New Year, New Garden!

[KingscoteStaff]

One of my parents has built a raised bed outside my inner city Year 6 Classroom. 1m x 3m area, 1m high, filled nearly to the top with soil.

Does your school do gardening? I am high on enthusiasm but low on experience.

The children will be very excited to see it when they get back, so I'd like to start something off straight away. Our History topic is WW2 and Science is Micro-organisms, then Forces.

Right in the middle of London, hardly ever any frost.

Many thanks for any suggestions.

We have an orchard ( apples, pears, plums, cherries and medlars) a fruit garden ( redcurrants, white currants, gooseberries and strawberries) a tree nursery ( 15 saplings we are growing on for the council) a wheat trial area-my class are experiementing on the effectiveness of persticides/fertilisers-and three vegetable beds ( potatoes, carrots, cabbages, beetroot, onions) with one bulb patch ( tulips and daffodils) and 3 decorative flower beds ( we grew the union jack last year in one bed!)

I guess we have rather more space than you! For WW2, one class are growing as many different veg in their patch as they can, definitely potatoes ( try the potato council-they run a potato growing competition each year) and carrots ( we fancy white and purple ones this year as well as the orange ones) and some squash for variety! These might be a good start!

Wow, Spaniel! I bet you have grass, too...

Afraid so! and a wildlife area and a pond and 3 playgrounds, and a trim trail and an outdoor classroom and a wooded area and an enclosed outdoor quad for Reception children with safety flooring. Oh, we also have a recreational area and 3 football fields next door too!

1 metre is a good depth for a veg bed, this time of year you should be able to grow cabbage/cauliflowers, maybe aubergines ( not very WW2 though!) onions and leeks. Have fun!

Dig for Victory comes to mind if you want to link growing stuff with WW2
This teachers resource from RHS looks likes good start.

Would this be something the parents could help with, lol?

I know nothing about gardening, but at my DD's primary they had a greenhouse and used to grow fruit and veg which were eaten by the children at break/lunchtimes. I seem to remember it was very good at getting the children who wouldn't eat vegetables to try them! I think each class had use of it for half a term (not sure). I know at another local school, the gardening is only done in after school gardening club (as opposed to part of everyday lessons).

there are herbs in the one at our school and then they grow beans and sunflowers later in the year.

thyme, rosemary, fennel, lavender etc could be lovely for explaining textures, colours and smells of plants.

Absolutely agree that the Dig for Victory RHS teacher's pack & WWII theme seem ideal.

Then think about what you're planting

and what they can learn from it.

Planting pulses (beans/ peas) - so the fact these plants fix nitrogen.

Earth worms - what job are they doing?

Planting potatoes (nice idea to get in early potatoes) - discuss the role of tubers to store energy.

Herbs as 'nonickname' suggests - helps teach about senses (smell of essential oils), taste (flavour raw/ cooked), touch (texture of leaves), sight (colour of leaves/ flowers) & hearing (plants attract insects, birds - and dried seeds/ leaves rattle).

I would suggest strawberries (maybe in their own pot - because they can take over a bit) - planted in the spring early varieties should fruit for you by the end of the school year.

Finally I would really encourage you to eat what you grow. Our school has kids plant things and they rarely get to try anything they grow. Make it a point of harvesting, preparing & eating in school.

With 'FORCES' you can discuss the fact that you have to stake some plants to keep them up. Why's that? (gravity) What do plants resort to to support themselves?

You can also start recording local weather as a class - recording rainfall & temperatures. Weather recording info here: www.weatherforschools.me.uk/html/teacher_page.html - you can also consider doing a daily picture of what you're growing which you can do through Project 365 app: itunes.apple.com/en/app/project-365/id321175920?mt=8 or stop motion - the plants themselves are good subjects for photography and drawing/ painting.

I think the class can do a lot of the planting/ tending day to day - but agree that it couldn't hurt to send a note home asking if any parents would like to help with the class vegetable patch. It's worth a try at least. Just please please don't do what our school did and forget to water things (especially during Easter/ May or June half-term) - DD2's class lost all their plants and were devastated.

HTH