Setting up gardening club at school

Bangerchick

If you are going to grow french or runner beans, you could also let the children grow one or two each in a jar - pressed against the side with a wet piece of blotting paper or tissue paper. That way they can see the roots emerge and go down and shoot emerge and go up. They won't be able to plant them afterwards but it is quite interesting (well I think so anyway!!).

This link shows the sort of thing I mean about growing the beans in a jar

http://www.greatgrubclub.com/domains/greatgrubclub.com/local/media/downloads/grow%20a%20bean%20plant.pdf

TeresaO

Hi,

I help out at my childrens school with a gardening club - its great fun, lots of hard work and sometimes frustrating but go for it. The best reward is the children tasting something that they have grown, even the ones who claim not to like veg change their mind.

We have worked on an allotment site with good success rates but have recently moved back onto school grounds and lots of nice new raised beds. For our allotment having child sized tools was absolutely essential, we have forks, spades, a couple of rakes and hoes in addition to hand tools and lots and lots of gloves. Thanks to Morrisons we have also boosted our watering can numbers, EVERYONE wants to water. We are lucky enough to have a polytunnel - not sure of how we will manage the holidays with watering now we're back in school. We also have 5 compost bins that are filled with kitchen peelings and the kids fruit skins, and guinea pig bedding. Will second that adding shredded paper is a must - I need to address that issue with our bins. Oh weed buckets you need them.

WRT what to grow, peas went down well as does fruit, we've harvested salad, courgettes, potatoes, beans, toms, beetroot, onions, swedes and 1 or 2 cabbages, sweetcorn, stawberries and rhubarb. We have been lucky enough to have a lot of seeds donated buy a garden centre.

A good book is "the playground potting shed" by Dominic Murphy its an easy read and full of helpful info regarding plans and crops for schools and talks about food and flowers.

If you need rainy day activities, looking at produce food miles, drawing up planting plans, discussing what veg to grow, perhaps using the internet to research the different needs of plants......

all the best

T