Page 16 - ALG Issue 2 2020

growing up
National Children’s Gardening
Week 23 to 31 May 2020
ROBOT COMPOSTER
Materials needed:
• Acompostbin
• Thingstodecorateyourrobot(paint,glitter,plantpots
and plants, half tennis balls, old CDs, bottles – use
your imagination!)
• AclearpieceofPerspex or a plastic greenhouse
panel/pane
INSTRUCTIONS:
The compost bin will be the body of your robot composter. Decide where you want your robot to be in your garden and put it there.
Decorate the body of your robot. Go wild! Try sticking things to it to make it as funky as possible. Make sure that you can still open the top of your robot composter. If you can’t, then you won’t be able to make any compost!
If you want to see the stuff you put into your robot turning into compost, you can cut a hole in the side of your composter. Cover the hole with a clear piece of Perspex to make a window in the robot’s body. A greenhouse pane or panel is ideal for this.
When you’re done, take a photo of your robot and email it to ncgw@hta.org.uk, saying who you are and the town you live in. We’d love to see it and maybe share it on our website to the whole country.
To make compost in your robot, put a mix of live (grass clippings, leaves, weeds, fruit and veg waste) and dead (paper, cardboard, wood shavings or sawdust) into the robot. It will rot down and turn into compost to use in your garden.
National Children’s Gardening Week is all about giving children and their families the natural buzz that comes from taking part in
the UK’s most popular outdoor activity. The week also supports the amazing Greenfingers charity, which is dedicated to providing magical gardens for children in hospices suffering from life limiting illnesses. As well as the health and wellbeing benefits that gardening
provides, it is something fun for the whole family to do together and families who work a plot together also get to eat homegrown fruit and vegetables! The website www. childrensgardeningweek.co.uk/ fun-things-to-do/ is chock-a-block with ideas for children’s gardening activities including the scary robot composter – instructions here.
Allotment Plot Wordsearch
There are 27 hidden allotment-themed words – can you find them all?
Answers on page 65
IPFJTOMATOESLS PEFRUSOOBNPJZP LADORILVMINTAU QSPINACHFOQAHY WDHBIDSIGNYPLS G0XFPONDZSTMWL DVSDAWEYWPKAOR BSWONGTPOGFORK UCEDFFTOADZAMX CFEQGPLEIANTSL KCTROWELRNKDTE EUCLWXSGTDKMLS TROUGHHBEETLEI DJRXYQNPNLKFPF VKNHPUMPKINSKM HFSMKTRESOYPRK ELTUBZYAFNLAAW OLADYBIRDSEDZL JNMCNECSWQSEED DAPPLESBMOPTHS
16 Allotment and Leisure Gardener