Six steps to a successful gardening club
Post categories: gardening with children
| 07:30 UK time, Tuesday, 19 April 2011
It began with a quick conversation in the corridor. I was collecting my girls from primary school and the head teacher wanted a word. She was keen to restart a gardening club and had heard I liked to grow things. Would I be interested?
I can't say why I agreed. I suppose I was flattered. But a few days later, standing in the playing field with a load of excited children and no particular plan, I was having my doubts.
I had inherited a polytunnel, which was a start. But you couldn't say the same for the garden itself. This was a tragic sight. Two patches of clay that turned to mud in the rain, and in sunshine baked to a hard, lifeless crust.
But it was too late to back out. The solution, I decided, was to build some raised beds and fill them with good earth and compost. This would not only drain well, but give some structure to our garden.
The polytunnel means we can start our season early, just after spring half term. But don't stop reading if you haven't got one. A windowledge is just as a good.
The students also love selling what they have grown. So we have hawked lettuce at the school gates, and run a stall at the summer fair.
As I write I have just come back from a lunchtime session, where we planted new potatoes and sowed two types of lettuce in trays. Some of this lettuce we'll plant outdoors, and the rest we'll raise in pots so the kids can bring them home. This, I've found, is key to a successful gardening club and I try to plan so that every now and then there's something to take away.
Here are my six steps to running a successful gardening club:
Small is beautiful
Small people are best with small tools or gardening becomes a frustrating - and sometimes dangerous - chore. Ditto watering - a young child can’t lug round a five-gallon monster. The lack of small tools should not prevent you starting a gardening club, but buy what you can afford.
Friends in green places
Cash – or lack of it – can be a problem. Make friends with your local garden centre, who might give you discounts and freebies for the good PR that you will generate. A number of supermarkets and gardening retailers also run schemes and offers aimed at schools.
Solid ground?
If you’ve only got concrete to cultivate, go for raised beds and large containers. Treated wood is cheap enough while green oak from a timber merchants is pricier but won’t need treating. Or be creative with such things as old tyres or sinks. You can make a container from just about anything, as long as it has drainage. Raised beds are also a good choice if you’ve got poor soil or want to distinguish the garden from the football pitch. There are few limits to what you can grow. Remember, though, raised beds dry out quicker than open ground. And keep them to a maximum 1.2m width so you can reach into the middle of them.
Make it easy on yourself
Grow tried and tested varieties of seed – the usual suspects crop up in gardening books and on websites. The AGM logo on a pack of seeds, for example, means it has got the thumbs up from no less than the Royal Horticultural Society. Use newly bought seeds which are more likely to germinate and you’re not cheating if you buy baby, ‘plug’ plants to give you a head start. Avoid difficult veg and flowers – carrots are notoriously hard to grow on heavy soils, for example. Young children like big seeds, tubers and bulbs, which are easier to handle. So I’m thinking the likes of new potatoes, nasturtiums, sunflowers, sweet peas, garlic and spring bulbs.
Holiday plans
An obvious question that often gets overlooked: who will water over the Easter break? We manage with a rota of adults and older children. And try to plan for crops or flowers before the end of the summer term, so there are no watering issues over the long holiday. This can mean starting things early indoors after spring half term; growing plants that ripen quickly, such as lettuce and mange tout; and harvesting baby veg – beetroot for example.
Get legal
You’ll need to have various checks to work unsupervised with children. The school will advise on this.
Dominic Murphy is a garden writer and runs a at his local school.
Comment number 1.
At 25th Apr 2011, Alli Warne wrote:This sounds very interesting, some very helpful information here; I am starting a gardening club at my school next term and as the School Secretary (with a keen interest in gardening) this is quite a departure for me also.
As an inner-city school we have been trying over the last two years to make the school a greener place and have so far dug up tarmac to plant hedges, installed various planters and purchased a small piece of unused land and made it into a garden. The next stage is a veg patch which the Headmaster and I dug out last week.
Now we have the bones of the green areas in place we are looking forward to the whole school community enjoying them. I think your idea about fast growing crops and allowing the children to take plants and produce home is a very good idea and one I will try out.
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