Teaching

IEL is not just about growing food for the community. It is about creating communities which can grow their own food and look after themselves. We believe that food resilience needs to be built now, urgently, as a sensible response to the coming polycrisis of climate change and wildlife loss. So far successive governments have been woefully lacking in taking this seriously, so it is time for citizens to do it themselves.

Beginners Course in Food Growing 2026

On 7th March 2026 15 people, all beginners to growing their own food, turned up at Fearon Hall for our IEL Beginners Course. This included an 8 year old and a 13 year old. How wonderful to see that level of enthusiasm in the young!

On 13th June at the end of that morning’s gardening we celebrated the completion of the 12 session course with coffee and cake in the lovely Rectory Wildlife Garden.

What did we learn?

Indoor sessions at Fearon Hall covered keeping soil healthy, watering, dealing with pests and diseases, and the benefits of crop rotation.

Practical sessions took place in the gardens around Fearon Hall and at the Corner Garden. In the greenhouse we sowed around 14 different crops, learned how to make good peat-free seed mixes, when to prick out and pot on seedlings, when to plant them out, and how to harvest successfully.

We also explored the value of cover crops, the importance of flowers for pollinators, built a trellis, installed hoops and nets to protect crops from pigeons, and completed five practical compost-making sessions.

It was a lot to pack into 12 sessions, but no one complained!