Page 23 - Allotment Gardener Issue 1 2024

CREATIVE PLOTTERS
dairy farmers), compost and woodchip. The beds were mulched and ready for the fun
bit to begin with the children – planting and painting. By the end of the first year, eighteen children were attending with parents and villagers volunteering. Now we have ten children attending per session supervised by two adults.
I now teach gardening at the school every Friday afternoon and bring school groups and an after school club to the allotment. Saturday gardening club runs from 10am-12pm every week from March to Christmas and we offer extra mid-week sessions during the holidays. From Easter during term time, a Wednesday after school club runs until October half term. Next year I am giving up my job running a kitchen garden at nearby Martock Workspace to focus on Skool Beanz fulltime and reach even more children.
The future
Skool Beanz parents have noticed a change in their children’s eating habits. They want to eat the veg they take home. And they’ve started teaching their parents how to garden, asking for raised beds to grow their own! Seeing the children transform into natural gardeners makes
me so happy. When you have a 4-year-old
going off and picking a bucket of sweet peas
by themselves, and a 13-year-old helping the smaller ones to pick the high reaching tomatoes, runner beans or raspberries I can’t stop smiling. We laugh, we sing, we play adaptations of children’s party games incorporating vegetables.
Imagine having children’s gardens and gardening clubs like this all over the country and beyond. Places to nurture and inspire
the next generation of gardeners, growers
and nurserymen and women. These children are learning skills they will keep with them forever - skills they will teach their children and grandchildren and I feel so privileged to have found my purpose in life helping to make this happen. I was 34 when I found out what a Kohlrabi was... at Skool Beanz the age is 4!
“Skool Beanz parents have noticed a change in their children’s eating habits. They want to eat the veg they take home.”
• Skool Beanz was featured on BBC Gardener’s World in 2023 Episode 22.
• Skool Beanz website www. skoolbeanzcic.mystrikingly.com
• Follow on Instagram + Facebook @ skoolbeanz
Allotment Gardener | Issue 1 2024 | 23