Dear Gardeners,

As the nights draw in and light levels lessen each day, there’s still plenty you can do in the garden. I suggest gathering the fallen leaves and making a heap. When we talk about the green and brown materials in compost, leaves count as brown. They break down slowly, taking around two years, but if you make a separate pile now, you’ll have lovely brown material to add to your compost heap next year. It also tidies the garden nicely and sending children out on a leaf-collecting mission can be great fun.

There are still sowings to make too. Up until mid-December you can plant garlic, spacing the cloves about 10–15 cm/4–6 in apart, in rows 25–30 cm/10–12 in apart. Rows across a bed make access easy for weeding, and also when you come to interplant other vegetables in spring.

In this month’s newsletter, Claire Brown from a school in Cornwall shares how their school and community garden began with no dig beds. You’ll read how each year group gets fully involved in growing, harvesting and eating their produce. They also featured in this BBC article.

And our other big news, Monday 3rd November is No Dig Day! It’s a celebration of growing in a way that looks after and feeds soil life first. Do read the piece Nicola has written about it below. I hope you’ll join in and share the joy of growing with friends and family. There’s a children’s competition, open to ages up to 12, with a nice little cash prize.

This is our last newsletter of the year. I’m grateful to Anna and Nicola who curate this wonderful source of inspiration. I hope it’s served to inspire you to continue or start your work in getting children into the garden. Do email Nicola - admin@charlesdowding - if you have a story you would like to share. The next newsletter will come out at the end of January 2026.

Until then, happy No Dig Day!

Charles

This will be the fourth No Dig Day and the team at Homeacres are looking forward to our annual celebratory lunch. It’s a chance to get together for a chin wag and some delicious no dig veggies. We celebrate no dig for bringing us together in our own little Homeacres community, as well as for all the benefits of growing food the no dig way. For the office staff in the team, there are some important jobs to do. Please do enter our two competitions.

For children up to and including those aged 12, a drawing competition

The title of the drawing is:

What the worms are doing when I’m not looking.

Although we say it’s a drawing competition, children could use any medium they wish. The prize for best submission will be judged by Charles and the winner will receive £50 and a Children’s No Dig Gardening Book. The runner up will receive £25 and a Children’s No Dig Gardening Book.

Please send entries to Anna - [email protected]

For children over the age of 12 and all adults too, a caption competition

We will post a photo of Charles somewhere in his garden on the morning of No Dig Day. You’ll find it on Instagram and Facebook and on the No Dig Day 2025 page of Charles’s website. The prize for the funniest caption is free access to the recently updated No Dig Online Course and the Essential Knowledge Pack which is full of essential details you need to grow vegetables successfully.

We hope you can get together with your community and celebrate No Dig Day. Watch out for a new video from Charles which will be released on the day. If you would like to share what you get up to, use #nodigday and we’ll feature some of your posts on the website.

Have a great No Dig Day!

Sir Robert Geffery’s School and Community Farm has been part of the village primary school for many years, but due to staffing changes during the Covid pandemic, the farm had taken a back seat and needed a new lease of life.

In 2021, with the support of a small group of volunteers and a refreshed committee, we set out with a renewed vision: to bring agriculture back into the daily lives of pupils, giving them as many opportunities as possible to learn outdoors.

In September 2023, during talks with the Head Teacher, we discussed expanding the allotment so that each class could take responsibility for their own growing area. It coincided perfectly with our work with LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) and our ambition to achieve Bronze Demonstrator School status. From this, the idea of a no-dig allotment was born.

Inspired by the work of Charles Dowding, each class helped create their beds from scratch: measuring plots in Maths, laying cardboard in Enrichment, and discussing compost in Science. Children were fully immersed in the process, learning not only how to grow food but also developing teamwork, problem-solving, and leadership skills along the way.

Now, as we complete our second year of no-dig growing, the results speak for themselves. Last summer, Year 6 proudly harvested carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onions, and garlic – the perfect ingredients for Cornish pasties, which they baked and shared on a post-SATs school trip.

Year 1 explored how food can fuel their bodies by growing greens for their very own healthy smoothies and Reception children grew leeks and potatoes, before proudly turning them into delicious soup to share.

From the youngest to the oldest, each year group has been able to taste the rewards of their work. Through this no-dig process, we were successful in our bid with LEAF and became the first primary school in the South West to achieve Bronze Demonstrator School status. As we work towards our Silver award, the no dig allotment is a key feature in our plans. Every September, classes agree together what they will grow, plan crop rotations, and take ownership of the whole process, from seed to harvest.

The benefits extend beyond the school gates too. Surplus produce from the no-dig beds, alongside crops from the main allotment, are offered through our honesty stall, where parents can take items in exchange for a small donation. We also donate to the local food larder, meaning the wider community can share in the farm’s abundance. The children love knowing their vegetables end up on friends’ and families’ plates.

Our no-dig allotment is now firmly part of daily school life. It gives pupils a chance to grow real food, learn practical skills, and understand the value of healthy soil. What started as a small idea has become a shared resource that will keep growing for years to come.

Would you like to share your experience of growing and gardening with children?

However large or small your project, we would love to hear from you.

We hope that by showing what’s possible, others will be encouraged to get started with their ideas.

Please email Nicola: [email protected]

To help with the planning of a school garden, please see this page of my website.

For a Sowing Timeline in the Northern Hemisphere, please see this page, and for the Southern Hemisphere, please click here.

For starting a new no dig allotment or garden, this is the page.

First Tunnels offer schools a 20% discount. Do see their page here, where they feature the Future Gardeners Forum!

We would like this resource list to grow and turn into a toolkit to help set up and run a successful growing space for children, so if you have any resources you think would be helpful, please email Anna, [email protected]

Below are the contact details for the Future Gardeners Forum speakers, 2024 and 2025. Do follow along with their projects via Instagram or their websites.

Alby Jones, @nodigkid

Beth Rochford, @rootzup

Karen Waterston, @thegardenofideas

Helen Cross, @grow_cook_inspire

Tom Houghton, @thecommunitygrowers_cic, @thebostonmarketgarden

Hannah and Ross, @lettinggrow

Lara Honnor – Skool Beanz 
@skoolbeanz

Jess Creasey – Cornwall Grows CIC 
@cornwallgrows

Phil Brown – Headteacher, Bottesford Junior School 
Website: https://www.bottesfordjuniors.com/school-garden/

Sarah Alun-Jones - GROW
@wearegrow
https://www.wearegrow.org

Dan Romans-Hay – Woody School Farm, Streatham
@woodyschoolfarm
[email protected]

Matt Willer – The Papillon Project
@thepapillonproject
https://www.thepapillonproject.com