Within The Garden you’ll find The Folk:

The growers, artists, chefs, activists, and the animals, soil life, stories and songs.

As a collective, Garden Folk works together to maintain the garden, grow food, share skills, preserve our produce and to create rituals, dances, artworks and performances.

We process these fruits of our labour into joyful offerings for our seasonal fetes so we can celebrate the abundance of the garden and all that feed us, our community, the soil and our hearts.

We need folk

There is joy in growing food but there is also much toil.

This is why we are and we need The Folk - because we require more than the rain and the sun and the plants that we harvest.

This is why we gather in the garden and bring stories and song, cider and fun and celebrate to the tune of the seasons here in the Boiling Well Valley.

At our seasonal fetes we open the farm gates and share with our community all that we’ve grafted and gained from the garden - connecting the folk with the food and the locals with the land.

This is Community Supported Agriculture.

This is Folk Art.

This is a returning of the culture that has become lost in agriculture.

the folk of the garden

Amongst our folk and appearing at our events are the creatures and friends of the garden. Perhaps you’ve met?

The worm is the guts of the garden. Moving through the soil to give it structure and life. The worm doesn't talk much but the worm works hard processing decaying matter into soil. The worm is abundant and creates life wherever he goes.

The green woodpecker is the symbol of biodiversity. She brings all her friends to the garden and you can hear her yaffle laugh often in the valley. She is the life of the party, she brings the ruckus and leads us in celebrating the gifts this piece of land offers us together.

The farmer. The honest tiller of the soil. The gardener who spends their day sowing, planting, hoeing and harvesting. At the fetes the farmer always has a nice pint of something in hand. The farmer loves to celebrate their toil in the fields by welcoming all the creatures of the valley and all people to join together in the field to celebrate together.

The Holly King is the personification of winter. Each solstice the Holly king battles the Oak King for dominion over this earth.

The Oak King is the personifcation of summer. A jolly fellow is he.

The strawjack is a harvested grain stook representing harvest and all the work that has been done by many hands, rain and sun to create the food we need to live each day.

The goose dwells in the fields of the smallholding, eatting grass and laying 60 eggs a year. She represents Spring and near Spring Equinox she invites a gaggle of geese to dance the Goose and Broom Dance to sweep winter away and make way for the abundance of a new season growing.

All have their parts to play within the wheel of the year and occasionally join us at The Goose and Broom Bar during our seasonal fetes for an ale and a song and a dance.