The Cake - Spring 2022

HEALTH & WELLBEING
Guy's Column
Welcome to Guy Pullen, head of horticulture at the charity Hands of
Hope in Hawkhurst. He will be writing a regular column on all aspects
of his job from helping people’s well-being to growing everything
from fruit to flowers
When you look beyond life’s
essentials, what sustains
you as a human being?
Friendship and human
contact; good physical
and mental health; a sense of use and
purpose? We often take these for granted,
but whether it’s through bereavement, ill
health, redundancy, family breakdown or just
plain old bad luck, living without them can be
tough.
At Hands of Hope we aim to tackle some of
life’s thorny issues by connecting people with
nature and each other. We offer opportunities
to carry out meaningful work in a beautiful
location and amongst friendly faces and in
doing so, we tackle food poverty, loneliness
and rural isolation as well as improving
physical and mental health.
Set within 23 acres of AONB land in
Hawkhurst, Hope Farm Garden is a no-dig,
organic market garden growing for food
banks, lunch
clubs and
to tackle
holiday
hunger,
“We garden using the
no-dig system which aims
to preserve the incredible
life force that is soil.”
as well as providing produce for our own veg
box scheme. With only two paid gardeners
working the land, we rely on volunteers to
help us take the produce from seed to harvest
and beyond. In return we offer a life affirming
experience that you just can’t get in any other
way.
This winter, we have expanded our
vegetable garden from 64 beds to 180 beds
and this has taken some effort. Luckily our
hardy volunteers have been keen to get stuck
in and with a relatively dry winter, the work
has run smoothly. We garden using the no-dig
system which aims to preserve the incredible
life force that is soil. For too long, it has been
seen as something that can be bagged up and
shunted around. We assume it will always just
be there for us, but as with any living system,
soil must be nurtured and protected.
No-dig gardening does just this whilst
reducing the need for watering and fertilizers.
Digging on our heavy clay is hard work, so it’s
good to demonstrate a better way.
Beyond the vegetable garden, we have an
orchard, beehives, woodland, fields, meadows
and ponds, all of which need our attention.
Every winter we lay some of the hedges in the
traditional way and this has been one of our
most popular events this year. Hedge-laying
is an art, taking many years to perfect, but the
learning has to start somewhere. After only
one day, some of our volunteers felt confident
enough to take on their own wayward hedges.
Over the next issues of The Cake, I will
focus on some of our core activities – the
joys of volunteering, learning traditional
countryside skills and more.
22 The Cake • Spring 2022