Allotments 4 All

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!

:)