If ever you’ve felt a little intimidated at the prospect of binning your old garden tools (you know, slug and snail bait, bags of chemical fertiliser, aphid spray etc), you’re not alone. It can be frustrating going the natural route. I, for instance, have countless seedlings flopping over a day or two after I’ve transferred them in the garden from seedling trays, and my reference books tells me it’s almost certainly cutworm to blame. Indeed, when I turn the soil, I do turn over a fair number of cutworms.

But what to do about that? I’m fairly sure that if ever I drenched my soil with cutworm killer, I’d also take out all my cherished earthworms, and lord knows what else.

Anyway, the point is that the Spring Festival at Garden World in Mulderdrift is meant for people like you and me: it’s a showcase for how to sort out your garden in an environmentally friendly, organic, sustainable and healthy way. There are loads of ideas about how to use recycled materials, and it’s a waterwise fest. JoJo Tanks is there to answer all your questions about rainwater harvesting; so is Talborne Organics with their fantastic range of organic little garden helpers.

Especially interesting for food gardeners (or wannabe food gardeners) is that Jane Griffiths of Jane’s Delicious Garden (left) has a show garden here – a fantastic looking, brightly coloured beautiful eating garden. It is a wonderful demonstration of how an eating garden can hold its charming own against a flower garden: it is a riot of colour, texture and fragrance, as inviting and lush as any flower garden. There are patchwork patterns of beetroot, cabbages and onions interspersed with splashes of yellow and orange calendula and Californian poppies (which feed the soil) and mauve echinacea. Swiss chard can look like boring old spinach – or it can have iridescent red and yellow spines. Found objects are used as planters for lettuces and herbs, and vertical gardening is deliciously sorted with squash, tomato and bean vines.

Jane’s team is wonderfully generous with their tips and solutions, so do pop along for a visit; and also look out for the Water Wise exhibit created by Rand Water. Another must-see is SA's award-winning exhibit from the Chelsea Flower Show earlier this year.

Oh, and PS, if anyone has solutions to my cutworm problem that won’t cramp my earthworms’ style, let’s hear it! Your reward will be a basket of veges.

You'll find Garden World on Beyers Naude Drive, Muldersdrift. The Spring Festival is on until September 2.