Food growing, baking, beekeeping and crafts are among a bumper crop of attractions at the free Grow Your Own show at Woodthorpe Park from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 10 September.

Grow Your Own is a popular annual fixture on the park’s calendar, celebrating allotments, community gardens and backyard food growing.  This year it will have the flavour of a traditional country show, with a baking competition as well as new skills to learn.

New and experienced growers will be able to pick up top tips and ideas through a series of free talks throughout the day by the Royal Horticultural Society and local experts.

Allotment associations and local food producers will be selling produce, and winter vegetable plants will be on sale at Woodthorpe Park Plant Shop, which is alongside the Nottingham City Council Nursery.  The local Scouts will serve refreshments from their vintage tea tent.

There’s a real buzz around this year’s show, which will feature the annual Honey Show of Nottinghamshire Bee Keepers’ Association, returning after a successful debut last year. The show takes place just a stone’s throw from the association’s beehives in the old kitchen garden at Woodthorpe Park, and local honey will be on sale.

New this year is a baking competition, to be judged at noon by the Nottingham Post Food Sleuth.  Adults are invited to bake a cake containing fruit or veg – either one large cake or six small ones.  The children’s competition is for the best decorated cake on a garden theme.

There will also be a food swap run by Nottingham Home Grown Exchange.  People are invited to bring produce including fruit, vegetables, jams, preserves, eggs or baked items for a big swap at 2pm.

This year there’s also an opportunity to learn some home-grown crafts.  Free activities will include a veg-inspired sew-along workshop from Nottingham Independent of the Year Debbie Bryan, using upcycled papers to create decorative seed packets.  Nottingham Museums Volunteers will run a dye workshop with natural materials such as hibiscus flowers and blackcurrants.

Councillor Dave Trimble, Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Culture and Tourism, said: “The Grow Your Own show is always a popular day out and this year promises to be bigger and better than ever with a whole range of new attractions and ways that people can get involved. We are especially pleased that Notts Bee Keepers are back again with their annual honey show – and that home-baked cakes are on the event menu this year!”