Edible Islington at Culpeper Community Garden

Kirstie Mogilner, TGC facilitator at Culpeper on Tuesday afternoons, said after the workshop on 6th October:
We had a really good session today on food chains. Here are some photos from Culpeper - harvesting, planting, pond dipping and making food chain mobiles. Year 4 pupil Lula declared excitedly today: "We are scientists now!" One pupil promised that although he doesn't eat vegetables he will try some that he's grown himself.

Myra Heller at Newington Green Primary School. After School Gardening Club

Hugo, who is Spanish, and Can, who is Turkish, came to garden club this Tuesday. They are Year 6 boys and are great funds of knowlege. Can(pronounced Jan) is fantastic on plants and gardening and he told me about his huge family garden in Turkey which he sees around three times a year. We discussed the different names for plants in their languages and he wrote the names for some of them in my Mathew Biggs Fruit and Veg book. I told him how so many of our familiar plants and veg originated from his part of the world, Turkey and Iran: roses, lavender, tulips, vines, fig and olive and how the ancient Romans took so many of them round their Empire with them because they were so valuable for food, medicine and also for their beauty.

I am hoping that they make a photographic record of what they learn so that they can present an assembly about it, maybe in late spring when we have some more material.

Myra Heller at Newington Green Primary School. Curriculum time gardening

I took the Year 3s outside for the second time with their books/diaries (about which they seem very excited) and just tested them a bit on what they had remembered from last week when we had an introductory tour of their playground gardens and the plants growing in them. They have a 'Mediterranean' area there: big concrete tubs now housing a fig tree, herbs, citrus and an olive tree. I asked them to smell lots of plants, apart from the obvious: lavender etc. also tomato leaves, and, because it was a unseasonably hot day, the fig which wafts, faintly, the smell of coconut. We looked at the beautiful sweet chestnut trees they have in the playground and when I asked them what they were they all yelled 'conker!' 'Not quite,' I said, 'it's a cousin, the sweet chestnut, you'll never forget that now will you?'

Today we went up to the chestnut trees and I said, 'what are these again?' and they all yelled 'coconut!' Oh well, I can't fault them on enthusiasm.

They planted pea seeds, which indeed are not great for this time of the year ... but ... it is very warm and we're experimenting to see how big we can get them to grow before it gets too cold and then we can pick them and eat the pea shoots.

We are soon to put in some garlic, spinach and chard and see how they fare over winter. Last time I overwintered chard in a school garden it did very well and they ate it in mid-spring.

The green house on the roof next to the library is still to be completed. I'm looking forward to getting in there and trying some propagation.

They squealed with horror and delight at the worms, leather jackets, spiders and worms they found, and wanted to take them home as pets.

Note from The Garden Classroom:
Newington Green Premises Manager Terry Hayes commented, 'The children really enjoy the classes they do with Myra Heller and they all look so happy while they are doing it.'