Charles' Story

I grew up on the family’s dairy farm in Shepton Montague, with no interest in cows, and was encouraged by my parents to look elsewhere for a career. Yet after graduating from Cambridge University with a geography degree in 1980, I felt a pull back to the land.

After a year of working for the Argyll Hotel on Iona in the Inner Hebrides, where home grown organic vegetables were an important part of the menu (and still are), wind permitting, I decided to have a go at commercial organic vegetable growing in an old orchard on the farm.

This was a marginal thing to do in the early eighties when farmers were still being encouraged towards quantity more than quality, consideration of the environment was minimal, and few people were keen to buy organic food. Yet it felt absolutely the right thing to do.

 
Charles Dowding with Catkin

The soil I started on is a free draining Cotswold Brash and early results from the acre and a half of raised beds were encouraging. My mother was worried about who would buy all the vegetables but, strangely enough, there was always a telephone call when crops were ready (she kindly answered them!). Also I started an early box scheme, just six in that first year.

Over the next eight years I kept taking in more land and built up a large market garden, selling both locally in boxes and through a market stall, as well as to shops in Bristol, Bath and London. But by 1990 I was ready for new adventures and found a couple to run the holding in my absence (they stopped in 1993). In 1991 I lived in an isolated French watermill, then spent some time creating a market garden in deepest rural Zambia, before settling on a forty acre Gascon farm of terrible soil in 1992, from where I married Susie. We ran an abundant and largely self sufficient smallholding, including vines which we turned into wine at the farm, and vegetables which we sold in the local market at Astaffort. Two children and five years later we decided to return to Somerset and a new chapter began, initially with the birth of another son, on my birthday. Firstly I restored some of the barns at Lower Farm for Susie to run a Bed and Breakfast, while the soil kept pulling me as an abundance of home-grown vegetables led to selling some boxes again, in between other work.

Then in 2003 I was encouraged by a local retailer, Bill the Butcher in Bruton, to grow and compose salad bags. These have sold so well (to other local shops and pubs as well) that they are now the main part of a two acre garden of permanent raised beds and fruit trees. A fascinating, beautiful and tasty voyage of discovery to grow all the best leaves for every season has resulted in the salad bags containing between ten and twenty different leaves at any one time, constantly varying as temperature and daylight levels rise and fall. Also I have developed new and reliable ways of continually cropping plants such as lettuce. Increasing interest in my garden, it's produce and my methods have led to many articles for various magazines, lectures including one to the RHS in Tokyo, a book on vegetable growing which appeared in March 2007, and a second one on salad leaves in spring 2008.

Both books have sold well, over 30,000 by early 2009, and have received encouraging reviews. I shall probably write another one on vegetable growing, and perhaps one on the amazing life of Lady Eve Balfour, founder of the Soil Association.

I am often consulted for advice on creating, maintaining and improving vegetable gardens and allotments. Coming on a day course at Lower Farm is a good first step, to see what is possible - and to learn from my mistakes! The many talks which I give to gardening clubs, transition groups, community meetings and literary festivals are received with enthusiasm. I can open your mind to new possibilities, and the photographs of this garden are full of beauty and have great ability to inspire. Please email if you want to find out more about coming on a course, or organising a talk or seminar.