In 2005 we created our second ever Show Garden for the BBC Gardeners' World Live exhibition at the NEC. As you can see the wildflower garden attracted plenty of interest and was visited by HRH The Prince of Wales and Gardeners' World presenter Sarah Raven. We were really pleased when the show's organisers awarded the garden a Highly Commended certificate!
Wiggly Wigglers might be small, but that doesn't stop judges awarding us lots of awards...
We were thrilled to be declared outright global winners of the first ever Dell Small Business Excellence Award. This is our biggest award to date, and the prize was another trip to New York and a meeting with Michael Dell for a chance to swap best practices!
Dell's judges were impressed with our social media strategy, spearheaded by the Wiggly Podcast and our active Facebook groups. You can watch a video about the whole affair on Dell's website.
Here's Heather and Farmer Phil accepting our Rural Enterprise Rural Business Development Award at the House of Commons.
The award was given in recognition of our strong environmental credentials, our environmentally sustainable products and the fact that most of the staff live within five miles of Lower Blakemere Farm.
Wiggly Wigglers is based on a lovely, mixed Herefordshire farm where Farmer Phil tries his best to farm sympathetically and in balance with nature, while still maintaining profitablity. It was particularly gratifing, therefore, to receive the Alternative Enterprise Award from the Farmer's Weekly newspaper.
Here's Heather receiving the award, in the shape of a plough's mouldboard, from newsreader Fiona Bruce.
The Federation of Small Businesses' awards ceremony was a glittering affair held at the lavish Claridges Hotel in London. Having won our local, Midlands, heat we went on to scoop the top prize and be named the overall British Small Business Champions 2005. You can hear Heather's recollections of the evening (which may be hazy) in Wiggly Podcast 8 and all about the prize, trip to New York no less, in Wiggly Podcast 19.
Here's Heather collecting our Big Tick award.
We were really delighted to win this particular award, as Business in the Community's Awards for Excellence are the most prestigious UK awards to recognise companies for integrating responsible business practice into their operations; an idea which is very close to our heart. Our particular award was the Rural Action Award which was sponsored by the Post Office. Whilst being an environmentally friendly company which integrates well into its local community just seems like common sense to us, it's still nice to pick-up such a prestigious award - even if it is just for doing what comes naturally!
You can listen to Heather being interviewed by Jeni Murray on Radio 4's Women's Hour. Who would have guessed that Jeni was so squeamish about worms!
The Wiggly Podcast's fame has spread as far as San Francisco, as seen in this article by Amy Stewart.
Guardian Unlimited Deputy Editor, Jane Perrone, discusses her guest appearance on the Wiggly Podcast 15 in her 5 poles allotment blog.
Heather was interviwed by The Times in this Times Online article.
