Beki
BIODYNAMIC GARDENER
Beki Hoyland blew into the Forest in the early nineties having worked on Biodynamic and community farms and tree nurseries in Scotland, Devon and France, travelled and lived off grid.
Beki started Dean Community Compost, collecting kitchen and garden waste, before the days this was done by councils; composting it, selling it back to local gardeners and using it to grow veg on a small scale. Working closely with the incredible Biodynamic Garden at Oaklands Park she started and ran a veg box scheme of 100 boxes a week alongside the composting business. As part of the team that started the Community Composting Network she worked on a national level to promote composting as a way of dealing with core issues around climate change.
Since 2009 she worked as a gardener and became the gardening teacher at Wynstones School in Gloucester, building a range of land work that worked with the Steiner curriculum until 2020 when the school had to shut for a while.
In 2010 Blakeney Hill Growers, a community small holding was born, Beki has been a core part of the team since, growing veg, milking goats, tending bees, ducks, chickens and a beautiful hillside meadow. As well as strengthening and developing the local community it provided the opportunity for her two daughters to connect with the land.
Growing up in Camphill Communities around Britain has given Beki a unique view of the world where work, caring for the land, and by extension the earth and creating opportunities for others to engage in the beauty and wonder of the natural world provides meaning and focus to all she does.