This article was first published in One Earth magazine Volume 3, Issue 2, December/January 1982/3.
Please click here for the 1982 prospectus for Project Cullerne by A.D.Barton.

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Project Cullerne One Earth Vol 3 Issue 2 p14After four years of hard work and in recognition of a wider role and larger purpose, the Findhorn Founda­tion Garden School was rechristened Project Cullerne this past October. Originally purchased to expand vegetable production and train Foundation members to garden on a larger scale as a first step on the road to acquiring a farm. Cullerne has flourished under the direction of the father-son team of Fred and Dick Barton.

Both Fred and Dick have been members for nearly nine years. Dick has been the Foundation’s General Secretary and was in administration before joining the garden in 1977. He has been Cullerne’s director since its beginning in October 1978. Fred has been a gardener for over 60 years and is Cullerne’s resident consultant cum horticultural oracle.

The property, when they began, had been set up by the previous owners for animal husbandry. Seven of its nearly ten acres had been put down to paddock over which had roamed several head of sheep and Highland cattle as well as several horses. The change to horticulture required fences to be moved, and an initial 1/4 acre vegetable plot to be dug by hand. The main cattle shed was mucked out and reconverted into a hen house. The main outbuilding which had contained a stable as well as a garage and storage rooms required pro­bably the most work, overgrown as it was round the back by gorse, broom and the usual farmyard rubbish. Spring 1979 saw all this cleared away and the first vegetable seedlings planted out from the former stable which over the winter had become a propagation room. With the help of four apprentice members, developments continued swiftly.

But by year’s end, the financial support Cullerne required was putting a strain on the Foundation’s cash flow and by early spring 1980 when the cabbage seedlings were being planted out, the property was put up for sale. Dick and his fellow gardeners, including two with extensive business ex­perience, met this test of faith by creating a limited Land Trust company that could attract support for the project and energise its educational aspect. The response was excellent: by the end of 1980 the Findhorn Foundation Garden School had come into being and had six students booked for the following March, while the Land Trust had received about £65,000 in donations and investments. Needless to say, the property came off the market.

This new lease of life helped catalyse a wider understand­ing of Cullerne’s potential within the development of the larger Foundation community. Its role as bridge from small scale organic gardening to larger scale farming has been strengthened each year as new varieties and new techniques are tried and tested in its market garden environment. In­evitably due to Findhorn’s far north location and short frostfree growing season, a lot of research has been done with covered growing. During the past two years thirteen net and polythene covered growing tunnels covering over ten thou­sand square feet have been built, and warm climate crops such as tomatoes. cucumbers and sweet peppers have been successfully grown.

Project Cullerne One Earth Vol 3 Issue 2 p 16Another area of growth potential was a nursery business. The British are passionate gardeners, both vegetable and or­namental, and as there is a high demand in the area for good quality plants, it was decided to dip a metaphorical toe into the waters of the local marketplace with the sale of several hundred bedding plants during the spring and summer of 1980. The positive response led to a doubling of business in 1981, while this past summer saw the number of flower and scrub varieties grown for sale top 160 as business tripled. There has been a lot of positive response and interest from local people, with some 140 people a week visiting the gardens during the June-August period-to buy bedding plants or produce, or often just to look around.

The long term vision for the property began to be clarified. When Cullerne was purchased in June 1978, the community was nearing the peak of its population explosion of the mid and late 70s: 300 members and approxi­mately 145 guests would be in residence during an average summer week. Add in the 40 to 50 visitors going around on afternoon tours each day and one can see that Findhorn was becoming increasingly concerned with ‘Cooperation with human nature’ rather than ‘Cooperation with nature’ in its larger sense. Cullerne answered what was then an unspoken need to get back to the land, to let go of the interminable meetings and memos and to get outside into the windy air.

Thus, early on, the potential and need for a nature sanctu­ary or meditation garden was perceived: not a nature sanc­tuary like the wild garden in the original garden planted by Peter Caddy where the nature spirits could frolic unperturbed and undisturbed by humankind, nor a meditation garden where one would cross legs and eyes oblivious of one’s sur­roundings, but rather a garden that would reflect a synthesis of human and extra-human, where the congruence of human nature and supernature would hang in the air so thickly that it need not be explained nor discussed. With the passing of the seasons this wisp of distant vision grew and deepened till this past summer when Cullerne’s gardeners could embrace it more consciously.

The Garden School began in March 1981 with eight students and since then an additional 27 have taken part. Without them the growth in the covered growing project and the nursery business for example would not have been poss­ible. The students have a challenging time as the teaching at Cullerne is intensely practical; there is virtually no classroom work. Rather, the staff create with the property a learning environment. It is up to the student to learn from it. The effect is not unlike that of the craft guilds of the Middle Ages. The students are, in effect, apprentices.

For most of the past two years Cullerne has been identified or equated with the Garden School by the rest of the com­munity. Last spring this became far too restrictive and con­fusing as the various areas mentioned above were growing rapidly in relation to the Garden School. The fastest growing area was the Tree Programme. Conceived and begun by long term member Vance Martin, who is Assistant Director of Project Cullerne, the Tree Programme planted about ten thousand tree seeds this year and within four years or so will become the biggest Cullerne project. The realisation that Cullerne embraced far more than a school led immediately to the creation or more accurately to the recognition of Project Cullerne.

The reorganisation of the Garden School, Nursery, Tree Programme, Land Trust and Meditation Garden under the Project Cullerne heading, led to a further reorganisation of the student programme. No longer are students accepted at the equinoxes and solstices. Beginning in 1983 an eight month intensive ‘Long Course ‘ will be offered which will take participants from seeds to harvest. A four month ‘Short course’ will also be offered for those unable to stay for a longer period.

The development of Project Cullerne has provided many challenges. One of the biggest has been the scarcity of ready cash with which to purchase materials and equip­ment. But this has been a blessing as it has inculcated inven­tiveness and creativity. So much is built with logs. fencing wire and plastic that there are a lot of jokes about third world construction and scavenger technology. Inexpensive, efficient simplicity is always one of the main objects in any project.

Yet as Cullerne continues to grow and develop, inevitably the scale of some of its projects will grow too. On tap for 1983 is the connection of the partially complete irrigation system with the well outside the Universal Hall and the crea­tion of a pond and water garden which will naturally and organically lower the high PH value of the well water as well as increase the levels of bacterial life before it is pumped into the field. This will also serve to extend the qualities of the Meditation Garden further about the property as the water garden is to be a place of beauty and quiet.

Other candidates for the planning committee next year in­clude the conversion of the main outbuilding’s second floor into accommodation for students and apprentices, and the in­stallation of a high temperature straw burning heating system that would heat not only the growing tunnels, but also the houses and workrooms efficiently, cheaply and with a renewable resource.

Gordon Cutler is Assistant Director of Project Cullerne, coordinating personnel and projects, and increasingly in­volved in cover growing. He first came to Findhorn seven years ago from the US, and has been with the Garden School for the last two years.