FGSL Support Archives - Blog | Food Growing Schools

Make the most of your school garden this Autumn!

Don’t be fooled by the change in the season, there is still plenty to do outside at this time of year! Your raised beds or open garden spaces can still produce food and there are lots of different crops that can be sown over the Autumn term.

Autumn Crops

Why not give Perpetual Spinach, winter salads, winter Lettuce, Asian Greens or Chard a go, whilst the soil is still warm in October? This will give you some great tasting, fresh food this term.

Winter Crops

There are also crops that can be grown over the winter months that will be ready for eating in the Spring, such as onions, broccoli, kale and broad beans, so get prepared by getting those ready now.

Your Autum Term task list

Not sure where to start? Here’s a list of things you can do with your pupils to get back into the school garden this Autumn:

Form a team: get a gardening club of pupils, teachers and parents together to help you.
Survey your site: how is it looking now that summer is a distant memory? Do some of your old crops need pulling out? Have some weeds moved in? Have a good tidy up and give the soil a fork over and rake.
Seed Saving: If you grew runner beans or tomatoes over the summer, why not try some seed saving? Beans or Peas can be cut at the base, taken into the school and hung in a dry place, like a cupboard and dried. In a couple of weeks, the pods can be split, and the beans can be collected. Place them in a sealed plastic sandwich bag and put it in a cool place. These will keep until the following spring, when you can sow them around May.
Seed saving tip: remember to label and date your beans as this is good gardening practise. If you have some tomatoes coming to an end, scrape out the seeds, wash them in water and rinse the out through a sieve. Dry them on some kitchen towel and once you are happy they are dry, put them in a small jar, label and store them in a cupboard ready for next year.
Compost: if you have a compost heap or bin, it’s a good idea to gently give it a turn with a garden fork – being careful to not to harm any wildlife that may be in there. This compost will be invaluable to your soil in the spring.

Starting a compost bin: If you haven’t got a compost bin up and running yet, collect some of the falling leaves now and put them in black bin liners. Put some holes in the liners and let the leaves rot down gradually. This ‘leaf mould’ as it’s known is great for soil structure and could be the start of your compost bin.

Grow green manure: If you don’t plan to use all your garden space over the winter, you could use your spare space to grow some green manure. This is a crop you can sow thickly onto the soil; it will grow and help protect the soil from erosion and from weeds. Dig it in the spring and it will have real benefit for soil health, providing nutrients and improving the structure of the soil, helping drainage and making life easier for plant roots.

Top tips for growing green manure:

A great crop for this is Field Beans, they are part of a plant family known as Legumes and they have a special relationship with bacteria called Rhizobium that lives on their roots. These Bacteria fix Nitrogen from the air in return for sugars from the plant, which helps keep the soil healthy. Soil health and legumes would make a great subject to study in science and can be done alongside your work in the garden. One important piece of advice when planting green manures is to make sure you dig them in before they flower, therefore retaining maximum goodness for the soil.

Re-organise your space: The autumn and winter are also a great time for moving any plants that you feel are in the wrong place. A bit of re-organisation might help you free up some valuable space, to sow new perennial plants such as shrubs, fruit or trees. Whether moving or planting new plants, make sure you are as gentle as possible with the roots, this will make sure they get a strong, healthy start the following spring.

Don’t forget the wildlife! Keep those birds fed and watered throughout the cold months, they are important to the garden and they need a bit of help from us too. You can encourage more wildlife into your school grounds by building a bog garden. A shallow hole or pit lined with a rubber pond liner that is punctured in a few places will make a great little bog garden. Do some homework to find out what kind of plants will like to grow in a bog garden and place in some rocks to give some cover to hibernating frogs and toads. These great creatures will help keep your slugs and snails in order next year.

Happy gardening!

Chris Collins, Head of Horticulture, Garden Organic

Five Steps to summer-proof your school garden

The countdown to the summer holidays is nearly over!

Follow these five simple steps before you head off for the break and you’ll have a healthy garden waiting for you when you return in September.

Take stock of where you’re at

Have a quick look at your growing areas to see:

What plants need looking after over the summer?
Which ones can be cropped?
Have you got time to squeeze in any last seed-to-plate plants like rocket or salad leaves?
What wildlife has been visiting your school over the spring and summer?

If you have a lot of runner beans and tomatoes that have grown to a good size, but are yet to produce any fruit, you’ll want to keep them going over the summer. If you’re lucky enough to have a gardener or site manager to keep an eye on things, then that’s great, but if not, it’s good to have a few tricks up your sleeve to help stop your plants drying out.

Plan for water conservation

Firstly apply a good, thick organic mulch to any plants that will continue to grow during the summer holidays. If you have some home-made compost that’s great, if not some fine bark or green waste compost from the garden centre would be a good investment. Spread it on the top of your soil at about 5cm depth. This will help keep the roots moist and reduce the need to water.

Another good trick is to collect a few plastic water bottles, remove the lid and fill with water, then cover the lid area with about five or six layers of cling film and secure with an elastic band. Then take a pin and make some holes, gently through the cling film. Turn the bottle upside down and bury the neck in the veg bed. The water will seep out slowly, keeping the plants watered. This technique can last up to a week, reducing the need for someone to come and water the plants. There are also products available in the garden centre and online that do the same job; they are basically small adjustable taps that fit to the tops of recycled water bottles.

A final tip on water conservation is to make sure your planting or raised beds are filled out with plants. A full planting area reduces the need for watering and will stop weeds growing too. Why not underplant with some herbs or even some ‘green manure’?

Green manure is made of live plants, sown as seed and are very good for improving soils. A good example is mustard seed or you could try an easy quick crop like radish. Sow these seeds thickly but leave a space around the base of your existing plants, try around 10cm.

Feed your plants

Now is the time to give your plants a good feed. Watering with a liquid feed diluted into your watering can will give your plants a boost. Tomato feed is a cheap easy option, or the ultimate fertiliser is organic comfrey pellets. However a small investment in a Comfrey plant (One called Bocking 14 is recommended) planted and grown in the school grounds will provide a steady supply of nutrient-rich liquid feed.

Simply harvest its leaves from time to time, soak in a bucket of water, then three weeks or so later, drain off the liquid and use as a feed. It’s known as Comfrey tea and it should be pointed out, is rather smelly! No doubt this will cause great amusement among any young members of the gardening club.

Support your plants

It’s also a good time to check if your plants are well supported, as plants like tomatoes become much heavier as they bear fruit. Use canes to support them, tie in any heavy stems using soft twine, tied in a figure of eight. This method prevents rubbing and damage to the soft stems of many crops.

Do a bit of forward planning

Of course, as the summer holidays loom it’s also a great time to think about what you will do with the space after the summer. Autumn and winter planning will be on all gardeners’ minds, as we like to plan ahead.

What do you want to grow over the autumn and winter? Broad beans? Chard or even spring cabbage? Why not look at a few seed catalogues and make a little plan for your garden space. You could even mix in some curriculum by undertaking a small design.

On that theme and to protect your crops, why not have a competition to design a Scarecrow? Desiging and building one from recycled materials is a great way to finish off the summer term.

Happy gardening and I wish you a very happy summer holidays!

Christopher M Collins

Head of Horticulture, Garden Organic

Enfield schools food growing workshop

Learn how to infuse food growing into your everyday teaching by attending a workshop on May 22nd from 4.00 – 5.30pm at Alma Primary School, Enfield EN3 4UQ

Lisa Grant, Engagement Officer for Food Growing Schools: London, will be there to help host the session with seeds, growing tips and practical ideas about how you can use food growing activities to support the curriculum.

Please register your interest in advance with Sharon Davies, Learning Consultant PSHE / SRE & External Projects, Enfield Council –

Autumn teachers’ Food Growing Forum an all-round success!

Food Growing Schools London teams up with other organisations and councils in boroughs across London to get more schools engaged in growing.

October’s food growing forum held after school hours and hosted at St Andrew’s (Barnsbury) Primary School was a great success. 16 teachers from across Camden and Islington participated in the informative and inspiring session by sharing tips and resources from their food growing journey and initiatives.

Nick Ives, Engagement Officer for Food Growing Schools London (FGSL) writes:

“One of the best things about my role is working with fellow food growing enthusiasts – Marjon Willers, a Specialist Dietitian from the School Improvement Service of Islington is certainly one of those! We connected in the summer term and agreed to hold some food growing forums for teachers after school in the Autumn and Spring terms. Marjon agreed to find a host school and invite participants, my colleague Lisa Grant and I agreed to facilitate the session.

Our hosts Jacqui and King, from St Andrew’s (Barnsbury) Primary School generously welcomed 16 teachers and ourselves for the after school session which lasted an hour and a half.

To make best use of time we structured the session into four phases and encouraged constructive dialogue throughout:

a brief introduction from each participant and an expression of what they wanted to get out of the session
a demonstration from Lisa of the key features of the redesigned FGSL website
a tour from King and Jacqui of the school growing spaces
brief plenary to pull ideas together and agree some actions.

Some participants were new to growing, others more experienced. We had plenty of useful discussions, in which we shared relevant experiences and ideas, as well as sign posting to helpful resources and expertise. Some hoped to find out what to grow through the winter, others wanted to know how to make the best use of limited concrete growing spaces. As facilitators we made sure that every participant had a chance to get their questions addressed.

We encouraged everyone to keep in contact with us at Food Growing Schools: London – firstly to let us know what further support we can offer via our online survey and secondly to sign up for our regular FGSL Newsletter. We look forward to all meeting up again in the spring to share our growing stories some more.

Feedback

This is what participants were kind enough to say about our forum:

‘Well organized, informal and practical. Plenty of ideas to take forward’
‘I have lots of cross curricular ideas now. More ideas for how to involve children in gardening’
‘Found out what to plant in Winter’
‘It’s great to see how another school is using its space and what they are growing’

Get in touch

Would schools in your borough benefit from a session of sharing and discussion like this one? Find out more, get involved and organise a session in your borough, simply email or call 02476217747.

Four steps to managing your garden pests

Sharing your garden with nature is part of gardening and even in the best managed fruit and veg gardens, natural pests and predators will present themselves, but they needn’t be a problem.

Follow Capital Growth’s four simple steps to manage your pests: Protect, Remove, Repel, Prevent.

1. PROTECT your plants using cut plastic bottles around the seedling to prevent pests from reaching the plant.

2. REMOVE the pest by manually taking off those you can see.

By taking off the top of broad beans if they’re covered in aphids (greenfly, blackfly, plant lice) the plant has a chance to grow and produce beans.

Take a look at the RHS advice on Aphids.

Create a ‘slug and snail hunt’ and re-locate the culprits outside your garden- at least a few 100 yards away. Check out Garden Organic’s information on how to prevent and remove slugs, along with fascinating facts. Who knew there are over 100 different species of slugs and snails in the UK!.

Scare away birds by hanging fabric or CDs near your plants – we’ve found some bird control methods here.

Make your own owl sun catcher to scare the birds

3. REPEL using natural methods

Garlic spray is great for all aphids (and safe to use, just watch your eyes) and easy to prepare; put one crushed garlic clove with the skin left on into 1 litre of boiling water. Cool and strain and you have a very effective spray.

Get rid of pests with garlic

Got a problem with the fast-growing fungus that is mildew? Powdery mildews attack a wide range of plants, causing a white, dusty coating on leaves, stems and flowers.

Use milk to prevent powdery mildew

4. PREVENT any more pests from coming in.

Limit pest habitats like planks of wet wood on the ground which harbour slugs and snails and promote pests by offering them habitats. Have a hedgehog house, a bat and a bird box nearby, make solitary bee boxes and leave an untidy patch to attract more beneficial insects.

Avoid pesticides, encourage wildlife

Get more great advice from Green Gardener and our friends at the RHS, who have a helpful A-Z of pests and solutions. And join a Capital Growth training session.

Access Jamie Oliver’s Kitchen Garden Project exclusively through Food for Life

We’re delighted to let you know that Food for Life has formally teamed up with Jamie Oliver’s Kitchen Garden Project to give all Food for Life schools and nurseries EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to their beautiful food education and growing resources.

Get involved: Jamie Oliver and Food For Life's Kitchen Garden Project — Get involved: Jamie Oliver and Food For Life’s Kitchen Garden Project

The partnership means that the Kitchen Garden Project digital resources will be available to all schools who sign up to the Food for Life Membership or Awards Packages.

The resources include delicious Jamie Oliver recipes for children, lesson plans, helpful teaching notes, growing units, curriculum-linked activities and nutrition information, all tailored to primary school-level cooking lessons and activities for garden-based learning.

A single subscription to both food education programmes means that you will have even more flexibility and support around practical cooking, growing and food-based learning. Schools who have already been working with Food for Life and the Kitchen Garden Project have told us how well the resources complement each other. We hope you think so too!

Find out more and see a sample of the resources

Reap what you sow: Tips from Chris Collins

We’re delighted to be able to share some top tips from FGSL resident expert Chris Collins, to help you get the most from your food growing efforts this year.

“This is the busiest point in the garden and time to get cracking if you want a bountiful summer. Sowing seeds is currently the order of the day for me. This year I’m growing many heritage varieties that I got from Garden Organic, but use whatever you can get your hands on!”

For schools, there’s always the challenge of the timing of terms, particularly growing ‘tender’ crops such as tomatoes, runner beans or pumpkins. These are no lovers of any cold weather and need to be protected until mid-May before planting out. This leaves only a small amount of time for harvesting in the school garden before the summer break begins.

To get around this dilemma we need to sow these plants NOW, so here are some handy tips:

Invest in a few propagators (mini Greenhouses) like these.

Whilst they do require initial expenditure, they’ll last many seasons if cared for. If this is not an option, a pot with a perforated sandwich bag held in place by canes and a rubber band over it will suffice. This video might help!

Sow plants using a seed compost

Don’t skimp on compost, it’s important! But you can save money by producing your own compost by collecting leaves, raw food waste, such as fruit and veg peelings, and adding them to a compost heap in your garden.

How to make your own compost

Re-pot plants

In its incubation chamber, our propagator will soon germinate our seeds. Once this happens they should be taken out, potted into bigger pots if necessary and placed on a bright school window ledge, preferably out of long periods of direct sunshine which may bleach the leaves.

Grow, then plant out

These plants can then be grown until the safety of mid-May, at which point they can be planted out as nice sturdy specimens, giving them a great head start on the season.

“This will all be worth the extra effort. Tomatoes, beans and pumpkins are the fastest growing and fastest yielding of the edible crops, making them a real joy for the children to see them grow.”

Also check out this advice on sowing indoors from The RHS and the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Happy Growing!

Introducing: our lovely School Engagement Officers!

My name is Paul. I’m a School and Community Engagement Officer for the Food Growing Schools: London partnership. There are three of us – Paul, Lisa and Julie* – working across the 33 boroughs of London.

What do Engagement Officers do?

Being a FGSL Engagement Officer can be quite a diverse role. We do a lot of work ‘sign-posting’ or pointing schools in the right direction when they are starting out on their food growing journey. It’s always a joy to hear the enthusiasm from a member of school staff or a parent wanting our help to develop a new school garden. Our advice ranges from sharing information and resources about how to set up your garden and the best plants to grow, to promoting school growing activities (e.g. Spring into Growing 2017), and wider support available to schools (e.g. FGSL partners and local organisations). We also love to visit schools and meet staff, volunteers and pupils face to face. We encourage schools to get started on their food growing journey by completing our FGSL survey to tell us what support they need.

Who works in your London borough?

I feel quite lucky to have 11 boroughs that are all very enthusiastic and engaged in promoting food growing in their schools. They run from the northern outer boroughs of Harrow, Barnet and Enfield through Camden and Islington, and down into the southern ‘Flagship’ boroughs of Lambeth and Croydon where I have tended to spend quite a lot of my time supporting their work. Below is a list of where our FGSL Engagement Officers work. Email us* to find out how we can support you:

FGSL are working with Borough Councils to help schools grow

According to the Good Food for London 2016 report 30 out of 33 London boroughs are doing more to improve the food available to their residents, workers and school pupils compared to 2015. We are also proud to be working directly with borough councils to help schools grow food through our Food Growing Schools: London programme.

Swapping seeds, plants and knowledge at Borough Forums

One of my favourite activities is running a ‘Forum’ or networking event within a borough. These are always held at a local school who are growing food and happy to show off what they are doing to others. The Forums are an opportunity for anyone who is running or wanting to set up a school food growing project to gain some informal training, share what they are doing with others and gain some inspiration from the host school. We try to run a seasonal food growing activity and encourage those who turn up to bring spare seeds, plants and even an educational resource which they can share or swap with others. It a fun and informative meeting giving the chance for everyone to network and go away with a little more confidence and enthusiasm to help them on their food growing adventures.

Would you like support to get growing, or to host a Borough Forum in your school?

If you would like to host a Borough Forum in your school, or would like support for your school to get growing please get in touch. See the blue poster above for which Engagement Officer works in your borough:

Paul Sadler – [email protected]

Lisa Grant – [email protected]

*Please note: Julie Henley-Wilkinson is finishing with FGSL in December 2016. Please contact FGSL Project Manager, Kate Groves, if your school is based in one of her boroughs and you would like support: [email protected]

Get your FREE Food Growing Assembly booked this term!

Looking at seed packets. Photo: Jane Baker/Garden Organic

If you’re not currently growing food, or just getting started on your food growing journey, our new school assembly programme could be just for you.

Over the summer, the Food Growing Schools: London team have been beavering away to get a fun, engaging and informative assembly ready to be delivered in schools this autumn term. The idea is that the assembly is taken into schools that are yet to enjoy all the benefits of food growing, so that we can inspire teachers and pupils and make it even easier to get started.

The short assembly is linked to the curriculum, suitable for all ages and can be tailored for the needs of your school. It will get your pupils thinking about where our food comes from, why food growing is important and what can be grown within the school gates. Team the assembly with our free tips and resources and we’ll have you growing your own in no time at all!

Interested? Book your free school assembly – and receive:

A free visit from the FGSL team
An invitation to our Celebration Event at City Hall to learn more about food growing– 13 October 2016
An invitation to join the FGSL Growathon – and 54,000 pupils in London already growing food!
School staff and volunteer training
Free food growing resources – growing cards, activity sheets and more!

*To book, simply complete this very short survey

and we’ll do our best to get an assembly arranged for you or will add you to our waiting list for later in the team when the team may have more availability,

Here’s to food growing this term!

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