Tuinderij Bodemliefde

Tuinderij Bodemliefde is a market garden of 1.5 hectares on the Uitmeentsestraat in Giesbeek, on the Soil Valley test site, where one grower and volunteers grow vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit for weekly boxes and a farm shop.

The vegetables are grown without pesticides or artificial fertiliser, from organic seed, and the soil is fed with home-made compost and worm compost. Their website calls the method biologisch, but the garden holds no organic certificate; what qualifies it here is growing without sprays. The eggs come from the garden's own Lohmann Brown hens, which live in a mobile coop moved to fresh ground whenever a patch is bare, so they have grass, worms and insects all day, plus organic feed. The shop also sells honey from hives on the garden, walnuts from its ten trees, juice from its own fruit and flowers; the oil and vinegar are of unstated origin.

The weekly vegetable box runs from May to the end of November, thirty weeks, in three sizes, with a six-week trial box and an egg subscription alongside; boxes are collected at the garden. The shop is open Wednesdays from 16:00 to 18:00 and Saturdays from 10:00 to 13:00 in that season; in winter a vending machine beside the gate is the only way to buy.

The garden doubles as a test plot for Soil Valley, trying techniques on a small scale and, in its own words, daring to make mistakes.