Published on 27^th August 2009

At Holy Trinity School in Weymouth, the ex-Hampton Court Edible Playground continues to evolve. Helen Toft, the gardening club lead helper, said “we are very proud indeed of our garden. We have replanted it just as it was at the show, and it looks fantastic. All of the plants which were at Hampton Court survived; the vines are thriving and there are apples on the trees. Children love sitting on the wooden benches in the garden, picking salad and herbs, making a dressing and eating it all there and then.”

The school showed their enthusiasm for gardening by entering a competition run by a garden centre in the region. Holy Trinity entered a raised bed which demonstrated crop rotation and companion planting, and it beat entries from eight other schools! Holy Trinity won vouchers from Value House which will keep them in gardening gear for some time to come.

Published on 26^th August 2009

Last term at St Mary’s School in Bridport, home of the Chelsea Flower Show gold medal-winning Edible Playground, Radio 4’s You and Yours programme interviewed teachers and parents to find out how the garden is positively affecting the school as a whole.

More and more children and teachers are taking an interest in gardening, and now another area of the grounds is being given over to create more growing space. One of the highlights of the year was harvesting and then roasting their own potatoes with garlic and herbs.
 

Published on 9^th June 2009

An inspirational article about all the work carried out on an Edible Playground in Poole, Dorset.

....It was meant to be a weekend’s work but somehow, it just grew!
And so it was that in Spring 2008 a weekend assembling raised vegetable beds, mushroomed into an award winning “blooming” school and an area capable of supplementing a school's cookery club.
The area provides an opportunity for sustained plant sales and a chance for seasonal P.Y.O.  All the while, providing an “outside classroom” for our children.
I must clarify here: we are a primary school but for me “that” moment was when in the summer of 08, I saw a challenging school child reach out to his mum with such pride, because he had grown a Courgette. In that instance, I saw empowerment and confidence (call it self-esteem, self-belief or self-worth). But I experienced “it” and in that moment it was very real and happening in our school vegetable patch.
The bar had been set, that was then and this is now, June 2009.
This year has seen fundamental changes at our school, and yet it feels like an evolution, that has had its own momentum.
The simple fact remains that funding is the big issue. Originally we were given the money by Dorset Garden Trusts to set up the raised vegetable beds. The “Learning Outside The Classroom Manifesto” provided the capital to buy the poly-tunnel for the school.
It is the commitment of parents, children and staff that saw to its assembly and future on-going use.
The Poly-tunnel philosophy is simple: it quite literally reads as “It doesn’t need to cost the Earth.” We plant things in toilet rolls, recycle yoghurt pots, and collect and re-use old plant pots. People in the wider community donate their seeds or often give us surplus plants for us to sell, so we can buy more compost and seeds. I guess it’s community ownership.
We run an after school gardening club that looks to wider links of bio-diversity. An example would be to plant pumpkin seeds and also make desk top “wormaries” to highlight the role that worms play in establishing a good growing medium for hungry plants like pumpkins.
It’s about a bigger picture and encouraging the children to take ownership and responsibility for their environment.
We will shortly be completing our poly-tunnels first growing season with a grand opening at our school fair.
Our cookery club teacher will be using some of our produce to feed the visitors, our surplus produce and plants will be offered to sell, invitations have been made to other charitable plant nurseries and hopefully they will come and help us celebrate the new shoots of our green adventure.
Perhaps our experience has been “right time, right place”, but on a personal level, I have encountered “The Lost Generation”: A whole generation disconnected from the soil and what it means to grow.
A generation who will never know the real freshness of a garden-grown pea or experience the daily monitoring of an ever ripening strawberry.
Yes, there is grandeur in this view of life and yet I am a witness to the therapeutic qualities and empowerment it provides.
To grow “something” is to make nature accessible, to invite the miraculous into your life and hopefully into your fridge.
Let 2009 be the year, you finally realize that there is no such thing as green fingers, only of hands that haven’t found the right thing to plant.
Let your children be your inspiration. Learn from their enthusiasm to life, and be confident that as with all things in life you only ever really fail if you give up trying. Go on, I dare you.
 

Published on 3^rd March 2009

Home of last year’s Dorset Cereals Edible Playground courtyard garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

St Mary’s in Bridport has a gardening club, run by Mrs Pritchard, which has about 20 members including several parents who meet once a week at lunchtimes and also after school.

This year, the young gardeners’ first session was in the third week of February when they tidied the beds and tended the broad beans and garlic they planted in the late autumn.

When the Dorset Cereals courtyard garden arrived last June, fresh from its Gold Medal-winning debut from the Chelsea Flower Show, it was fully planted up - and much to the surprise of the school, some of the salad leaves survived the winter and are still growing!

‘They are really fiery,’ says Mrs Pritchard. ’I’m surprised the children are keen on them as the taste is so strong, but I think what they really like is just the idea of picking things and eating them.’  The school has a ‘golden time’ on Friday afternoons when children have a choice of activities – including gardening and cooking - and St Mary’s is working towards using food from the Edible Playground in the cookery sessions.

The school has also added another raised bed and lots of pots to their Edible Playground so each class can have its own plot. Years 1 and 2 will use the ex-Chelsea Flower Show courtyard garden, while Years 3-6 will be growing in the newly developed allotment on the school field where a wood fired cob oven built by a parent has already been used to cook potatoes and pizza.

Vouchers from a supermarket have also been provided for a greenhouse and a poly tunnel is on its way too. Mrs Pritchard says, ‘we could be very productive indeed!’

Staff from St Mary’s are now working closely with the Food for Life Partnership who offer expertise and support, and this collaboration is creating curriculum-based activities to bring food culture to the heart of the school. 
 

Published on 3^rd March 2009

Home of last year’s Dorset Cereals Edible Playground show garden at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

Holy Trinity School in Weymouth has a real asset in Mrs Samantha Lucken, a parent who’s been closely involved in setting up the ex-Hampton Court show garden at the school.

Thanks to everyone’s hard work, the Dorset Cereals Edible Playground is structurally just as it was at Hampton Court, and as the year goes on the school would like to recreate the look of the show garden in full productivity.

To start things off, early in 2009 Years 1 and 5 had the chance to hand sow oats, barley and wheat, and Class 5 chose wave-shaped channels to cast their cereal grains into. Now, much to the excitement of the children, green shoots are just appearing above the ground!

‘We should have done the sowing before Christmas but it seems to have worked anyway,’ said Mrs Lucken. ‘Some of the pupils will be going to a Dorset mill later in the year, and we hope that the mill might be able to grind our harvested grains for us. We’d like to have a go at doing it ourselves too and we’re looking forward to making bread from our own wheat flour.’
 
There are 22 classes at Holy Trinity, and although the show garden was pretty big, the school now has more raised beds made from recycled plastic so that each class can have its own growing area, and the show garden will be used by the gardening club as a demonstration garden. A grant from a DIY chain has paid for propagators which can be located in the classrooms to bring the garden indoors as well.

Overseeing the development of the school’s Edible Playground is a gardening committee made up of parents and teachers who, Mrs Lucken says, ‘are all learning together’. The hope is that all of the teachers will be inspired to make the most of the garden, and to support this the committee has set up a staff room resource file and information board, and there will also be a garden newsletter and a garden notice board for the whole school. All this should ensure that everyone keeps up with the growing successes and challenges that all the classes are experiencing.

The gardening club has just started up again, and before the growing season really gets going they will be making bird boxes and scarecrows and planning activities such as a sunflower growing competition.

All the garden money being raised by the school will help fund a pond and wildlife area - not only will the children enjoy these wild areas, but the creatures thriving in these habitats should help keep down the garden pests as well!
 

Published on 27^th February 2009

St Kenya Primary in Keynsham near Bristol is a new school that combines two primaries on one site. As part of the planning work, the children were given maps of the school grounds and were asked to design what they wanted to include – and many of them suggested raised beds for herbs and veg, and a wildlife garden.
 
Mrs Morris, Eco School Coordinator, puts the enthusiasm for growing food at school down to all the gardening programmes on TV, along with the 5-a-day drive. Many of the children also have grandparents who grow veg at home or in allotments.
 
The building work hasn’t quite finished yet, the area that will be the Edible Playground has only just been grass seeded and is out of bounds for now.
It’s all the more frustrating because St Kenya won a Dorset Cereals Edible Playgrounds Starter Kit, and the children of the gardening club are ready to get stuck in!
 
There is some good news though, as the gardening club has been able to get their hands dirty by planting trees in tubs, and bulbs in the soil. The children were thrilled by the tools that came with the Edible Playgrounds Starter Kit – especially the child-sized trowels.
 
Mrs Morris says the school is also ready to set up a wormery…and the children are very excited about opening a tub of worms! The planning work is still going on though, and the children are deciding where to site water butts, and how to source things to help keep down the costs of the garden.
 
Lots of parents have helped already, and the school managed to get hold of some free timber to build waist-high raised beds which are the right height for children in wheelchairs as well as other gardeners.
 
We look forward to seeing how all this hard work comes together!

Published on 27^th February 2009

At Wimbish Primary in Saffron Walden, Essex the upper school spent some of last year ‘digging for victory’ as part of their World War II studies.
 
The school built two raised beds as part of this project, and now they’ve won an Edible Playgrounds Starter Kit they can make growing a permanent part of lessons.
 
Class 1 teacher Claire Pictkall (who grows vegetables in her own garden) said it was really inspiring watching the children figure out what to do with the veg they grew - ‘we’ve got carrots, onions and potatoes, so can make…soup!’
 
 
The apple tree, which came as part of the Edible Playgrounds Starter Kit has already been planted in the existing orchard, and the children have learned that cross-pollination with the other trees should help it produce lots of apples in the future.
 
Wimbish Primary is a Healthy School in the countryside so the children are used to being outdoors - in the autumn Ms Picktall’s class went foraging for blackberries and nuts, and at the moment the class is fascinated by growing hyacinth bulbs.
 
The children have even been running an imaginary garden centre, so they’re raring to go when the weather warms up!
 
‘Growing is a great hands-on learning experience for children. The sensory aspects of growing are great for kids – feeling the soil with bare hands, and watching plants grow and being outdoors… and of course the children are so much more keen to taste something if they’ve grown it themselves!’ Ms Picktall, Wimbish Primary.

Published on 30^th January 2009

Greenford Primary School in Maiden Newton in rural Dorset was delighted when it won a Dorset Cereals Edible Playground starter kit. The school had already started growing in a small way, and the children have enjoyed planting seeds, watching them grow and then eating the harvested crops. Greenford is now planning to develop the idea of the Edible Playground as part of its efforts to promote healthier eating and living. The kit will also help Greenford pupils do more learning activities outdoors when the weather warms up. ‘The real experience of growing and harvesting will support the children’s understanding of nature and the world outdoors.’

Joan Allen, Foundation Stage teacher

Published on 30^th January 2009

At the Holy Family Catholic Primary school near Maidstone in Kent, the gardening club has had two good growing seasons, and enough produce to sell herbs at the school gate, and for the school kitchens to cook with – rhubarb pie was a big hit. Unfortunately, in 2008 some vandals emptied out the growing boxes all over the playground – but with tools won in their Dorset Cereals Edible Playground starter kit, the school plans to dig beds in the ground. ‘The kit is all such good quality. We even got plant labels and pens with waterproof ink. This is great as last year all the children’s’ labelling washed away in the wet weather and they didn’t know what was due to come up where.’

Miss Betts, Headteacher.

Published on 30^th January 2009

At Fairfield Primary School in Stapleford, Nottingham the gardening club held competitions to grow sunflowers and guess the weight of the home grown pumpkin, and even grew enough vegetables for the school kitchen to serve for lunch. The club is now expanding, with the nowexperienced young gardeners training up their classmates so each class can take responsibility for a different growing area. Fairfield also runs an eco club that presents its activities through assembly. They recently put up birdfeeders around the garden, there is also a tree planting day coming up that will involve the whole school which will be filmed by the pupils. ‘Bringing all this together in such a short space of time is hard work, but it’s worth it!’ Laurie Rowlands, Science Co-ordinator and gardening club supervisor