Natural Farming
with Joshua Sparkes
Friday 4 July 2025
10am - 4pm (arrive at 9.30 for coffee/tea)
£140
Group Size - 10 people
Joshua Sparkes has been experimenting with innovative approaches to growing food at Birch Farm in Devon over the last four years. Influenced by his time working and studying in Japan and America he is now trialling different approaches to creating a resilient food system on a wet and windy hillside in South West England.
He is passionate about finding creative solutions to the challenges growing food alongside a thriving ecosystem whilst also running a viable business which supplies year round produce to the local pub, village shop and wider community.
In this workshop he’ll share some of the lessons learnt so far on this exciting project. He will explore the potential of perennial vegetables and salad crops and how he collaborates with chefs to introduce unexpected and overlooked plants to the restaurant table. We’ll hear about their experiments with syntropic agriculture which is an intensive form of agroforestry using ecological succession and regeneration with the end goal of creating a productive forest.
He’ll also discuss the essential role of weeds within a diverse polyculture, why he doesn’t use compost and how creating habitat for insects such as beetles is critically important to the success of the farm as well as their new ornamental and edible garden made on 300 tonnes of recycled aggregate.
We’ll spend some time outside in the afternoon planting up a polyculture bed and either making a bokashi pile or some simple plant ferments.
Joshua started his horticultural career at the iconic National Trust garden of Sissinghurst before pursuing various fellowships which took him to Japan, Sweden, Belgium and America to work and study at a number of different gardens and cutting edge regenerative farming projects such as the Rodale Institute. He is now based at Birch Farm which is part of The Collective at Woolsery in Devon.
Refreshments
Alison will prepare a vegetarian lunch including produce from the garden. Home made biscuits will be served on arrival and we will round up the day with tea and cake. If you have any specific dietary requests do let us know on the booking form.
What to Bring
Check the weather forecast before you travel and ensure you bring appropriate clothing, whether that’s waterproofs or sun hats, or possibly both! You may wish to bring a notebook, camera and water bottle.
Getting Here
Directions will be emailed to you a couple of weeks before the workshop. Use Damson Farm rather than the postcode on Google Maps.
Accessible Payment Options
We would like this workshop to be accessible to those are on a low income, particularly, though not exclusively, gardeners or other land workers. If the full price is a stretch for you please email alison@alisonjenkins.co.uk to chat about the options.
Cancellation policy
As a small business it’s not sustainable to offer refunds. However if you need to cancel your place up to 28 days before the event you will be offered a credit towards another workshop. After that time, the offer only applies if we’ve been able to re-sell the place. It’s not possible to promote cancelled places for re-sale less than 4 days before the event.