7.6 PLANTING PRINCIPLES

How to make your school-grown produce thrive: What we are growing:

Use your patch all year round (summer and winter planting).

Be clever with your planning, e.g. planting potatoes early which can be harvested in June and planting beans in the same space straight after that.

If there is a space for fruit trees, plant at least a couple.

Children absolutely love picking herbs to use in the kitchen for cookery lessons, and herbs are fairly easy to plant, so this is a great use of space but keep in mind that rosemary, sage, oregano and thyme prefer sun, and mint, parsley and coriander can more tolerate shade.

Plant your harvests with the term times in mind.

Ask yourself: When are there going to be people around to help keep on top of the harvests, and when is the garden going to be left relatively unattended? Plant with the answers to these questions in mind.

In the orchard, there are fruit trees – apples, pears, damsons, apricots, peaches and figs. Plenty of berries including, raspberries, jostaberries, gooseberries and strawberries.

We have climbers –grapevines, broad beans, runner beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins. Root vegetables including potatoes, onions, spring onions, leeks, garlic and artichokes.

Wildflowers, nigella, poppies and iris grow to attract pollinators.

“Lidka showed us a huge pumpkin, and we got to taste its seeds! Then we ate sorrel leaf, it was nice.”

7.7