Celebrating everyday organic heroes

Pukka Herbs and the Soil Association share a passion for the planet, and especially soil, and so do many of you. Our Organic Heroes campaign is celebrating the inspiring, everyday people who are doing their bit by choosing organic.

Meet Rosanna, who is campaigning for her Allotment to be pesticide free

As part of the Organic Heroes campaign, the Soil Association and Pukka Herbs are proud to celebrate heroes like Rosanna who are encouraging those around them to make a change, and working hard to connect their loved ones with the food on their plates.

Rosanna decided to start growing her own food on her allotment for her family to help show her children where their food is coming from, and also to have a cost effective way of providing healthy, home grown fruit, vegetables and herbs.

She is a firm believer in organic farming principles, but has discovered that if others around her in the allotment are not farming organically it inevitably impacts what she is growing, so she’s started a quiet campaign on her allotment to try and encourage everyone who grows food there to go organic, and resist using pesticide and chemicals on their plots. And encouragingly people are rallying behind her.

Together with a group of passionate people, Rosanna utilises the power of community to campaign for greener growing spaces. She uses her skills as an artist to make wooden signs for the allotment, that spur people on in neighbouring plots to resist and say no to pesticides.

School Head Chef, Glyn Owen, tells us how healthy home grown organic food is enriching pupils lives

The importance of a balanced healthy diet in children is a big talking point in the news at the moment. Celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver have long been campaigning to promote the importance of a balanced, healthy diet amongst school children.

And we're proud to introduce a true organic hero in Glyn. Glyn passionately believes in the importance of connecting children with their food, and he can see first hand the impact his freshly grown, organic food is having on the pupils at his school in Bristol.

In 2018, the Soil Association's Food for Life programme and Pukka Herbs provided the school with a veg growing kit to support them to carry on the fantastic work they’re doing to connect children with their food, and they haven't looked back since.

Glyn, along with school gardener Kole, work tirelessly at Whitehall Primary School to put healthy and delicious food on the menu and make sure children grow up learning to grow, cook, eat and love good food. Eating good food and learning where it comes from can be transformative for children – and it’s not just good for their bodies, having a healthy connection with food could improve their wellbeing too!

The children are actively involved in the school garden, where they plant seeds, pick weeds and find out about the many different types of herb and vegetables they grow (and eat) there. As you can see from the video, the children take huge pride and enjoyment about the food they’ve helped produce for their school dinners. The orange pepper is a particular favourite for one very happy pupil.

In the face of climate change and widespread declines in our wildlife, the need to address these issues grows bigger by the day. Read about our organic heroes.

Jo Wright from Organic Blooms is keen to put sustainability top of the agenda in the cut flower industry

When you look into how a lot of the beautiful flowers that we love are grown, the beauty can often fade, so Jo wants Organic Blooms’ British, seasonal, chemical-free flowers to have a positive impact on the environment.

Jo and Organic Blooms grow between seventy and a hundred varieties of flower a year, and adopt a very different approach to large-scale agriculture. Worryingly, a lot of flowers nowadays are grown to be pollen-less which means a lot of modern flower fields are eerily devoid of insect life. But Jo and Organic Blooms are keen to do things differently and work with nature to produce their bouquets.

Jo plans crop rotations with all these different flowers, which helps protect soil quality, and the huge diversity of pollen filled flowers support a vast number of bees, bugs and butterflies.

Organic Blooms also double as a social enterprise, working to benefit local people with disabilities. Jo has always had a passion for working with people with support needs and realised that horticulture could work in harmony with this. Tasks involved with growing flowers are very practical and accessible, Jo has set up her business to involve people with disabilities and bring them along with the business as trainees, giving them skills and enabling them to feel part of something bigger.

As part of the Organic Heroes campaign, the Soil Association and Pukka Herbs are proud to celebrate heroes like Jo who is leading the way for other employers, by demonstrating how you can bring everybody along with your business, all the while producing beautiful, organic flowers that work with nature and support thriving wildlife populations - a philosophy very close to our hearts at Pukka.