"Meet the Masters" event at Garden Organic, Ryton

I spent today at Ryton, the HQ and showcase gardens for Garden Organic

Throughout the spring and summer Garden Organic have been running a series of events called "Meet the Masters" where Master Composters and Gardeners are present at Ryton on a Saturday or Sunday, to answer queries and talk about composting and gardening to the public.

I had offered my services this weekend and, as Compostman and Dear Daughter have never been to Ryton, we all went, along with a friend of El's.

The journey across was a bit long as there was some terrible traffic through Worcester, but we arrived in glorious sunshine ( which lasted all day!)

My fellow Master Composter and Master Gardener had already set up our stall, in the new Home Composting area and I was very pleased to see this had a nice shelter for us to stand under - most of the summer we have been hiding from the rain but today we were sheltering from the hot sun.

The rest of the family went off to join in a garden tour with one of the volunteer guides while I got on with answering questions - lots and lots of questions - from the public!

There was an Exotic Food Fair happening as well, so we had a lot of visitors who had not been to Ryton before, and were not Garden Organic members, coming in to see what was happening. We had some really good conversations and I think we helped a lot of people with their queries about gardening.

There were all sorts of attractions going on, Alpacas being the most popular outside I think! (They were very lovely)

An Indian cookery demonstration, a talk on seed saving, demonstrations of various exotic foods which can actually be grown in the UK ( although you might not have thought so!) and tours of the new Exotic Garden at Ryton.

We had lunch in the excellent cafe and later, some very welcome tea (and scones for the two children)

I think it is a mark of what a terrific place Ryton is, that two 11 year olds were occupied and had fun for 5 hours there. They really enjoyed wandering around looking at the gardens, they LOVED The Vegetable Kingdom  and stroking the Alpacas, they thought the food was really good and the whole place was excellent. They did have electronic games with them which they played with towards the end of the afternoon for a little bit, while sitting under some trees waiting for me to tidy the stall away.)



Compostman also saw some of the things I have been talking about incorporating into our gardens here at Compost Mansion and, while he thinks most of it would cost too much/be too much work etc  - he CAN see the merit in some of what I have been saying so that is good ;-)

I had a chance to look around, with my family, during my breaks - and stroke an Alpaca :-)

Home for tea time having spoken to 45 people on the stall and handed out a lot of leaflets with advice and ideas.

A good day out - so please go, if you are in the neighbourhood - Ryton Gardens is open every day except Christmas Day, and admission is free if you are a Garden Organic member.

Next event is Apple Day on Oct 13th.