Having trouble finding gardening tools for children?

If you are considering a gardening project with children either at school or with your own child it is important that you choose tools suitable for the age and child of the child. Don't expect a child to become enthusiastic about gardening if they are struggling with either oversized tools or ones more suitable for making sand castles on the beach.

On my website - here -  I have some advice on choosing child friendly tools.

Spotty Green Frog is a site that specialises in providing gardening packs for schools as well as individual items and gift packs for your own child.

They also provide kits and equipment to support other gardening related activities click here.

For their full range of items Click here

Copyright: Original post from The School Vegetable Patch http://msgmedia.blogspot.co.uk/ author S I Garrettt

Free fruit trees for schools in Yorkshire & Lancashire

Fruitshare  have an extremely limited number of additional free apple trees to giveaway to schools in the Yorkshire and Lancashire region.

Hurry click here if you want to have any chance of grabbing some.

Copyright: Original post from The School Vegetable Patch http://msgmedia.blogspot.co.uk/ author S I Garrettt

Want to grow fruit trees at school?

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has launched a new project to inspire children to grow fruit trees at school. The project was launched launched during the new Channel 4 series River Cottage to the Core

The offer of free fruit trees to schools produced such a huge demand that the trees had all been snapped up quickly after the announcement was aired during the first programme.

If you missed out on the free trees FruitShare has developed a project called Crowdfunder designed to help you raise funds in order to buy your trees.

The Fruitshare website also has produced a series of videos to take you through the process of growing fruit and also how to use your crops. Click here

The Woodland Trust have also joined the project and have produced a free guide to advise on planting and growing your trees.

They also offer free resources covering everything from planting guides, twig ID sheets, teacher support, pupil worksheets, fascinating facts and curriculum links.

Copyright: Original post from The School Vegetable Patch http://msgmedia.blogspot.co.uk/ author S I Garrettt

Thinking of starting a school vegetable patch?

If you are considering starting a school vegetable patch then the video below produced by GrowVeg.com may give you some ideas.

Copyright: Original post from The School Vegetable Patch http://msgmedia.blogspot.co.uk/ author S I Garrettt

Get to know your garden birds

The start of a new school years isn't exactly the best time to start a gardening project but for one gardening related focus why not concentrate on the birds that visit your patch?

When I was teaching I was amazed that my class of 11 year olds didn't even notice the birds, that were all too easily visible almost every day of their lives, let alone be able to name any. To them the word bird and sparrow seemed synonymous.

Then one of our cleaners referred to a pied wagtail as a baby magpie and was surprised to learn that young birds were not tiny replicas of their parents.

Why not have a go at plugging this knowledge gap and maybe triggering a lifelong interest in watching the birds.

There are many bird related garden activities that you can carry out through winter. This page of my website has some ideas.

I've also put together some pages on my gardening website that includes a printable sheet of photographs to help you teach children (and adults) how to identify some of our most common garden birds. 

If you don't work in a school then try a bird related gardening project with your own children or maybe you would like to be better at identifying our common birds yourself. All the photographs are taken in my garden, I always find real photographs are much more helpful than artist's illustrations. I hope my photos help.

Copyright: Original post from The School Vegetable Patch http://msgmedia.blogspot.co.uk/ author S I Garrettt

Planning school gardening projects and guest posts from schools

When I was teaching some part of my summer school break (notice that I don't use holiday) was spent planning for the coming term.

If you are planning work on a school gardening project then you may find this area of my website to be of use It covers various aspects involved in the planning of a school garden area whether it is a vegetable plot, a sensory garden or a haven for wild life.

It also covers choosing equipment and things to grow.

If you already have a school vegetable patch then the section covering what to do in September may be helpful.

Then you will need to consider how gardening activities can be linked into other curriculum areas so try looking at the section devoted to building curriculum links.

You may be planning to incorporate different opportunities for your pupils/students to share their literacy skills. Being a published writer is very motivational and many schools now have their own blogs and websites. If you don't want to go that far - why not get the children to prepare a guest post for this blog or an article to submit for inclusion into this section of my website. Obviously I can't include articles from every child in your class but you could whittle down submissions by having an in house choosing session first. Young children could submit a group post of either short phrases or art work linked to their growing experiences.

Any gardening related topic will be considered but you may prefer to email me first to check whether your choice of subject matter is appropriate. Please note that I will not include photos of individual children (or full names) and schools should ensure that any group photo has the appropriate parental permissions to be published. 

Copyright: Original post from The School Vegetable Patch http://msgmedia.blogspot.co.uk/ author S I Garrettt