School Garden
Our school garden was originally created in 2017. It is within the Thomson Garden.
We have lots of great resources and equipment - a large polytunnel, raised beds, a shed for equipment and a large cabin for working under cover.
We aim to work on the garden all year round and produce food in an environmentally friendly way.
We use 'no-dig' principles based on the work and ideas of Charles Dowding. The main focus of the club is to educate the whole school on the advantages of growing plants - ranging from the environmental benefits to the economic advantages.
So that this is a whole school initiative, we give all children an opportunity to work in the garden at least once per term as part of their termly Forest School activity day.
Our aim is that the children carry out all tasks (supervised of course) - watering plants, weeding etc.
When we sow seeds we make sure that we have lots of surplus to eventually sell to families as part of a small-scale enterprise activity with the proceeds being re-invested into buying more seeds and equipment.
Within the Garden Diary page is an on-going diary of the garden to keep everyone informed of how the garden is developing. We hope that you make regular visits to keep updated on the progress of this wonderful part of our school.
We were invited to showcase our school garden project on the recent Charles Dowding 'Future Gardeners Forum'. Here is our presentation
On behalf of the school and the pupils I would like to say a huge thank you to Mr and Mrs Newton from DN Assessments who very kindly donated a wide range of gardening tools and equipment for the children to use in our school garden.
We have been busy transplanting the broad beans that we have grown from the seeds sent to us by Charles Dowding
Making and using our own compost!
Removing invasive raspberries from the rhubarb area
Preparing for the new season!
We are extremely proud to say that we were asked to write a section for the Charles Dowding newsletter - hope you enjoy reading about our journey!
Our First Open Garden Event
This week we held our very first Open Garden event to showcase our fantastic garden and all the hard work the children have put into sowing, growing and weeding flowers and vegetables. The afternoon was very well attended and the sun shone down on us too!
Our School Choir joined us for a summer serenade while parents were served refreshments. Afterwards the children did tours of the garden - explaining what each area was and what we were growing. After this the children ran stalls selling vegetable plants, flower plants, jams and chutney made from our own harvests. Finally, we finished off with a playground sale for the last of the buns, scones and cakes!
It was certainly a lovely event and an afternoon to be very proud of! To top it off, we raised enough money to buy our additional Hotbin composter!
Thanks to everyone's amazing support we have now received our new Hotbin which was bought with the money raised at our Open Garden event!
Thank you!
