the convenience of plastic its use has become almost invisible, we (did) expect everything we buy to be cocooned in the stuff, hermetically sealed and safe. It has become the language of convenience buying for people with busy lives. Blue planet brilliantly illustrated the true cost of that convenience and the horticulture industry has been struggling to justify its actions since that.

It is hugely important that we have a thriving kinder horticulture sector in the UK, it has an important role to play with addressing climate change/nature collapse, linking people back to nature (and its inherent mental health benefits) , growing food and carbon capturing. Consumers love what we are doing, it is not as ‘convenient’ as before.. but look at what that convenience has given us!

Do you have any set schemes in place? If so, how do these work and have they so far been effective?

The biggest thing we have changed is internally recycle all plastics, nothing leaves our site except for specialist recycling. We have drastically reduced our energy use and we now only grow plants useful to UK nature..

  • We have designed and created POSIpot which is a ‘point of sale’ swap pot.. we decant from plastic to POSIpot, made from waste cardboard which can be planted in the ground with the plant. This has been a great success with customers going out of there way to buy from us, we wash and reuse the plastic pots.
  • We have invented the peat free compost ‘bag for life’ scheme which means customer buy a super tough recycled bag that we refill from bulk. This now extends to mulches and even logs in the winter.
  • We are pushing bareroot plant sales – Fruit trees, soft fruit and shrubs.
  • We sell feeds, seeds and liquids by volume not packaged up.
  • We plant orchards plastic free with plastic free ties and guards.
  • We do lots of other things like only buy UK made products like garden tools and pots. We spend a lot of time assessing the carbon footprint of all our purchases and actions. The next big purchase for us is a large electric van for deliveries.
  • We are based in a school and we work closely in environmental projects with the students. Our aim is to set up a reprocessing centre for garden plastics, already all our broken pots are sorted and shredded and made into new objects at the school.

I would say overall our actions have been positive, best of all it feels the right thing to do. Customer feedback has been brilliant. We are growing the business slowly and we now have staff members who we can pay a decent wage and train. We have not got everything right, but it is an enjoyable challenge.

It would also be great to hear about how you’re encouraging garden shoppers to shop and buy more sustainably.

We work with community groups including schools and green pressure groups, we actively donate plants we won’t sell and offer our time to specific projects.. this visibility has side benefits. We are lucky living in an affluent area of the country, price is not always the key consideration and we are surrounded by quite a few quite garden centres with pretty much the same imported or off site grown stock.. we definitely offer something different and interesting. We also have opinions and we are not concerned about disagreeing with established thinking. Small businesses need this.. they should celebrate having some character. Our customers are our biggest asset.. they are our advocates.. they can smell greenwash and insincerity at a thousand yards!

Filed Under: plastic free

POSIpot is a winner!

7th September 2019 by edibleculture

POSIpot won best new Product at the Horticulture Week Four Oaks show and went down a storm with both growers and garden centre owners.

It was a great sharing our experience of treating plastics differently, major exhibitors this year were the plastic pot manufacturers pushing basically the same unrecyclable pots but in a vast array of different colours.

Our first trade show was a positive and we will be back next year with more disruptive products to challenge the horticulture industry.

Filed Under: Uncategorised

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