If you’ve ever fancied having a go at growing your own herbs and vegetables, a new series of spring gardening sessions at granton:hub could be just the thing to get you started.

Starting on Friday April 26 in the community garden at Madelvic House, the sessions are being run in collaboration with granton:hub and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

The six sessions, which will be held on Friday afternoons from 2-4pm, will be taught by Elinor Leslie, who works in the Edible Garden at the Botanics. She has huge experience in growing veg, herbs, edible flowers and all the associated skills of how to start up and manage a veg plot and keep it going throughout the year.

A number of members of the granton:hub gardening group will also be on hand to share their expertise, including Louise Knight, Katharina Andres and Leonie Alexander. Leonie works for RBGE as Urban Biodiversity Project officer and jointly runs the GH wildflower nursery with Katharina and other volunteers. 

All sessions self contained and materials are supplied –  so please do feel free to come along to as many sessions as you like.

They’re also free of charge, although a small donation of £2 for refreshments is always appreciated.

To help us anticipate numbers, let us know if you’d like to attend by emailing:  community@grantonhub.org

The six sessions:

Friday April 26 – Getting Started

How to plan what, where and when to grow. Elinor Leslie from the Botanics’ Edible Gardening Project will help participants complete their own sowing and harvesting calendar, highlighting the kinds of plants best suited to starting off inside, in a cold frame, or sown directly outside.  2-4pm.

Friday May 3 – Square Metre Gardening

If you just have a small space you can still grow loads of veg. Elinor will cover what plants are suited to this approach as well as how to maintain a selection of yummy produce to eat right through the season. 2-4pm.

Friday May 17 – Edible Flowers

Flowers are nutritious, and can be great for enhancing the look of a meal – as well as helping to discourage insects planning to eat your veg. We will cover which flowers are good to eat, and some ideas for how to prepare them, and which ones to definitely avoid! 2-4pm.

Friday May 31 – Pests and Diseases

We like to grow nutritious food, but insects and other wee beasties also enjoy eating it! While we all might like to adopt the principle of 10% for nature, there are some great tricks we can teach you to avoid losing your entire crop. 2-4pm.

Friday June 14 – Composting

Find out the secret of making really perfect compost. Learn how we can make it from waste, which we can then use to grow our next crop of plants. Discover the best materials to use in the right proportions, as well as what is not recommended. We’ll also cover the best containers for your compost! 2-4pm.

Friday June 21 – Group Topics

We thought you might have a few ideas of your own after five sessions, so we’ve left a space today specifically for anything you might have an interest in finding more about! We hope that Ideas will emerge as the course progresses, and we will take a note of these as we go along. However, please do let us know at any stage if you have any ideas on topic you’d like covered on this final afternoon. 2-4pm.