School allotment

[puddleofpiddle]

I've been asked to sort out the school allotment but it's not been touched for a few years and so I'm after a bit of advice and inspiration!

I've not yet seen the site but I'm told it's surrounded by trees so is quite shady and about 5m sq. I'm thinking of looking at sq ft growing but will much grow in shade apart from parsley?!
I'm going to look at it this afternoon so will have a clearer idea what I've let myself in for of where to go with it then.
Any advice gratefully received!

Well, if it is very shady, it may well not be suitable for an allotment.

Have you looked into the Growing Schools resources

www.growingschools.org.uk/

and the Campaign for School Gardening?

apps.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/default.aspa

They both run courses you can go on, as far as I know. (Some colleagues are running one)

Here's the list of potential funding bodies:

apps.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/teachershome/resources/findingfunding.aspa

Thanks Grendels, will look at the links after lunch

I do our school allotment - have for years now.
The school buys the plants and I and another parent provide the volunteering help.

Yrs 2 and 3 come, and we have raised beds (so they don't stand on the plants), with bark between.

We have a strawberry patch, raspberries, gooseberries, red and blackcurrants, and space for flowers and veg. We ALWAYS grow peas and potatoes, then vary the other stuff.

We've just had the excited new kids come, all shouting "a slug, I've found a slug!" like they've never seen one before - maybe they haven't!

Popular tasks are eating, manuring and watering.

Thanks melted, do you have much space there? And what do you do over the holidays, do you go in and water? I'm going to have a look at it after school today but I've been looking at grendels links while eating chocolate--

No watering: only plant low-effort things imo! I can't go in hols - can't even look after my own then!

Try to get some plastic sheet/silage sheet/weed suppressant sheet to cover it up with asap. If it's been left for a few years, it's going to look like waste gound and will need to be de-weeded by next spring.
If you cover it you stand a chance of killing the surface nasties to the extent they can just be dug in. Ignore anyone who says you will ruin the soil in some mysterious way. If the soil's been left for a year or two it will be fine, and you will need that extra help to not get discouraged by major weed cover.

Also, as Grendel says, it sounds as if it's a completely crap bit of ground.

Can you turn up your nose and ask for a sunshiney bit if you can spot a likely candidate? 5 x 5 isn't a great deal.

PLastic cover until spring as before, but at least you stand a chance of growing something by next year, otherwise, what's the point of doing it?

I saw a news story about a school where they'd planted up plants in a collection of buckets (one for every pupil) and that way, every pupil could take their bucket home over the holidays to look after watering.

In the news story, the buckets were galvanised and looked very smart but I thought they might over heat - I think that plain green or black buckets might be best

Great idea from Grendelsmum. If you ask a local florist they might be able to give you some flower buckets or apparently Morrison's sell them 99p for 8. They'd probably donate them for a school project.

Could you get some from Morrisons via their 'Growing Schools' voucher scheme?

Just made it back on to the thread, I work over the weekends so don't have time for mn!
Thanks for all the advice, had a look at the site again today and it has some overgrown trees that can be pruned back to allow more light. It gets sun through to mid/late afternoon so not as bad as I'd thought.
Like your idea grendels, I work for a supermarket so I'll ask if we can have some leftover flower buckets
The other major problem is bindweed. My allotment is organic but I think weedkiller may well have to be employed at least to begin with. There's a compost heap that the caretaker has been adding fruit and veg peelings to from the school kitchen and teh beds have paving round although they are only small still.
I'm going to dig out all my books and have a think about what to plant as well as locate some local pony poo...

Oh, I think it's fair enough to use weedkiller at the start.

Pleased to hear that it's not as bad as you thought - I'm looking at a similar sounding site for a local project, and I think we're going to be chatting to the neighbour about removing a few self-sown ash trees.