Young Gardeners: Growing gardeners of the future - June 2011

Another month has passed at the Whitgift School kitchen gardening project in Grimsby and what an exciting time it has been. As a result of the Kitchen Garden series, lots of suppliers have contacted us offering great products to help and support the children and of course this has added lots more fun to the garden as many were things we hadn’t budgeted for in the first place.

Christmas comes again

Firstly we have been given a lovely inflatable greenhouse. In just 10 minutes the children unpacked it, sorted the foam floor and inflated it fully. Sam then simply zipped the top to the floor and a little weight was added to hold the whole thing down. We are going to use it for growing our seedlings the white, yellow and black tomatoes plus maybe even Jungle noodle beans.

Then a full box of FSC rated timber products arrived and we were delighted to have paper pot makers, oak labels, oak herb labels, bang in pegs for the shed, metal bird shapes for decoration and much more! These products add some class to our garden and now we have oak labels instead of plastic ones the beds really do look posh!

As we feature in KG each month, Connor decided that he would help keep the beds neat and tidy at all times. He will also learn all about the planting and all that we grow of course, but he will really take control of what the beds look like. Connor has been sent a pot cleaning brush and as well as cleaning the pots, he has used it for cleaning the beds before he paints them.

Having read about our efforts another company kindly asked us if we would like an additional raised bed and we were pleased to accept. The bed in total is 3m x 1.8m (10x6ft) and we are going to use it to show everybody how to make an American Indian ‘three sisters’ bed. It will consist of sweetcorn, squashes and runner beans all grown together in a special way. The sweetcorn is ‘Mirai White’, ‘Rising Sun’, ‘Strawberry Popcorn’ and ‘Hopi Blue’. The beans are ‘Painted Lady’, ‘Purple Queen’ and the squashes are butternut ‘Cream Of The Crop’ and ‘Harlequin’. These promise to be a fantastic bed and the students are really looking forward to working in it.

Finally the school’s local garden centre offered the children the wheelbarrows, compost and seed they need for growing their beds of Swiss chard! These will be the only mobile beds we have and I bet they will end up with more in them than just Swiss chard.

Bed preparation

Now that the garden was all set it was time to get the children sowing and growing. After explaining the benefits of organic manures and adding extra vitality to the soil the students decided that blood fish and bone meal plus organic chicken pellets would be the way to go. So some of the students got stuck in to the chicken manure not totally sure what it was, only to find that some really didn’t like the smell (the kitchen garden area is slightly enclosed). Saying that though, most of them helped and within no time at all the whole area was brimming with a rich smell of soil enhancements, paving the way for good growth throughout the year.

After spreading the chicken manure the beds were raked again and made smooth ready for planting. It didn’t rain for ages after spreading the chicken manure so the smell did seem to linger, but it’s almost gone now after being rained on a few times.
Sowing update

The potatoes are planted

We had designed into the garden two deep potato beds for ‘Blue Danube’ and ‘Pink Fir Apple’ potatoes. It was agreed to not plant them in rows but dot them nine at a time in each bed. So much was the excitement to plant more that the students took ownership of it and we moved a further two beds on top of others to give them more potato planting beds. Then they planted ‘Orla’, ‘Cara’ and ‘Lady Christl’ so in total they have four outside beds and one centre bed with potatoes in them. Tubers were planted deep at 20cm (8in) and when the shoots reach 20cm (8in) out of the soil they will be earthed up.

Radishes cause excitement

After the students had rifled through my seed boxes it became quite apparent that radishes were in abundance and in lots of different colours, sizes and shapes. I know that radish is always a winner with schools no matter how old the students or if they like them or not, as they are easy and quick to grow. With this in mind we now have ‘Dragon F1’, ‘Rainbow Mixed’, ‘Cherry Belle’, ‘Zlata’, ‘Tsukushi and ‘Pink Slipper’ growing in different beds. In just one week growth can be seen poking through the soil and this is what’s needed to get a project like this going. The radish were planted in drills 1cm (1⁄2in) deep with rows 30cm (12in) apart.

Colourful Swiss chard

Packets of Swiss chard attracted the interest of the students, who really wanted to grow them for their ornamental colour. They know that since the garden is situated right at the school entrance lots of questions will be asked as to what’s growing from anybody who doesn’t know what chard is. The Swiss chard was sown in drills allowing 30cm (12in) between rows to give the chard plenty of room to grow.

Bright beetroot

The students have also sowed their first beetroot of the season. ‘Burpee’s Golden’ was a good choice and two rows were tried to see what happens. The seeds were planted 10cm (4in) apart in the rows and watered as soon as they were planted. Then ‘Boltardy’, ‘Detroit’, ‘Albina Vereduna’ and ‘Chioggia Pink’ to make an interesting collection of colour.

Beetroot seems to be a favourite if it’s bright red, striped, white or golden. More beetroot will be planted each week to have a succession of harvest.

Bean wigwams

As it will also soon be the right time for the runner beans to be planted, wigwams were made. To make it as easy as possible we used the brilliant Figo Frame Connectors (www.watermate.co.uk) that enable the students to join any size of cane. They of course put this to the test and thick, thin and bent canes were used but the connectors handled them all. Now we have three beds waiting for the right time to plant runner beans.

Cosmic carrots

Carrots are always popular because all of the students know what they are. Our ‘Cosmic Carrot Collection’ (a mixture of different varieties) is even more popular plus ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Rainbow Mix’. Round ‘Parmex’, ‘Yellowstone’, and ‘Crème de Lite’ were all sown. In a few weeks this process will be repeated and as soon as we have the space in the inflatable greenhouse more carrots and even more varieties will be grown. The carrots were planted in 1cm (1⁄2in) drills and about 30cm (12in) apart. As part of our companion planting trials, spring onions were sown next to the carrots as a carrot fly deterrent.

Suppliers

•    Greensafe (inflatable greenhouse); tel: 0113 815 3141; www.thegreensafe.co.uk
•    Nether Wallop Trading (FSC timber products); tel: 01264 355553; www.netherwalloptrading.co.uk
•    Woodblocx (raised beds); tel: 0800 389 1420; www.woodblocx.co.uk
•    Victoriana Nursery Gardens (seeds); tel: 01233 740 529; www.victoriananursery.co.uk
•    Pennell’s Garden Centre; tel: www.pennellsonline.co.uk

The Whitgift Garden Project

At Whitgift Senior School the Inspiring Communities Government Fund made it possible for the school to team up with John Cavill to design and build the garden and help educate the children through gardening. It aims to lift the aspirations of all the children in the school through learning outdoors.

​Follow progress each month in KG and you can also log on to John Cavill’s website at www.simplygardening.co.uk/whitgift.htm to view the latest information.

If you have a school project you’d like us to feature in KG simply contact Steve Ott: sott@mortons.co.uk

Next month: Growth in the kitchen garden moves at a pace.

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