Gardening Advice?

The suggestion has been made that Robyn's school needs someone to guide the children in their school garden.   It's not clear at this stage whether the teacher in charge of the garden knows anything about plants,  or whether he needs support.

It seems that the ideal candidate is a parent or grandparent (check),   retired (check),  with lots of free time (?),  who knows about gardening (check) and is not afraid of very small children (??).

A year or two ago there was a suggestion,  out of Norfolk,  that volunteers were needed to help householders with their vegetable growing at home.   This sounded exciting:  it was an opportunity to teach,  to grub about in soil and to see other peoples gardens.

Have you ever tried to volunteer,  in a formal sense,  with an established charity?   It's like pulling teeth,  very slowly.   They start with the assumption that your motives are criminal,  that you need to prove your altruism.   After many months,  they find a reason why you are not suitable:  perhaps you don't quite live in Norfolk.   Or perhaps you don't really believe that someone with a garden can't grow vegetables!

Seems that Cambridgeshire doesn't have a gardening charity;  is there a niche here?

So what do children need to know about gardening?

What do they want to know?

Can they have fun doing it?

They need to know about long-term planning for continuous cropping . . . . .

Maybe not:   they're between 5 and 10,  with an attention span of 30 seconds.

They need fast germination,  eating next week.   Radishes?

What do they want to know?   Only they know that (probably).

Can they have fun doing it?   They can grub in the soil and get dirty with good reason!

Then they could get wet wash their hands.   Is that fun?

It wasn't like that at all!

They loved weeding!   Once they understood that weeds were a resource useful in the compost bin they set to enthusiastically.   Only their hands got dirty.

The next week they needed no telling:  weeds were removed within a few minutes and seed-sowing started.   Within a few weeks there were rows of peas,  lettuces,  beetroot;  new little bushes of gooseberries and blackcurrants,  strawberry plants.

And they loved watering!   The tap on the water butt was too stiff for little hands,  so it had to be supervised.   Full watering cans were too heavy for tiny people,  so they were half-filled or less:  so there was lots of running to and fro,  and sloshing and splashing of water.

Use of the hoe was a revelation to them.   Sliding the blade gently through the surface of the soil worked as well on young vegetables as it did with weeds!

Produce was taken to the school kitchen.   Not a lot,  but enough to generate pride of growing and eating:  enough to realise that produce did not originate in supermarkets.    Not a lot,  because they were pleased to find that fresh carrots,  lettuce,  broad beans,  gooseberries were much tastier  raw in the moments after picking than cooked on a plate!

Much later,  at Robyn's eighth birthday party,  it was a joy to see them squabbling over a plate of raw carrot sticks!

They learned patience,  too.   That courgette plants need weeks indoors (with regular watering) before planting out.   That they then need weeks to flower and set seed & fruit before they can be harvested.

The winners,  of course,  were strawberries.   To wait weeks for berries to ripen;   to protect them from the birds (and other,  less patient,  small children);  to pick them,  red,  swollen and juicy;  and then to share them with the other,  less green-fingered,  children.

Caring and sharing is a characteristic of the school.   Without needing to be told,  they carried bowls of berries (strawberries,  blackcurrants and gooseberries)  around the play-field to share with those who knew nothing of growing,  tending,  watering and harvesting