What To Grow : Dorset Cereals - Edible Playgrounds

What to grow at school and why

“The best veg to grow are ones where you can see tangible results in a short time. Salad leaf is perfect for this, almost changing before your eyes in the warmer months. This is one of the reasons we have tended to avoid many of the ‘slower’ veg, such as broccoli (the other is that it has to survive in the garden through the summer holidays). We aim to crop most of our veg before the end of term in late July, and this has a major influence on what varieties of vegetables we grow. Beetroot, for example, can be sown in early March for a crop of baby roots in June or July.” Dominic Murphy, Thornford School Gardening Club leader, gardening editor of The Guardian, and author of The Playground Potting Shed.
Vegetables Lettuce and salads can crop in just 6 weeks and come in a fabulous variety of shapes and colours. Cut-and-come-again salad will give you another crop a few weeks after being cut down. Tomatoes are a must. Cherry tomatoes can be as sweet as fruit, and will convert children to eating fresh food better than almost anything. Outdoors they grow happily in pots, beds or grow bags. They are even easier to grow in a greenhouse or polytunnel. There is a wide choice of varieties – for example, tumbler tomato is a bush variety which doesn’t need support so is easy for children to look after. Indoors or outdoors, as long as tomatoes are watered over the summer holidays they will still be cropping in September.
Peas taste fantastic when eaten really fresh (when children pick them they mostly don’t make it in from the garden) as the sugar start to turns to starch the minute they are picked. Also you can get a pea crop in the spring and the autumn too if you sow at the right times. Courgettes are perfect for new gardeners – they crop so reliably and the fruit is delicious eaten really young and raw in salads. If you can water and pick them over the summer holidays, they’ll still be producing fruit in September. Potatoes everyone loves them, and harvesting them is like finding buried treasure. Early varieties planted in the spring will be ready by July. Carrots are yummy raw, and will give you crops in July and October. Beetroot is great roasted, and can be grated into salad. It’s really exciting to cut open too. Baby varieties will be ready by July, and other beetroot sown in late May or June will give you something to dig up in October. Peppers look exotic and colourful, and grow happily in patio containers – and even better in a greenhouse or polytunnel. Broad beans are something lots of children will eat. If you live in warmer areas, you will have something to sow in October/November and something to eat in May/June.
French beans like peas will give you spring and autumn crops. The colours are fun too – beans come in purple or yellow (and green of course) on dwarf or climbing plants.
Runner beans are found in every English vegetable garden, look great and should still be cropping in September if someone picks and waters over the summer break. Pumpkins and squash are good in a school garden – children can grow prize-winning gigantic pumpkins or some for Halloween. They take up a lot of space but can spill on to the grass, be trained up poles or weave their way among other plants like sweetcorn.
Sweetcorn children love it, and it’s so delicious when freshly picked, ideally within an hour of picking before its sugars turn to starch. Plants in the soil by end of May should give you September crop.
Parsnips have a long growing time, so you can grow salad between the rows. They need little attention and will give you something to dig up in November or December. They’re lovely added to mashed potatoes.
Radishes are really fast – they can crop in 3 weeks – but have you ever seen a child eat one?
Cucumbers are lovely and juicy, but hard to grow in term time unless you have a greenhouse or polytunnel.
Fruit Strawberries are another must – they’re so much tastier than shop-bought ones. Plant several varieties and you’ll get fruit from May until the end of the summer term. They’re happy enough in containers or in beds – but careful that the birds and slugs don’t eat them first! Rhubarb its so easy to grow – it comes up every year, it’s full of vitamins and is really versatile to cook.
Raspberries and other soft fruits if you’ve got the space these aren’t difficult to grow. You can get early summer and autumn fruiting raspberries, so you could be grazing on them in term time. You could try growing a thornless blackberry on a fence.
Fruit trees are great to grow if you’ve got the space.