Garden Organic

Garden Organic is the working name of HDRA, the national charity for organic growing.

Garden Organic, the national charity for organic growing, has been at the forefront of the organic horticultural movement for nearly 50 years. Dedicated to researching, demonstrating and promoting organic gardening, farming and food, and supported by a membership of over 40,000, we are reaching over three million beneficiaries worldwide with specialist advice and practical information.

Garden Organic operates research and international development programmes to help large- and small-scale growers adopt organic methods across the UK and overseas.

Our Heritage Seed Library, unique in the UK, conserves over 800 varieties of rare vegetable seeds to protect them from extinction and help ensure a sustainable food supply.

Garden Organic�s sustainable waste management programme has trained over 500 Master Composter volunteers to help spread the home-composting message across the UK.

Over 10% of schools in the UK are signed up to our educational programme, Duchy Originals Garden Organic for Schools, helping children and young people grow their own organic vegetables.

We manage three demonstration gardens; Garden Organic Ryton in Warwickshire, Garden Organic Yalding in Kent and Audley End Organic Kitchen Garden in Essex in association with English Heritage.

Garden Organic Ryton has ten acres of landscaped grounds with over 30 inspirational gardens demonstrating the benefits of organic growing. Home to the Heritage Seed Library, Britain�s Best Organic restaurant, the Vegetable Kingdom and award-winning shop, this site has recently received a British tourism award.

Garden Organic Yalding, featuring 14 gardens in five acres, provides a unique tour through gardening history whilst demonstrating organic growing techniques. Plants are chosen to ensure historical accuracy as well as to suit local growing conditions.

Audley End is a Jacobean stately home owned by English Heritage. Garden Organic painstakingly restored its walled kitchen garden in 1999. Rescued from an overgrown semi-derelict state it now looks as it would have done in late Victorian times - full of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers.

Garden Organic also actively campaigns on issues vital to both people and the environment including health, sustainability, climate change, GM trials and garden grabbing.


Charity Registration No. 298104.

For more details of our work and our membership, please look at our website.