You're not going out in that? Part 2.

 

It's been really cold the past few days. Playground are icy so children are often kept in at break and lunch times. So, even though there's not a lot of gardening to be done, it's great to be able to get out for a short time and experience the cold, see the frost sparkle, touch a piece of ice and feel the hard frozen ground beneath your feet. 

We found this spectacular piece of ice hanging from our rainwater collection bucket at Ravensbury. Of course, as I marvelled at the shapes, the children just wanted to smash it!

Grow it, cook it, eat it

 At the end of term at Ravensbury we harvested potatoes, onions, garlic, broad beans and peas ...

cooked them up into a soup and sat down to eat together. We invited the Head and Deputy to join us. A great way to end the year.

Onion harvest

Onions are easy to grow. Put the little sets in the ground in the autumn or early spring and just leave them until June. It's really nice for children to come back to the garden and harvest what they planted. Here they are getting onions and garlic.

Parents and kids gardening together

We have a nice little group at Ravensbury where parents and children do some gardening together first thing in the morning. Two of the parents have gone on to get allotments and are now teaching me things I didn't know.

Corny!

We tried growing corn at Ravensbury and a lot of it didn't ripen due to the poor summer. Still we got some really nice cobs. We put them in the microwave for 8 minutes and had corn on the cob. Growing corn is perfectly feasible in northern England but this was a big surprise for a lot of people in school!

The back to school harvest

Always an interesting time to see what has grown over the summer and what hasn't. Not a bad crop at all at Ravensbury, enough for a good soup I'd say. Those carrots are miles better than anything we ever get on our allotment.

Strawberry season is here

I like things that are easy to grow, cost a lot in the shops and taste better than you ones you buy. Strawberries tick every box. Plus each plant makes 4-5 new plants every year so you can give them away to children and parents.

First of the radishes

First radishes of the year at Ravesnbury. They are great for school gardening, easy to grow in decent soil and children like them, most of the time anyway! 

Multilingual carrots in Clayton

A Polish girl, a Chinese girl and a Saudi boy walk into a garden with a packet of carrot seeds. Sounds like a Bernard Manning joke but this is a group I'm working with at Ravensbury. We planted the carrots and then started talking about how to say "carrot" in their home language. So we decided it would be nice to write some labels in different languages so we could see the different types of writing they use and they can show off their writing skills.

The A-Z of gardening

Wet weather can sometimes be a problem working in Manchester, although not as often as you might think. I do like to get outside as much as possible but there are some days when it's time for an inside activity. And sometimes there can be 10 minutes spare at the end of a session.

I've found that children love to play the A-Z of gardening. Get everyone in a circle and explain the rules. Children will take it in turns to say a word that has something to do with gardening or plants. It could be a plant, a tool, an activity, anything. The first person has to think of something beginning with "A", the second with "B" and so on. If they can't think of anything they can ask a friend, maybe two. Children with limited English could say something in their language. The aim is to see how far the group can get through the alphabet. Or you could make it competitive where people have to drop out if they can't think of anything.

After one game at Ravensbury, a Year 5 girl said she would come back the next week with something for each letter of the alphabet. And she did.

Coming back to school can be fun

At Ravensbury we came back in September to find some mixed results from our summer planting. Some things didn't do well, some completely failed but the leeks .... well, the leeks were magnificent. They are a pretty hardy plant and do well in northern England. As you can see, the children who planted them were rather pleased.

Tools and children

Some people start to get worried when children and sharp things come into close contact but I'm all for helping children learn how to use things safely. Some cultures just let kids loose with machetes and knives from an early age but I do like a bit more control than that.

I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences of showing people how to use tools and then supervising them closely while they do it themselves. A colleague at Armitage primary likes to say how children whose behaviour is often pretty poor in the classroom suddenly become little angels when they have control of a dangerous tool, probably out of fear of having it taken away from them. One of the best users of a pruning saw I've seen is a 11 year old girl from Slovakia who maintained her grandmother's apple tree back home.

For me the golden rules are: make sure they understand where the dangerous bit is, show them how to use it safely, ensure they can actually use the tool properly and then stay with them to spot any danger signs. 

Getting parents involved

At Ravensbury we have a session for parents once a week just after they have dropped their children off at school. In a diverse area like this it has been really interesting hearing people's experiences of gardening and growing food in other countries. I've learnt a lot as well as helping people develop new skills and just having a nice time for an hour.

Harvesting winter crops has generated some interesting moments as well. At St Chrysostoms we picked a lot of chard leaves and gave these away to parents. At one point I was with 4 women:from Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and China, all clamouring for the chard and sharing stories about how they cooked it and grew it back home.

Bulbs

I've, well the children have, planted a lot of bulbs this winter. I'd never bothered much with bulbs but this has been a bit of a revelation. They're incredibly easy, even for very young children and while you're just starting to plant seeds for the summer, they are really coming through, giving a lot of early colour in the garden. They have really made a big impression with children and parents.