Hi everyone!
We are two Teaching Assistants in a primary school in Wigan, Lancs, who have volunteered to run a fruit/veg-growing club for the children, which will be starting in September. Over the summer we are having six raised beds built in our grounds and we would be really grateful for any tips or advice you could give us. We imagine we will need to do some forward planning. Can anyone suggest where we should start, and what things we need to think about? Thanks!
Lynn & Elsie
Some overwinter broad beans and onion sets...
Collect some seed heads and scatter them in sept.. many annual flowers grow well if started in Autumn..
;D
You may already have this info, but if you don't, click on this link for some useful information:
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/schools_organic_network/index.php
Look for stuff that ripens before the end of the summer term! That rules out a lot of things, but overwintering onions and early spuds are obvious contenders. Do you have a greenhouse?
Would any of the teachers and kids be willing to come in once a week over
the summer for a weekly gardening club?
Strawberries are always popular with kids and they usually fruit in June.
Spring onions, tomatoes, lettuces, pumpkins.
Sunflowers are popular too, competitions to grow the biggest...
Why not ask the kids what vegetables they like, expect the answer to be none though. ;D
Wow, that is fantastic!! SIX raised beds? Wish my daughters' school had something like that.
Well your choices are almost unlimited aren't they? I would have a sensory bed with smellies like lavender, sage, lemon verbena as well as veg. You could even have a herbaceous border type bed! Sounds like so much fun!!
Definately get your broad beans, overwintering onions etc in. Have you got a good book? I have found Caroline Foleys Practical Allotment Gardening to be invaluable as beginner. You will also need water butts, maybe small compost heap?
What a project. Have fun and keep us informed.
Afterthought: get in with your local nurseries and garden centres. Also local paper as it is such a unique project - this will hopefully get you loads of free stuff like compost and bedding plants!
Thanks everyone for your input.
Jennym â€" had a look at the website; it’s now in my favourites.
Robert_Brenchley â€" unfortunately no greenhouse, not yet anyway, but we have mentioned it to the boss and we’ll keep our fingers crossed. We do have lots of window sills though ;D.
Dtw â€" great suggestions. You hit the nail on the head when you said ask the children which veggies they like… That is exactly why this project is being run, to try to get them to eat more healthily, and we think that if they have grown it themselves, there is more likelihood that they will actually try, and hopefully grow to enjoy, some fresh food.
Emmy1978 â€" you sound as excited about this as we are! And actually, didn’t want to brag ;), but we’re having 12 beds in all, 6 for the infant and 6 for the junior dept. We think that the junior beds will be mainly used for crops and the infant beds as a flower garden and both are accessible to the whole school so we can all enjoy them. We realise we are very lucky to have the space as not all schools do these days. We plan to get in touch with the local council to see if they will provide compost bins free of charge, but if not, they do sell them at a very reasonable cost anyway. The children’s parents have been donating spare gardening equipment and we fully intend to beg supplies from anyone (we’re not proud ;D). We've bought the Carol Klein BBC book ‘Grow Your Own’ as a guide, but to be honest, I think posting questions on this site will produce answers to anything we get stuck with because you all seem to be such a friendly bunch!
this sounds like great fun.
You could also plant some garlic in October / November and perhaps some sweetpeas for early flowering next year. A wildlife bed will be good for attracting different insects, beetles and bugs etc.
Why don't you try and get 'sponsorship' via one of your local companies - they love being associated with community involvement projects.
Maybe some winter projects could be building wigwams and frames from willow etc - Oohhoo - someone has a living willow den - is it Heldi ? Now that looks really good fun for kids.
Good luck
I was googling for willow the other day and came across a couple of sites where they had made hides and dens for the children to play in and grow in a school, it should make good protection from the sun when it's ready and if my son is anything to go by the children will have fun designing them as well. (Pirate cave....no space capsule..no in the jungle...)
Esre
Quote from: hopeful vegigrower on June 22, 2007, 17:20:15
Emmy1978 â€" you sound as excited about this as we are!
I am rather excitable it has to be said! Also i do love stuff like this. 12 beds??? That's fab.
I did a TA course this year and was going to follow it through to teacher training but am taking it into adult learning rather than schools. The politics and parents combined would be rather too much for me although i loved the kids to bits.
Please do keep us informed with your progress. I'd love to get something like this going at my kids school. They've got some planters at last but i think kids do eat and enjoy veg (mine do) if they are given the opportunity to grow it and taste it fresh.
We have started this in our school this year and although in it's infancy it is going well. The kids have been amazed at the sight of some veggies and they are learning the names of odd ones rapidly. I get quite a kick out of hearing a young child say,mmm cauliflower, that belongs to the brassica family.
They can recognise and spell aubergine, cucumber and kohlrabi!!
Contact Franchi seeds, they have a seed scheme for schools. You get 7 packets of their seeds for very little if you have a school connection.Look on Seeds for Italy site for more info. I found out a little late for me, but we have loads for next year now.
Good luck. XX Jeannine
we gave an allotment to a school and we made them 8 raised beds 6 were made out of concrete gravel borders very easy to make and another 2 out of new sleepers they are growing herbs in sume onions and leeks in another courgettes a pumpkin carrots could go on but the kids love it mind you i have to do a little work on they plot for them as they cant get down very much Lucky if its once a fortnight
Re forward planning... Even with just the six beds planned for fruit and veg, you can put a really good rotation system in place (unless you're allocating one particular bed for each class).
Good for the ground and the plants, but also good for teaching about plant families -- and about number sequences as well, come to that. :)
In the July issue of Kitchen garden mag on page 8 there is an ad for the KG Grow Healthy Campaign. It is aimed at schools and groups. You get loads of stuff like A3 poster, how to make wormery, mini-beast survey stuff, 5 packs of seeds,worksheets on thinking about food, and so on. You can phone 01507 529300 for more info and to order. ;D
Welcome and good luck to both of you, it would be great if all schools could do something like yours, good luck and happy digging. PS I hope your not going to mark our spelling or we could be in for a few detentions and thats just the teachers on here. :o ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
oi, yoo speek fo yoursen thers nowt rong wiv mi spelin,cos i wurk in a skool to.
Thats got to be worth double detention and a bloody sound thrashing with the cane. :P :P :P ;D ;D ;D
I shan't go, anyway I used to be the teachers pet cos my Dad had connections for stuff after the war.
No, no, don't worry cornykev, definitely no marking from us! ;D
Thanks to everyone btw, been on t'internet for hours it seems, checking out all your great ideas. Keep 'em coming! : ;D ;D ;D
Definately try cherry toms, carrots, maybe some blueberries if you can get the soil condition right, and I've found that Chinese lettuce, mizuna etc overwinters very well under a basic cloche. Have fun!
:)
Try the odd coloured things too,the kids love that. eg
White, purple,red black carrots.
Purple, green, orange cauliflower.
Funny shapes too, like round carrots, round yellow cucumbers, white cucumbers
Tomatoes come in all shapes, sizes and colours and some have really neat history behind them too. I have a big collection of tomato seeds and they are very different to what the kids think which is usually just red and round.I have black, purple, pink, orange, yellow, white, striped, speckled, and even some with fuzzy skins,shapes are round, pear shaped, heart shaped,some look like Christmas lights, some very tiny and some huge.The plants come from as small as 8 inches high and have fruit. Check out Tomatogrowers online to see pictures
Beans, kids love to see dried beans, some are beautiful, check out a bean site, you will be amazed at the colours and the stories behind the names.
There is a whole school site in growing the 3 sisters , corn, squash and beans, along with classroom resources and history.It is American based but very valid just the same.
If you have the space, squash are a super interesting project, I am biased as I collect them too along with the toms and beans mentioned earlier and they come in so many sizes and shapes.
Kids love the Jack be Little pumpkins as they are so tiny and they will grow on a trellis.
Show them how to sprout seeds in a jar, they can be eating those in a week and there are loads of varieties. Check out the T&M site for ideas, they may even come up with some freebies for you.
Leeks can be grown in a tub, and they take up so little space the kids can each adopt a leek, some grow quite big.
Sunflowers, all colour and heights, and they grow so fast.
XX Jeannine
Apparently you can carve neames into your baby pumpkins and it will grow as the pumpkin does. Sounds like veg abuse to me though!!
Well, we never knew such things existed, Jeannine! You're right, the kids will love these ideas, they're always up for something a bit out of the ordinary. Thanks to everyone who has contributed, we've got such a lot of stuff to go at now! Just hope we can get the growing bit right... :-\ :-\
Good Luck, sadly all our growing area at school is now gone as is my lottie due to the flooding,our whole school is trashed so I shouldn't grumble about veggies.I hope you are OK . XX Jeannine
hiya, guys, elsie, you used to live near us, our grandson goes to your school and I've just been talking to the headmaster today..been out of action for a while..he told me you're organising it, sent you an e mail..let us know what you need, we'll see what we can do on the allotments, all for a good cause,
callum reckons he acn show how to grow things as he's done some seed sowing with us ;D
marilyn
How totally brill is that? Bet you're glad you joined now eh? With manics on your side you're sorted!!