Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

The summer fair

Here’s a picture of our stall at the school’s summer fair. We decided to show off what we’ve been growing this year, and sell a few things while we
were at it.

The older children, Year 6s who are going to secondary school next term, put up the display and took it in turns to run the ‘shop’. They saw it as a kind of reward for supporting the gardening club, and have been looking forward to it for weeks.

When some of the younger students found out about this, they complained that they weren’t involved. But their grumbles on the day did not come to much, with too many distractions at the tombola and bric-a-brac stall. Nothing like a dog-eared teddy to take your mind off things.

For sale, we had basil in pots (£1.10 each and a snip compared to the garden centre and supermarket, which unlike our stuff is not organically grown). There were geraniums that we had  raised from plug plants bought in the spring. And  garlic, too, sold as three bulbs plaited together.

At first, I had wondered what we would do if there were no takers. Would we drop our prices as the afternoon wore on? Wander around the playground trying to give the stuff away, as punters preferred a flutter at the tombola to any of our bargains?

I needn’t have worried though. In the event, we sold out in no time. Which just left the vegetables we had picked for showing off, among them potatoes, spinach,  carrots, chard and salad. These we put into two wooden crates scavenged from the greengrocer’s and got the headmaster to auction hem at the end of the day. As the smell of hot dogs and beefburgers drifted across the playground, the two gorgeous looking veg boxes sold for £5 each. A huge bargain for the lucky takers. A big thrill for gardening club too.