Tomos Hawkesworth
Old Allangrange Farming Partnership – Practical horticultural internship: learning how to grow food sustainably
In 2024 I was an intern in the market garden at the stunningly beautiful Black Isle Brewery. I have taken a circuitous route to growing. I have always loved nature and wanted to participate in building a sustainable future for all, but my approach to that had been lab-based. As such, my growing experience coming into the internship consisted of a few months WWOOFing and weekly volunteering at my local organic market garden in South Wales. Therefore, this internship has been absolutely crucial as an entry point into the market garden world. Without this internship, I would not have been able to build up the skill set that I now possess and would have remained on the outside looking in.
The market garden team was small and the space we managed was around 3 acres, with a mix of vegetables, fruit, herbs, ornamentals as well as a Keder polytunnel. Our main remit was to grow produce for the Black Isle bars – think salads, leafy greens, tomatoes… – and other local food businesses. As a small team, we all had to take responsibility, whether that be managing customers orders or coming in on the weekend to ensure the crops were watered.
Across the season, we grew a total of 41 different vegetables and herbs from seed. I learnt which crops are related to each other, their growing requirements, their regular pests, how to recognise disease and how to care for them.
My favourite parts of the internship, and the parts of the experience that I am most proud of, has been to set up a weekly stall to sell our produce to the local community and to have saved seeds. Saving seed is important for building crop resilience,and with the climate crisis deepening, and weather becoming less predictable and more extreme, having crops that are well-adapted to their locality will be crucial if food systems are to remain resilient. After becoming entranced by seeds, I will be applying for the seed production training with the Gaia Foundation for the coming season.
Following the internship, Tomos is now employed as a member of the market garden team.