Learn from Charles about growing all kinds of vegetables and many fruits too, productively, healthily and with less effort. I explain and show you the great methods I have evolved, using no dig and organic principles.
Both day and weekend courses are available at Homeacres garden in Somerset. They include Steph’s amazing lunches, so f you have dietary requirements, please say this when booking.
To book a course, scroll down and click on a date you want, to bring up a new page with “Add to basket” tab for payment by card. The price includes 20% VAT.
We sell course vouchers which the recipient can redeem at their convenience
Ideas for accommodation are at bottom of this page
We’ve learnt so much and yet it feels like it’s not out of reach to achieve success.
Jeremy Ratcliff
2018 Course Attendee
Early spring course day, checking a dig/no dig trial
Charles with a group in July, demo of walking on beds
Course lunch and Steph’s dishes: in fine weather we eat outside as well
Course group October
Day Courses
10.30am to 4pm £170, includes refreshments, VAT & Steph’s feast of homegrown vegetables.
Thank you for the course, I enjoyed it immensely and learnt a lot despite having read all your books! Lottie Shuttleworth, September 2018
We start with the principles of no-dig growing, how it saves so much time, for harvests as good as if not better than in dug/tilled soil. You see how to create a productive garden, even when a beginner, and how to be on top of weeds, including couch and bindweed. Experienced gardeners learn time-saving methods to increase the growth and health of their plants.
Going to one of Charles Dowding’s No-Dig Days completely changed my way of managing my allotment. I almost didn’t believe the results could be so good having read about it, l like to see things with my own eyes! Using cardboard mulched over with compost/well rotted manure was like having at least 2 extra pairs of hands keeping the weeds down. The cardboard was free from work, there are 3 of us now doing this on our site & in January the weed-covered plot next to me was taken over by another no-dig enthusiast!
Helen Tierney
Course Attendee
Gardening is often made to sound more complicated than it is, especially with regard to feeding plants and coping with weeds. I empower you with understandings of the methods you see at Homeacres, which you can then adapt to your own garden. Homeacres is a quarter acre market garden and a field lab too, there is loads to see and learn from.
I attended a day course with you and Steph in your new plot in 2013 and immediately created new no dig beds on the back half of our lawn- going great guns ever since- your tips and tricks were brilliant and still ringing in my ears! Results improving each year 🙂
Susan Torry, September 2015
Getting started – clearing grass and weeds by mulching rather than digging.
Making soil clean of weeds – a prerequisite to having time for creative work.
Different composts and manures, when and how to use them for best results.
Different ways of making compost, what ingredients work best. There is plenty to see in the heaps here!
A look at Homeacres’ trials and comparisons – dig/no dig, fork/no dig, non-rotation, and different composts.
Sowing and propagation – directly in modules, pricked out, or into surface compost. We look at examples.
Seasonality and timing of sowing for strong, healthy, growth.
Energy influencers: the moon, biodynamic preparations, copper tools.
Growing
Uses of fleece and mesh to speed growth and protect from pests.
Reducing slug numbers, protecting crops from other pests.
How and when to pick crops for healthier, long lived plants.
Advice on polytunnels – size to use, orientation, and what to grow in them.
Advice on fruit, especially apples, with different varieties now in their eighth year.
It was fantastic to meet you both yesterday and spend such an inspirational day at Homeacres. Thank you so much for all the practical information, the exceptional food and the general sense of can-do, my favourite advice of all being ‘Alleviate your worries!’ I have been converting everyone within earshot to no-dig today, and spent several enjoyable hours renovating a neglected bed of raspberries using compost and polythene, a job so daunting I had put it off for months. Feeling very empowered thanks to you – a great start to the growing year.
Laura Evans
Course attendee February 2020
It was inspiring to see how you grow so much, and to see no dig in action. Most of all though it was learning so much about your approach that really made the day. The focus on keeping it simple and debunking some of the more complicated elements is really motivating and I found the way you explained everything really straightforward to understand, and to remember.
Ffion Thomas
Course Attendee, February 2017
We start at 10.30am, so please arrive a little before; and we finish around 4pm. The day includes Steph’s amazing lunch made from vegetables both stored and growing, with recipes from her book and some new ones. Lunch is served with Charles’ no knead rye sourdough bread, made from freshly milled flour.
It was a really special day, this was a birthday present for me and it more than lived up to expectations. I was quite nervous of coming and indeed I did get lost on the way . Today was so uplifting, so positive, I have come home so inspired you would not believe so nice to have a feel good day .
Jackie, March 2019
Thank you and Stephanie for the course I attended with my sisters earlier in the year. I have achieved proper hearting lettuces and am so proud of them! All your advice is so logical and sensible and best of all reliable.
Angela Barnacle, July 2018
Many ask for Steph’s recipes and she has written a book The Creative Kitchen, available on her blog.
We so enjoyed the day. You are a font of knowledge for us Newbies and you made everything seem undaunting & achievable.
Julie Maunder
Course Attendee, April 2018
Lunch by Steph May 2018, hungry gap time yet plenty of dishes to enjoy
Thank you for such an enjoyable, intriguing, fascinating and helpful day yesterday!
We talked all the way home, along the beach with the dog, over a light supper (after that amazing spread at lunchtime), and long into the night…about your ideas that really CAN be implemented, the delight of being in your garden and soaking up its beauty of colours and textures, diversity of vegetables, tastes, compost loo, your interesting, diverse knowledge…..phew…I slept well last night!
I love the jolly flowers at the end of each bed….like a satisfied full stop at the end of a well composed sentence!!
Vicky Fowkes and Alan Taylor
Course Attendees, August 2017
Weekend Courses, no dig intensive
Two-day courses £330, include all refreshments, Steph’s amazing lunches, VAT.
The course is about understanding the simplicity of no dig methods, and learning to use that knowledge to garden more efficiently and economically. The main contents are below, but days 1 & 2 often overlap.
The weekend works for both gardeners and market gardeners, often we have a mixture of both. It’s such a beauty of no dig, how you can scale up or down when familiar with the principles I teach.
One difference with the day course is having more time to get to know the other participants, and new friendships or networks often form.
This comment is from a market garden in NE England:
Moving to no-dig is the best thing we have ever done. Some of our produce this year has been amazing. For example we have never had such successful crops of beetroot, celeriac, leeks, tomatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, shallots, over wintered onions and cauliflowers, cabbages….and I can go on. And we put the success all down to the no-dig approach you taught us. Weeds such as chickweed which were such a problem to us last year are no longer an issue.
I tell everyone about how good your approach is.
Bob Paton CBE – Market Gardener at Hexhamshire Organics, October 2019
You have created a very welcoming, relaxed and positive learning environment. It sounds simple to do but so many organisations and individuals fail to achieve this and usually the course experience is all the worse for it. But you nailed it.
Nanette Hudson, August 2018
Day 1– Costs and benefits of creating an undug growing space – 10am-5pm
Setting up an area for market growing: how big, how quickly, mulching inputs.
Maintaining productive soil without cultivation, key to healthier growth with less weeds and better returns.
Weeding, often the Achilles heel of soil cultivators. No dig, no weeds – the details.
Growing in tunnels and undercover, including use of fleece and pest-protection covers.
Day 2– Details for good growing – 9am-2.30pm
Propagation – composts, seed inc. seed saving, trays, sow or prick out, watering, hardening off or not. Heating a propagating space, a look at hotbeds.
Time needed proportionate to costs and returns for different vegetables, depending on local market.
Finer points of both growing and picking salad leaves, currently the only profitable crop for smaller growers.
Tips for selling in less time and the importance of continuity. How to describe your growing to the public.
Accommodation on Saturday night can be at Homeacres in your own sleeping bag for £20, space permitting, or you could book into a local B&B.
Food and refreshments are included, and kitchen facilities for Sunday breakfast: lunch is soup (in cool months), bread and the Stephanie Hafferty salad bar.
It was a real privilege to share the weekend with you. It was enlightening, engrossing and inspiring.
Terms Once a course is booked, and if something unexpected happens your end, we may be able to agree an alternative date, but I cannot guarantee it, particularly if a course has sold out and I have therefore stopped advertising it. Email me to enquire.
Courses By Request
I also run courses at other venues, such as West Dean College, Sarah Raven’s Perch Hill nursery, and in town halls or private gardens.
Mail me via the Contacts page.
More Testimonials
It was such a great weekend. Your garden and way of growing is so inspiring and exciting. And thank you so much for your patience with my myriad of questions.
Phoebe Grubb, April 2018
It’s rare that you look forward to something knowing that you will enjoy it, and it’s even better than you expected. This ranks with our holiday!
I was impressed with the holistic approach from caring for the soil, propagation, maximising yield, dealing with pests organically, harvesting and finally, the best bit, eating excellent, tasty and unusual food that everyone enjoyed. Impressive teamwork both on the day and of course running Homeacres.
Eric Brooks-Dowsett
Course Attendee, January 2017
Thank you to you and Steph for a really enjoyable and extremely useful weekend. It’s left me with so many ideas to think about. I found our group so interesting and friendly too.
Christine Adey August 2016
Many thanks for a lovely day ! It was without a doubt one of the most fun and informative course I’ve been on.
A lot more clarity as a beginner with an allotment as to what I have to do – mulch the weeds with cardboard and compost, create cardboard paths, start on my compost boxes, keep the edges of the beds trimmed and the grasses on the surrounding paths short !! I have a lot of rubbish to take to the local skip too. That’s enough to start with!
Melody Burke
Course Attendee, June 2017
I was so impressed by the simplicity of the no dig approach. Your garden was clean as a whistle, with beautiful, healthy plants and it works so efficiently.
Thanks too to Steph for a gorgeous lunch and warm hospitality.
David Love Cameron, November 2014
Thanks so much for today Charles. My mother really enjoyed the day and how you presented it to us all. We all got something really useful and positive from the day, and the food was wonderful.
Phil Roberts
Course Attendee, June 2014
Thanks for an amazing and inspirational day yesterday. And a great lunch – I look forward to the cook book coming out.
Peter Lowman, November 2013
Thank you so much for a most enlightening day at Homeacres. It was so interesting to receive the information and tips you offered. The delicious lunch that Steph produced was just scrumptious, in all we were all made very welcome and benefited hugely from the experience. I can’t wait to put this all into action.
Hildegard Edwards
Course Attendee, March 2013
Course lunch Homeacres, a mild day in April
A day I taught at the Land Gardeners near Banbury, we mulched and planted
Teaching at Ballymaloe in the Allen’s impressive greenhouse
Terms and conditions
To inform us of special requirements
If you have already booked a course and wish to inform us of any dietary or other requirements, please email us enquiries@charlesdowding.co.uk at least 4 working days before the course date.
All dishes are plant-based (vegan), the bread is 100% rye sourdough, and fresh-ground in my mill. There is a pat of butter too!
Please select from the below dietary requirements:
Vegetarian or vegan
Gluten intolerant
Nut intolerant
Serious food allergy, please specify
Cancellations/swaps
Friends and family are welcome to attend a course in your place, please provide us with the name and dietary requirements.
We can offer transfers to an alternative course date, provided we have been given enough notice (subject to availability). Notice needs to be 28 days, see next paragraph.
Due to the limited number of places at our courses, we are unable to refund purchases unless you give enough notice to enable a resale. If you are unable to attend and let us know more than 4 weeks before the date, we will resell your place. In this case, we can offer you a refund, less a £20 charge + VAT to cover time on admin and the loss of income from Paypal/Sagepay fees.
If we cancel a course
If for unforeseen circumstances we need to cancel a course, you will be contacted and given the option to transfer to another course of the same value, or to receive a refund of your payment.
Accommodation near Homeacres, Alhampton, Somerset BA4 6PZ
