Community Garden
By Genuisscuffy
9 comments
I live on an estate of social housing (mostly housing association houses) – 66 houses and 122 children!! No safe area for the kids to play (the park is across a busy road), and the fields which used to surround us have now been built on – houses and hospitals! We decided to start doing things with the kids, mostly in the summer holidays – you know the usual things crafts, ball games etc but we found that the things the kids enjoyed seemed to be the gardening things – planting up pots, painting pots, sunflower competitions etc. So this year we decided to try something different – a community garden. Ok originally I admit I did wonder how long it would last, would it get vandalised, would the garden be trashed (nothing unusual around here!). So a couple of weekends ago me and a play leader from the housing association decided to get some of the kids together, we applied for a grant from the housing (to pay for the plants and the raised bed) and got planting…
I was really surprised nearly 20 kids and their mums and dads turned up on the day (I’ve since had more kids knock on the door asking to join in) – we planted lettuces (seeds and plants), courgette, mini corn, radish, herbs, strawberries (very poplular) flowers – calendular and nastursium (you can eat the flowers) – some carrots and peas. I tried to do a mix of seeds and instant plants (the kids needed to see instant but needed the experience of planting seeds) and I put a sign “welcome to our garden” thinking that would only last the night! Well six weeks later everything is growing beautifully – I’ve had three gnomes arrived (dont know where from but the kids love them!!), some little pots and a garden spinney that was hung from the tree. The kids have been watering and tending the plants and if the older kids go in they get shouted at! We even had our picture in the paper!! So fingers crossed but they seem to be enjoying it – if you have any ideas of other cheap things I can do with the kids please let me know and I will keep you posted on how it goes….
10 May, 2009
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Comments
What a great thing to do. You are a gem. For other things to do, how about a "funky" container show. Each child could bring something unusual to plant in and you could either punch or drill holes for drainage and then they could plant them. Just a thought!
11 May, 2009
That's wonderful GS. Community gardens are such a marvellous thing.....something that is slowly catching on over here too. Can you get the kids making spinney things to hang. There are some pretty neat ones you can make out of plastic pop bottles.
11 May, 2009
oh how i cried reading this, its brilliant. You all deserve a pat on the back, so many people turn on the kids but you guys have thought about how to include them. If only there were more like you maybe it would deter a lot of scary things kids do get up to
well done you
x x x x
11 May, 2009
That's wonderful :o)
11 May, 2009
Hi thanks for all your comments - I've put a couple of dustbins in one corner and fill them up once a week with water and then the kids can water their own plants. (I also go round with a long hose and give it a good soak when the weather is hot).
I like some of the ideas - we thought maybe making some flower presses and getting them to decorate them or making some little scarecrows for their garden (you can buy polystyrene heads in hobbycraft for not much and then dowls for the arms and scrape for the clothes) just an idea...
11 May, 2009
I like the idea of the flower presses, we did that with our kids when they were little and they got a big kick out of it.
Scarecrows would be super cute!
11 May, 2009
What a great story - well done. I do hope it all continues successfully. :-)
11 May, 2009
What a brilliant achievement. Best of luck for its continued success.
12 May, 2009
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Hi GS and congrats on helping the children to learn how to grow things! There is plenty of time to plant most veggies - but who is going to look after them over the summer holiday? You can plant pea and bean seeds, brassica plants, still sow potatoes... Gosh I'd love to be in your shoes and helping the children to learn how to grow things... Good luck
10 May, 2009