Kitchen Garden Forum

Its only taken me about 3 yrs,but my childrens Headmaster has finally given me the go ahead to start a gardening club after school .I have got to get it up and running in about 2 wks
The thing is we can only grow in containers on the school flat roof,where the children also play.I have thought about bulbs for now,but i think that is a bit boring for the kids,it is also going to be dark soon so what can i do to make this club interesting and fun. We also dont have a green house so what can i do about starting seedlings.I can put in some spring cabbage at the moment and maybe get the kids to look after them in a class room until we can plant out.Can the good people of this forum give ideas what to plant or sites i can go on,also need to scrounge money for equipment for the future. PLEASE HEEEEEEEEELP!

Funny that you should mention school gardening as I was going to ask if anyone worked in a school or helped in a school that has a gardening project especially one that grows vegetables.

I have a website called The School Vegetable Patch and I'm looking for people who would be willing to send me information about their gardening projects to post on my examples pages http://theschoolvegetablepatch.schools.officelive.com/examples.aspx
If anyone is interested could you pm me.

The idea is to help inspire other schools to have a go. My website doesn't cover what I think you are looking for Grock but I thought I'd add my request to yours rather than starting a different thread - hope you don't mind.

Congrats on taking on such a project, sounds constructive and useful, and maybe some of the less academic can shine. Wondering what age the children are ? A few ideas to use or lose as you see fit,
lesson on germination? Perhaps sprout some pea seeds,(untreated ones) to be eaten raw or in stir fries. they are sweet and crunchy raw, I think the children would like them. next stage could be pea shoots, then in spring pea plants, maybe one of the sweeter varieties.
lesson on choosing seeds, variety, flavour conditions, resistence to disease f1's heritage
http://www.tomatopedia.com/ 900 varieties of tomato to choose from from heritage to modern f1's.
wormery / compost making?
recycling in the garden ?
companion planting and attracting wildlife to the garden, bees in decline/pollination ?
Better check safe weight the roof can handle, lots of pots can weigh quite a lot.
lots of offers for free seeds for schools eg
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/1009/ ... wildlife/3
http://www.iwcp.co.uk/news/gardening/fr ... 25977.aspx
http://www.tomatobob.com/Free%20Seeds%2 ... chools.htm
http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/take ... -pack.aspx
kew gdns has an outreach thing for science in schools -
http://www.kew.org/learn/schools/kew-in-your-school/
http://www.growinggrub.co.uk/
http://www.primarytimes.net/derbyshire_ ... tatoes.php
win a green roof http://www.biodiversityislife.net/?q=node/263
worm week lol http://www.eco-schools.org.uk/news/index.aspx?ID=52
Hope some of these ideas are useful for you both

Thankyou,should be very helpful

Please let us know how the lessons go, should be interesting and great fun. I would love to help ar our local school garden but caring for my 92 year old mother over the last 6 years is pretty time consuming at the moment,

I think your garden is a great idea and I'm sure the children will love it. I wonder if you could sow some rocket or lambs lettice. I often sow this in containers around this time of year and find it pretty hardy, lasting through the winter. The soil should still be just about warm enough to allow it to germinate. Good luck with project and keep us updated. It's so important for children to understand how things grow and where their food comes from.

hi hi,looks like we are on the way,went to the local fisheries by our plot and told them what we planning at school,they very kindly gave us a load of hanging baskets,seeds,seed trays and some cains One of the pensioners on our plot gave me a load of fleece and £20 for seeds...how nice.Also been in touch with N.H.S community pot and they are gonna give us a load of money .Does help being friend of the girl whom holds the purse strings .Any one on the forum know any sites i can get free equipment?

just been on one of the web sites posted above,Great! gonna ring council now and the on to R.H.S THANK YOU XXXXX

Grock - If you have a local Tesco or Waitrose in your area, they sometimes have a local community fund which helps charitable or educational undertakings. Another thing to do is phone up your local paper and ask them to publish an appeal. They're always looking to fill space. They might even send a photographer round to take a photo of the children which always bags you more publicity. The parents love to see their children getting a mention and you might reach other outlets that way who might be prepared to help.

To keep interest going, you might like to get your kids growing some indoor sprouting seeds. Just bung a piece of wet tissue paper or cloth inside a low shallow tray and sprinkle on some seeds. The kids will have to keep the tissue paper wet (that's their gardening responsibility !) and they can watch the seeds grow daily and be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks. For kids with a short term attention span, that might retain their interest. Thompson & Morgan do big packets of mixed seed. If you contact them, they might let you have some packets at reduced cost if you explain it's for a childrens' educational project. And if your kids can snip the sprouted seeds and are able to eat them with their lunchtime sandwiches, they will have quickly run through the growing cycle.

Dear Grockie, the success or failure with a lot of these projects, has a lot to do with who is running them.

It really takes someone that has loads of enthusiasm, makes it good fun for the kids and is fairly good looking.

So going on that, yours should be a roaring success.

May i just wish you good luck.

For ideas for funding you could try this Link
http://theschoolvegetablepatch.schools.officelive.com/funding.aspx

Also what about your local Freecycle http://www.freecycle.org/group/United%20Kingdom

Grockie, next time you're at the lottie, go into my greenhouse as I think there is some unopened compost in there so help yourself. Also, if you see Stuart there, asl him for my seed box outta the shed and go through. Got loads of seeds in there that i've got 2 and 3 packets of. Help yourself.

Oh, and give us a bell when you get time love, need to ask you something about you know what.

TTFN me lovely. Love you lots like Jelly Tots

Good idea, Primrose but have you ever tried to get a donation from Tesco? I help with a group in the village that raises money for the upkeep of our hall and playing field. For our big summer fund-raising 'do', they offered us a £10 voucher to spend in store. We were speechless!!! Tesco talk a lot about supporting communities but the reality is very different. I've heard similar stories from other groups here. The Coop, the other big supermarket in this area gave us £250 - a big 'thank you' to them.

I agree with other posters that you need to get a really good team around you to help. We have given over an unused part of the field for the local school to use as an allotment. There was a great deal of enthusiastic talk from parents. The site was fenced off and I cleaned and rotovated it. Then when the parents realised that they would have to give up their own time and their hands would get dirty, most of them quickly disappeared leaving one enthusiastic parent on her own to carry on the good work.

Good luck with your project

John

John i know what you mean about tesco.I ran a scouting group and asked them for money towards a camp trip,they gave us £20 to feed 42 children,fri-sun,and i had to spend the voucher in store
A friend of mine works there and i asked her to ask if she could get watering cans,she told me at the end of the season if gardening equipment has not been sold it goes through the tills as a penny sale and gets thrown away how scandleous is that .They wont even give it to their staff at a discount price.May be Mr Hugh W needs an e mail about this.
Been on to L.pool c.c for funding........NO CHANCE! P.C.T came out to see me today,there is nothing left in their pot unless i want to teach the children reg:- sexual matters dont think parents will like me tellin their children what goes on with the birds and bees HA! HA! get it,birds and bees! ohhh i make myself laugh some times They gave me a load of funding web sites,which wont except schools
This is proving to be harder than i thought

Tell them that you will be doing sexual reproduction (don't tell them it is plant reproduction)

Have you a Morrisons as they are giving away gardening vouchers?

Did you check the links on the RHS site here
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/teachershome/resources/findingfunding.aspa

Other tan that what about asking the school if you can do a sponsored event. The event could be linked to your gardening in some way such as how many vegetables can you name?