Education

Members and visitors

We welcome both visitors and members with or without experience of Organic gardening. We are keen to help people get started, and recognise we are all learning together. There are ever longer queues for allotment space, and a growing interest in growing food locally, whether with the aim of reducing food miles, saving money, or just knowing that pesticides have not been used.

Schools

Since 2002 we have welcomed a variety of groups from local schools onto the site. Mark rears a selection of more exotic insects at home, and on some events we have had 60 children looking round the site at the vegetables and watering system, dipping the pond, and then seeing a Tarantula, stick insects, resident newts from the pond, leeches out of the stream, and a slow worm.

Thank you card from Matt at Hillborne school

Permaculture courses

A number of permaculture courses from across Dorset have used the TOPS site for practical sessions. One of our members, Gary, is a permaculture teacher, and Aranya http://www.aranyagardens.co.uk has also run several courses here.

Permaculture talk on site March 2006

Family involvement

We are a family friendly site, with children from several families having grown through the Patch, wading in the stream, and building dens amongst the wild flowers.

Open events

In May 2009, we held our first formal ‘Open Day’ as part of the Big Green Fortnight. We were priviliged to have Brigit Strawbridge come to visit the site, and a steady flow of interested people throughout the day.