FGSL News 2016 Archives - Blog | Food Growing Schools

Summer Term: Growing Tips from Chris Collins

As our spirits are lifted by the longer days and some welcome sunshine (or glimpses, at least!), this is one of the most exciting times of the year for school gardening.

It’s the perfect time for growing with your pupils and all the elbow work that you put into your garden will pay off later this term.

What shall we grow?

Quick crops

Try quick crops like rocket, radish, Cut & Come Again salad leaves and even something exotic like Asian leaves are great to get going this time of year.

How long until we can crop?

You’ll be able to crop them in six to eight weeks. Cut and Come Again Salad leaves are great because they can be cropped all year.

How to grow quick crops:

Sow these seeds in straight lines in shallow trenches called drills;
Cover and firm the soil;
Put a string line down before sowing, to make sure you have them in a straight line. This way you’ll be able to tell your crops from the weeds;
Take care when you water, make sure you have a watering can that has a rose attachment at its spout. Turn this upside down and tilt the can away from the sown seeds before moving over them. This way you will not wash out your seeds.

Make it fun!

You can have a bit of fun with drill sowing. Why not make a pizza shaped bed or crops in different circles? As long as you have ordered lines you will be able to tell your new seedlings from any weeds that emerge.

Top Tips for Schools from Chris

Keen growers? Got a School Gardening Club? Grow as much as your space will allow! Get a watering rota together to make sure everyone’s involved;
Assign some ‘Compost Monitors’ and task them with recycling the bits of left over pack lunches into the compost bin;
Request a free Garden Organic School Planner to get advice on what to grow throughout the school year; simply email us with your name and school address and we’ll send planners on a first come, first serve basis (whilst stock lasts!);
Plant some wildflowers to help out our friends, the bees and the butterflies – they are hugely important pollinators. (With a little research, you should be able to find some Wildlife organisations that give seeds away for free);
Planting fennel for example, can help with your runner beans, as it attracts the Hoverfly – a small wasp-like insect that gobbles up Aphids that like runner beans!

Finally, remember that gardening is above all, great fun. So how about making some flowering clothes?! Use an old pair of jeans (or better still, several old pairs) and tie the bottom of the legs into knots. Next, put two bamboo canes down each leg to keep the jeans legs straight. Fill them right up to the top with compost and plant summer flowers like Petunias and Geraniums into the waist of the jeans and water. Very simple but great fun throughout the summer!

If you have any questions for me, or the team at Garden Organic, please

Happy gardening everyone! Chris Collins, Head of Organic Horticulture. Garden Organic.

Kick start a food-growing enterprise with Roots to Work

What is Roots to Work?

Capital Growth have a packed line-up for Roots to Work – an annual conference for people interested in kick-starting or developing a food-growing enterprise or career, with workshops, speakers and networking opportunities.

The event also includes the launch of the Urban Farming Toolkit with our partners, Growing Communities, plus one-to-one advice, as well as our amazing panel of key speakers and a choice of four unique workshops to get you started, or alternatively, take you to the next level. Book NOW to guarantee your choice of workshop. Full line-up below.

Clare who joined Roots to Work 2016 and is currently training with OrganicLea said:

“the conference was so inspiring and useful that I ended up applying for a traineeship with the Castle Garden”

Programme

Speakers followed by panel Q&A

Lessons Learnt from Peri-Urban Farming. Alice Holden, Growing Communities- Author of ‘Do Grow’ and head farmer at Growing Communities Dagenham Farm
New approaches to developing livelihoods for Urban Farmers: Brian Kelly, Organiclea
Transitioning from volunteering to making a living: Sara Barnes – Growing Communities Patchwork Farmer and Organiclea trainee
Freelancing: Getting your own business growing. Hannah Schlotter of hannahgrows.com

Morning Workshops

Advanced growing to sell: An in-depth look at key crops, with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages they present. This workshop will also explore the topics of management, planning, productivity and value. Joris Gunawardena (Sutton Community Farm)
How to get your urban farm started (based on the Urban Farming Toolkit) – Sophie Verhagen, Head Grower Growing Communities Patchwork Farms

Afternoon Workshops

Growing the sector: how can we work together to address barriers for urban food growing enterprise. Nat Mady/Natalie Szarek – Community Food Growers Network (CFGN)
Diversifying income: Securing and diversifying income for community gardens: Julie Riehl – Capital Growth, Sustain

Plus Zooming in on the Future

Book a 15 minute 1:2:1 for advice on getting your career started from Amber Alferoff – Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens

Book NOW to guarantee your choice of workshop

From Seed to Market – Chris Collins and the Young Marketeers Harvest Sale

“There is nothing like the sound of children taking over a market place!” – Chris Collins.

The Young Marketeers Harvest & Apple Sale is coming up on 5 October at Borough Market. Chris Collins who works with School Food Matters to deliver the project and is best known as a former TV Blue Peter gardener, writes to tell us what this school food growing project is all about:

“Young Marketeers is an exciting project that has been running for 6 years with support from various organisations including School Food Matters, United St Saviour’s Charity, FareShare and Garden Organic.

The project focus is on advising schools on food growing and providing workshops to teach primary school children to grow veg from seed with an emphasis on seed to plate, encouraging healthy eating by getting children to grow food. It has, in my opinion, been a resounding success.

Young Marketeers takes things a step beyond growing food and with the help of the famous Borough Market, we introduced an entrepreneurial element, where the food the children grow is taken to market and sold to customers.

Young gardeners – St James primary growing for the @sfmtweet @boroughmarket #youngmarketeers autumn sale @FoodGrowSchools @gardenorganicuk pic.twitter.com/8FkPSiRCvm

— Chris Collins (@cmcollins_hort) September 12, 2017

There is nothing like the sound of children taking over a market place! They are incredible sales people and they do have the advantage of fresh produce to sell – fresh produce they have personally grown.

There are a real mix of children involved with the project because the schools included are primary, secondary and special needs.

The journey starts with workshops in early spring. That’s where I start getting involved. I undertake these workshops at Borough Market itself and can have 25 schools in two sittings – it’s a giant seed sowing party.

We do two lots of crops; one for a summer sale and one for the autumn sale. I teach them seed sowing in trays, pricking out, sowing in drills and how to look after your plants. This advice can be accompanied by school visits I do from time to time but it’s up to the school and the pupils to grow and present produce for sale at the market when the time comes. The children are also given a tour around the market to get tips on sales techniques and how to set up a stall.

What an effort is made when market day comes – the stalls themselves are always presented in fantastic fashion, with children’s artwork and displays really making the produce stand out. The star of the show though has to be the produce the kids have grown. It’s incredibly rewarding for me to see how closely they have listened and, as always their amazing enthusiasm. You can never tire of gardening with children and this project highlights just how much they get it of it.

I will be at the Autumn Sale on 5 October, representing Garden Organic, School Food Matters and Food Growing Schools: London. We always have some esteemed company as the mayor of Southwark attends and usually the local MP, which in itself attracts the media, creating yet another experience for our young growers.

My work doesn’t end there though as I have the impossible task of picking the winning stall…wish me luck, I’m going to need it!”

Christopher M Collins,
Head of Organic Horticulture
Garden Organic

The fantastic Charles Dickens primary – growing for the #youngmarketeers autumn sale @FoodGrowSchools @sfmtweet @boroughmarket pic.twitter.com/CYTpoTsIsb

— Chris Collins (@cmcollins_hort) September 12, 2017

Are you looking to get your school involved in food growing and enterprise activities? Find free resources on our website to get you started, like our Grow Your Own Business activity pack!

What’s powering your pupils?

As a charity, Soil Association’s Food for Life understands how tight the purse strings are, and they know that schools are finding it especially tough to make ends meet. But with more than one in five children overweight or obese when they start primary school, rising to one in three by the time they leave, not to mention obesity prevalence in children in the most deprived areas of the country twice that of children in the least deprived areas, we can’t let tight budgets impact on the health of the next generation.

That’s why Food for Life has revamped their School Awards Programme to make it more affordable for schools to benefit from their unique, whole school approach that is proven to make a positive contribution to pupil health and wellbeing. What’s more, as a Food Growing London School, you are almost certainly well on your way to achieving an award!

Find out more here and start powering your pupils with Food for Life.

Primary school’s Edible Playground a hit with pupils

Manorfield Primary School, in Tower Hamlets, celebrated the launch of their Edible Playground this summer, receiving a Food for Life Award for their innovative approach to integrating healthy food education into the school curriculum.

Watch this BBC Education video to hear what the pupils had to say about the impact their Edible Playground has made in their lives!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/education-40572626/primary-school-s-edible-playground-a-hit-with-pupils

Thanks to the players of People’s Postcode Lottery, Ernest Cook Trust and City Bridge Trust, Trees for Cities – and their programme partners, Chefs Adopt a School and School Food Matters – have worked with Manorfield to create a eye-catching orange honeycomb trellised fruit and vegetable garden, abundant with seasonal school-grown herbs, salads and vegetables; in addition to a multifunction outdoor classroom area and impressive nature garden, rich in diverse urban wildlife.

The new interactive outdoor space has transformed the way pupils learn about food origins and has provided an opportunity to explore healthy eating through seasonal planting and harvesting lessons throughout the year.

For more information contact the Edible Playgrounds team on 020 7840 5956 or by emailing

Reviewing the delivery of food education in schools in England

The Jamie Oliver Food Foundation, in partnership with the British Nutrition Foundation and Food Teacher’s Centre, are carrying out a comprehensive review of the current delivery of food education in schools in England.

They are inviting stakeholders from academia, the school education system, non-governmental organizations, industry experts, and health and nutrition specialists to contribute their expertise and wide-ranging knowledge to this exciting project.

They would like to invite you to take part in the survey that is part of the overall research, this survey will take about 10-15minutes and should be completed by 22^nd July 2017.

Please select the appropriate link below:

Primary https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/PrimaryTeachersSurvey2017

Secondary https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SecondaryTeacherSurvey2017

Grow Well, Feel Well – summer summit

Grow Well, Feel Well

Join Food Growing Schools: London partner Capital Growth on Wednesday 5 July for their summer summit all about health, well-being and growing food in the city.

From mindfulness and garden design, to growing nutrient rich plants and therapeutic horticulture, the afternoon will include workshops and speakers on a variety of topics, plus time to enjoy the onsite permaculture garden and meet other attendees.

Tickets available via Eventbrite or visit the Capital Growth website for more info.

What are London boroughs doing for community food growing?

Today sees the launch of the Good Food For London 2016 report, produced by our friends at Sustain through their London Food Link project. The report takes an intriguing look at various aspects of ‘good food’, from community food growing and school food standards, to animal welfare, sustainable fish, fair pay and fair trade – and at the boroughs that are making strides to improve food culture in London. Good Food For London is supported by the GLA and partner organisations, including Food Growing Schools: London.

London boroughs are ranked in a league table according to their action on 11 ‘good food’ measures. Scores range from 95 to 15 per cent. The fantastic news is that 30 out of 33 London boroughs are doing more to improve the food available to their residents, workers and school pupils compared to 2015. For a broad look at ‘good food’ in London’s boroughs you can read the full Good Food for London 2016 report here.

Good food in London’s schools
So what does the Good Food For London 2016 report say about progress in schools? There are four key measures related to schools listed below:

Community Food Growing (Green map and list above)
The GFFL 2016 report for this measure shows that there is 1) increasing local authority commitment to food growing in communities, 2) inclusion of food growing in the Local Plan for more boroughs, and 3) borough support for school food growing through our Food Growing Schools: London (FGSL) programme. To achieve this measure at least 75% of local schools should be registered with FGSL by completing our short FGSL survey.

FGSL’s work with councils, council officers and communications representatives is really starting to make a difference. According to our own FGSL interim report launched at City Hall in October 2016, now 25 out of 33 boroughs are promoting food growing in schools compared to 15 in 2015. Almost 1,400 schools have signed up for support from FGSL so far, 87% of schools that have completed our FGSL survey have said they are involved in food growing, of which 79% cent of pupils involved have improved behaviour and attainment as a result, and 1,000 people have received training from FGSL to date. Amazing!

Good Food for London 2016 - comparing borough progress — Good Food for London 2016

Food For Life Catering Mark (listed in red on chart)
The Soil Association Food For Life Catering Mark helps organisations – from schools to nurseries to museums and staff restaurants – ensure they serve traceable, sustainable, healthier food. For this measure, the GFFL 2016 report shows that in 21 boroughs, the majority of schools are now serving Silver or Gold catering mark meals and many expanded catering mark meals to nurseries. This is remarkable especially considering in 2011 no boroughs were serving Gold catering mark meals and only eight were serving Silver in the majority of schools. But the work is far from done. This leaves out almost one third of borough where the majority of schools don’t serve meals with the accreditation. Food for Life is one of six FGSL partners.

Changing food culture in schools
From September 2015 the new OFSTED inspection framework has an increased focus on healthy eating and knowledge of how to eat healthily. The GFFL 2016 report also measures changes in food culture in schools by looking at progress in two evidenced-based programmes: Food for Life and Healthy Schools London. The report shows that 22 boroughs are making ‘some progress’ and only seven are making ‘good progress’ in engaging with these school programmes.

Food Flagships two years on – Croydon and Lambeth
In June 2014, the Mayor of London launched the Food Flagship programme in two pilot boroughs: Croydon and Lambeth, encouraging the wider community to make healthy eating normal. Lots has been achieved, and Food Growing Schools: London has supported these initiatives by doing food growing activities and training in in both boroughs, and supporting with a Schools Marketplace, four school Edible Playgrounds (with Trees for Cities) and Master Gardener community growing (with Garden Organic) in Croydon.

FGSL – continued support for London boroughs
The full Good Food For London 2016 report shows that great strides have been made to improve food culture in London, and FGSL is a big part of this. But we want to do even more with schools. Find out more about FGSL Support including.

School Engagement Officers – in every London borough
A new school assembly programme
School food growing resources, events, training and more.

Let’s make 2017 even better. Join FGSL in working towards our dream to see every school in London growing food!

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Best crop yet – 87% of London schools involved in food growing!

Since the launch of the Food Growing Schools: London Partnership in 2013 we have been working hard to help schools across London to grow their own food. Over the summer we tasked research teams from the University of the West of England (Bristol) and Cardiff University to carry out an independent project evaluation so we could see how we were doing, and we’re pretty proud of the results.

The interim report was launched at City Hall on 13th October 2016 with support from Joanne McCartney AM, Deputy Mayor for London. You can read the report in full but here are our favourite bits!

More schools and pupils involved

87% of London schools that completed the Food Growing Schools: London survey* are now involved in food growing, and double the number of pupils are growing food in their schools. Our Growathon engaged 54,000 pupils in food growing in London up to July 2016, and 1 in 4 schools now link food growing directly to curriculum activities, embedding knowledge and skills.

Improved skills, knowledge and behaviour

Schools have told us that food growing is having a positive impact on the education, health and well-being of their pupils, way beyond just getting their hands dirty and learning outside. 61.7% said students were more aware of nature, healthy eating and sustainability, 76.2% said pupils had enhanced knowledge and skills, and a whopping 79.2% reported improved behaviour or attainment. That’s got to be something to celebrate!

Increased community involvement

Schools told us that food growing has helped them to increase involvement from parents and the local community including businesses and voluntary organisations, with around 1,000 volunteers and school staff undertaking food growing training. FGSL is helping to promote sustainability by creating strong supportive local networks where schools can help each other – sharing experience and knowledge through forums and FGSL’s pan-London school food growing conferences.

Don’t stop now!

Together, we have discovered the huge benefits of growing food in schools – improving young people’s education, health, the environment, the local economy and the impact on the local community. It’s vital now that we all continue to work together to help young people in our schools keep growing and flourishing.

Whether you are already growing food in your school, you wish to get started, or you represent an organisation who can help, here are just a few of our fantastic resources to help you get involved:

Planting seeds for the future

We think this is all pretty exciting but the undeniable benefits of food growing mean we’re keener than ever to improve on our achievements to date. We want to reach every London school and as many pupils as possible, and we want food growing to be more deeply embedded within schools. We have the help of our wonderful partners but the Food Growing Schools: London project is due to end in March 2017.

We are looking for funding and support to continue to make an impact in schools across London, so if you can help us to reach our goals please contact FGSL Project Manager, Kate Groves: [email protected].

Food Growing Schools: London – Sowing Ideas. Growing Inspiration. Cultivating Futures.

*Figures based on evaluation surveys with lead school teachers in September 2013 (n=504) and July 2016 (n=241). The independent FGSL project evaluation was carried out by research teams from the University of the West England and Cardiff University.

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Forget Halloween, celebrate Pumpkin day!

Your school grown pumpkins are plumping up and it’s time to harvest them. You may want to help the children carve them with funny faces for Halloween but pumpkins are so much more than just a lantern, so don’t miss the pumpkin party and try out some of these ideas.

Once you have carved out your pumpkins, you can put the insides into a mystery box and have the children dig their hands in to fish out treats or identify objects just by feel.

Pumpkin is a really tasty fruit so don’t throw the flesh away, instead create a yummy base for soups by boiling the stringy insides in water, strain, then add any veggies from your plot to the broth to make a delicious soup. Or try roasting wedges with a bit of salt and cumin to make pumpkin chips the kids will love.

And don’t forget to use all those lovely seeds. Separate the pumpkin seeds from the flesh by rinsing under running water. Pat dry with a paper towel then put some to one side for planting. (More on this in a bit…)

If you’re feeling crafty, colour some seeds with food dye then thread using a needle to create pumpkin bracelets and necklaces. Or poke holes in a plastic bottle to make a bird feeder for your garden, fill with the pumpkin seeds and watch the wildlife flock.

If you’d like to eat them yourselves, roasted seeds can be the best bit of a pumpkin – not only are they delicious but also nutritious. Just boil in some salted water, then lay on a tray with a sprinkle of salt and drizzle of oil and bake on a high heat for about 20 mins (depending on the size of the seeds).

And lastly, make sure you store some of the larger seeds in a cool dry spot for planting next Spring – check out this guide to growing from one of our partner organisations, the RHS.