Alan Chadwick
E.F. Schumacher, author of Small is Beautiful, called Alan Chadwick "the greatest horticulturist of the 20th century." Using the Biodynamic French Intensive Method, which he developed, Alan led the movement that pioneered organic gardening and farming in North America.
But Alan Chadwick was far more than an accomplished horticulturist. He taught, prodded, cajoled, and berated his many students until they became competent, authentic, and creative human beings; or at least that was his goal for them, as he would settle for nothing less. As Allen Kalpin, a long-time Chadwick apprentice, once said, "He was a gardener of souls."
Garden, by Michael Stusser
A 16mm film of Alan Chadwick's garden at the University of California describes the magic of the place, its profusion of colors, scents, sounds, healthy vegetables, and enthusiastic gardeners. This film successfully evokes much of the garden's charm and is really the only comprehensive visual record of that enchanted time. Our profuse gratitude to Michael for his permission to reproduce the film here.
Watch the film · 15 minWhere to begin
Lectures
Saratoga, 1974–75, and New Market, Virginia, 1979 — most with full transcripts.
Memories
First-hand accounts by those who worked beside him — Peter Jorris, who followed Alan from Santa Cruz to Green Gulch, among them.
Techniques
Raised-bed basics, demonstrated: cultivation, fertilization, sowing, compost and cover crops.
Gallery
Photographs, journals, news clippings and documents from Santa Cruz, Saratoga, Covelo and Green Gulch.
Biography
From Pudleston Court in Herefordshire to the Shakespearean stage, and on to the gardens of California.
Recommended
Phyllis Anderson remembers Alan Chadwick
Phyllis worked regularly in the Santa Cruz garden during its early days. She describes what it was like for a woman to work with Alan Chadwick — the succulent Bibb lettuce, the chamomile tea in thrift-store china, and the man himself.
Making compost by the Alan Chadwick method
The fourth in the series of videos demonstrating the basic techniques of the Biodynamic French Intensive Method: siting and preparing the ground, building the pile in layers of roughage, green materials, kitchen waste and soil, keeping it moist, and using the finished compost. 9:18.
Mardi Sicular remembers Alan Chadwick
Mardi Sicular was a student at UCSC who worked intensively with Alan Chadwick during the years 1969 and 1970. She was able to connect with Alan, not only through her work in the garden, but also because they shared an interest in music. Mardi would often play her wooden alto recorder among the flowers, which Alan greatly enjoyed. She also played the old piano that was in the Chalet, baked bread made from hand-ground wheat, and participated in many of the elegant entertainments that Chadwick hosted in the garden. This is a heartfelt and very articulate account of the experience that she had as a woman working with Alan Chadwick during one of the most halcyon periods of the Santa Cruz project. On October 7, 2017, she recorded this video interview with Greg Haynes in Berkeley, California.
Alan Chadwick, Gardener of Souls
In addition to his horticultural teachings, Alan Chadwick employed a whole arsenal of techniques to prod his apprentices onward toward greater levels of personal mastery and self awareness. It is for that reason that we have chosen the descriptive phrase Gardener of Souls to summarize his effects on the personal development of his students. Not everyone knew how to benefit from the particularly demanding style of teaching that he used, but for those who did, it generally was a transformative experience. We here attempt to describe briefly the main lines of Alan's pedagogical approach so that those who were not consciously aware of his methods at the time can retrospectively understand why he behaved the way he did.
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