Get Growing!
‘’Even if we have only a tiny plot of land, we should try to grow a few vegetables using organic fertilisers. This relationship to Nature will give us a new vitality.’’ Amma
Amma travels the world visiting many countries and on her biannual visit to Dublin in 2009, Embracing the World volunteers asked her for guidance as to which service projects could be initiated to best serve the needs of the Irish people. Amma suggested they explore ways to help people become more self-reliant and specifically mentioned teaching them to grow their own food. In response, GreenFriends Ireland published the Get Growing Manual and course.
The Get Growing course is a complete guide, as is the manual. It teaches you how to raise, tend and harvest your own homegrown vegetables. We learn how to start an organic vegetable garden from scratch, how to sow and grow, feed, water and protect vegetable plants in harmony with nature.
We all know that with food shortages, rising food prices and growing concerns about modern farming practices, learning to grow our own food is timely, helping us become more self-reliant, establishing deeper bonds with nature and her nourishing energies.
The Get Growing course has been bought to the UK four times officially as well as some allotment teaching sessions. The first one I attended was in 2016 and since then we have held them in 2017 and then more recently at the MA Centre in 2020 and then in Birmingham in April in 2022. When the lockdown situation hit, we even taught online, no mean feat as for many of us this was our first experience of Zoom.
We now have a date for a Teacher Training course in Shanti House at the M.A. Centre. The course will take place over a weekend. It is for a small, committed group ready to train as teachers and to assist the future of Get Growing. Eoin, who contributed to the book, from Ireland, is instrumental in these courses and taught three of us in England to teach the course too. It’s become a group effort requiring quite a commitment, but has been so rewarding and fun to do, especially to see the happiness in people as they go on to grow their own vegetables.
We now have many GreenFriends growing and harvesting their own vegetables in their gardens and on allotments.
Eoin and his wife Domi, who now live abroad, will be returning to Great Britain to train up Get Growing teachers in December. They will come again and run a Get Growing course in Spring 2024.’’ (see below for more details)
By Surya
Why not join in with the fun?
Winter 2023 and Spring 2024: a two part Get Growing teacher training course.
Part one takes place over two days, Sat 9th and Sun 10th Dec 2023.
Part two is from Sat 20th — Sun 21st of April 2024.
Both of these will take place at the MA Centre, Amrita Hall, 211 Fair Acres, Bromley, England, BR2 9YG
If you would like to register for the teacher training course, please click here. If you want to become a teacher, you will need to attend both courses to complete your qualification.
If you are a fledgling grower and would like to simply learn how to start a veggie garden from scratch - join us on Sat 20th — Sun 21st of April 2024. Save that date in your diary — more information to follow.
The courses are all free, however if you are able to give a donation to support the costs of running the course, please do so by following this link to Amma UK.
We hope to see you soon!
GreenFriends UK
