Hanover visit to Down House, 8 June

On 8 June it was Hanover’s turn to visit the home of Charles Darwin, Down House in Kent, in a carbon-neutral coach. The children (and adults) took compostable packed lunches and a great effort was made by all to include at least 3 of their 5 a day of locally sourced or grown ingredients and to use minimum or recycled / reused containers. Lula and William won the ‘most compostable lunch’ competition.

The Edible Islington team learned about Darwin’s work on bees, pollination, worms and soil. They looked at and discussed Darwin’s kitchen garden and orchard which fed 20 people. On Darwin’s famous ‘sandwalk’ the children were asked to walk through the woodland silently and to look and think only. They wrote down questions and thoughts they had whilst on the walk (see attached). It was a terrific day with plenty of learning. A highlight for Hanover and The Garden Classroom’s Edible Islington project.


Dr Sue Johnson discusses gooseberry sizes in Charles Darwin’s kitchen garden



Elesha looks close up at the leaves in Darwin’s hedgerow



Charlotte and Rojda study seeds from Darwin’s sandwalk



Dr Sue Johnson explains layers of soil and the role of worms in aerating the soil



Taking a look at bees and learning about pollination



Hanover children look at Darwin’s kitchen garden

Edible Islington Cookery Club at Hanover Primary School

The Edible Islington Cookery Club has been a huge success so far; Nathan and Saba had some very positive feedback from not only the children participating but also their parents. It would seem that our young cooks have spoken with great enthusiasm to their parents regarding all the new skills they have learnt and are keen to practise at home under the supervision of Mum or Dad. It is also very clear that the children have really taken on board the importance of safety and hygiene in the kitchen, the pleasure and importance of sourcing local ingredients and the importance of trying new flavours before deciding whether or not they like them.

Ellie - "I never knew you could eat nettles and they actually tasted quite nice!"

We made a Spring Vegetable Risotto in Week 2 using fresh broad beans and asparagus; to this Nathan added nettles that he had picked only moments ago, with the help of some of the children, from our very own Hanover Edible Islington Garden. The children also added other herbs from the garden such as marjoram, chives and thyme.

On Local Food:

Lailaa - "If you use food that is local or grown in England and is in season then it tastes better and you don't have to use food from other countries which means that we have less pollution from the aeroplanes."

Samira - "I enjoyed using the manual chopper to chop the onions. I enjoyed tasting new things like Parmesan and Gruyere cheeses and it was really interesting to taste things separately and then combine all the flavours."

Grace - "I enjoyed all the cutting and chopping and learning new knife skills."

Katijah - "I liked everything but I really enjoyed making the Potato Latkes with a Watercress Salad. I liked the grating of the potatoes and flipping them over in the pan when they were golden. I've never had watercress before until I tried it in cookery club - it was yummy!"

Tasnia - "I enjoyed making everything but the muffins were my favourite thing to make - even the savoury ones!"

Otto - " The muffins were fun to make and I really liked the Gruyere, Sage and Onion ones and so did my Mum."

Chimene - "I enjoyed all the stirring and cooking and seeing food change shape and colour after cooking. I really enjoyed eating what we made with the rest of the class and taking some home for my family."

Danny - "I liked making the dressing with the cider vinegar and olive oil - it tasted delicious with the watercress."

Rhys - "I liked chopping and mixing and smelling and tasting."

Visit by St Jude's and St Paul's School to Down House, home of Charles Darwin, 27th May

Edible Islington pupils look at fruit trees in Charles Darwin’s orchard


Deputy Headteacher Mrs Ashwin studies an apple tree







Edible Islington pupils examine a bee colony close up


I know where the queen is!


They look for the queen bee . . .


Looking at Darwin’s gooseberries (there are over 50 varieties) close up


Edible Islington pupils listen to Dr Sue Johnson from The Charles Darwin Trust and take notes


Look what I found!


On the sandwalk at Charles Darwin’s house

Edible Islington garden

The new Edible Islington garden is created at Newington Green!


The Garden Classroom renovates an old concrete planter and plants it with an orange tree

Hanover Primary School Gardening Club in May

Harvesting radishes - our crop!


Checking the seedlings


Harvesting lettuce




Ronnie fills the watering cans


Annie says, "I just tasted a radish - it was exquisite!"

Myra Heller at Newington Green Primary School, 10th May

The children's knowledge and enthusiasm has grown along with their seeds.

Every child has their individual plants to care for, mostly tomatoes and peppers in the green house but we have also planted pumpkins, runner beans, French beans, mange tout (we ate our first one last week, it was hard to share it out to 11 children), courgettes (round yellow ones), sweet corn, lettuce, chard and carrots.

All have been watered by the water butts.

We looked at the ants trying to "farm" the aphids on our broad beans which are now at least 10cms high.

We've also been looking at ladybirds and understanding that they are NOT poisonous but beneficial.


Garden club spent almost all lunchtime pulling up hundreds of sycamore seedlings.

We have yet to do the compost properly, but the bins have been built and started.

Myra Heller at Newington Green Primary School

We have started spring term at Newington Green School and it's very exciting partly because the horrible weather is finally lifting. We have been working hard trying to clear the wildly overgrown space hidden behind the school like a secret. It's now our orchard and the children planted some baby fruit trees which was just great. We put in some pear, apples and plums. The children were thrilled to see the blossom just coming out of the buds. We talked about dormancy and why it was important to plant trees when they are asleep.

Year 3 are doing teeth in science and I have been struggling a little making the workshops relevant, apart from talking about how the nice fresh crunchy veg they're going to grow will do their teeth good! However, they have been studying ancient Romans and there has been a fantastic wealth of stuff to discuss there. Fortunately in the 'Mediterranean area' (e.g. the tubs in the playground) we just happen to have some plants that the Romans brought to Britain. So we stomped about pretending to be Centurions marching across filthy, muddy, uncivilised Britain taking with us the wondrous 'Lavare' (lavender) to keep us clean and anaesthetize our wounds.There was an olive tree so we talked about olive oil and how important it was and is as a food stuff and medicine. We looked at the fig tree and I struggled with trying to explain how it represented fertility. 'Is it a girl plant?' they asked. Also that the flower is contained inside the fruit and that it may have been the first ever plant cultivated by humans. We looked at the orange tree and I talked about citrus and that there were hundreds of kinds and tried to get them to guess some others. They got lemon and so I said it's a thick skinned colourful fruit that's very juicy inside, so they yelled out 'watermelon!'

We have planted seeds in the greenhouse: 5 kinds of tomato, yellow ones, cherry, stripy, big ones and prolific ones. Multicoloured capsicums, courgettes and sweetcorn. The broad beans we planted outside in autumn have come up but the peas died in the frost. We've just built new compost bins from recycled pallets which we have lined with cardboard that was being thrown away. We have yet to talk to the kitchens about saving peelings for the compost. Worms and compost next week and more seeds going in.

Myra Heller with Year 3 at Newington Green

Interesting session on 25th November with the children. It's as if they have finally 'got' the concept of the 'outdoor classroom'. Much to my surprise and delight, I find that they actually like spending at least half their sessions recording their observations in their books with drawings and writing, because I expected them to want to be physically active the whole time and to find it hard to note down (some of them find it very hard to focus) their observations and learning. We have been writing weather reports the last two sessions and for some of those who find it hard to write, I have been asking them just to think of four words that sum up the weather. They have all tried hard and are understanding the value of their own looking and deducting, which is, of course, the beginning of empirical scientific study and therefore very satisfying as a learning process. We were looking at evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs as a follow-on from hibernation and dormancy. Year 3 looked at the new buds about to break through on the apple and plum trees that are going in the new mini orchard and they planted blackcurrant and raspberry bushes.

Pictures from the Harvest Celebration at Newington Green Primary School

Year 3s at Newington Green Primary School with Myra Heller

We did hibernation and photoperiodism (though I did NOT try to get them to remember that word!). In other words, thinking about winter and cold and shorter days. So they related the wearing of coats and warm clothes to animals getting thicker furs and fattening up for winter, e.g. their central heating and shelter being leaves and holes. We also looked at this with regard to plants and planted some bulbs, covering them up in soil over winter.

We also discussed a little about how some plants and seeds actually needed to get cold and then hot to know it's spring again and to grow. They also can read the daylight length which is fascinating but a little too complicated! All this will be repeated gradually when we see the evidence in Spring.

We have bought a small self fertilizing Cox's Orange Pippin and a damson tree to put in the little orchard next to the nursery. The children continue to fill their garden notebooks. I am delighted with our little shed, and we have made a little picket fence rather proudly out of recycled pallets and decking found on the premises.

Newington Green Primary School workshops at King Henry's Walk Garden

"It was really fun today - playing games and making insects."

"I like this, I've never done it before!" (while making insects out of conkers, seeds, sticks etc)

"Mine's called a Conqueror (or Conkerer!)" - on making an insect out of a conker

"My favourite bit was sucking up nectar like a bee with the squirty thing" (pipette).

"Can I come here with my Mum and Dad on Saturday?"

"Can I be a fox and chase rabbits? I got eaten coz I was grass last time," while playing food chain games.

"I can't choose, I like everything" - on being asked what the day's favourite activity had been.

Hanover School at Culpeper Garden

Our session was on food chains and the kids made some lovely mobiles. Kirstie Mogilner asked the kids what they liked about The Garden Classroom sessions at Culpeper Garden. Charlotte liked digging. Elesha liked sowing seeds and found the different sizes “really interesting”. Mohammed liked digging, holding insects, and gardening. He might become a gardener when he grows up so that he can “grow potatoes and make chips and carrots”. Otto is “sort of” eating more vegetables now that he is growing his own. Petra liked looking at the minibeasts everywhere. Rodja liked looking in the pond. When asked where he came in the food chain Tommy stated that humans were at the end and “were the most dangerous predator that there is”.

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.'

Kids' thoughts on Edible Islington

Comments from some of the St Jude's and St Paul's pupils at the first few sessions ...

Yuliana - "I love woodlice"
Eman - "I don't want to leave - I love nature"
Dylan - "My snail's done a poo!"
Esana - "That is so wicked!" (on seeing a dragonfly nymph attack a water boatman)
Ben - "Look, it's got gills!" (looking at a baby newt)
Jacob - "I'm going to stick to you like a slug so I don't have to go" (on being told they're not coming back this term)

Visit to Newington Green Primary School by Charles Dowding

On September 16th Charles Dowding also visited Newington Green to talk to Year 4 pupils about growing vegetables and fruit.

When tasting Charles's leaves they said:
"This is delicious!" (lettuce)
"This is a bit spicy" (wild rocket) - Tillie

Even the teacher learned something new, asking "What is that frilly green leaf?". Charles replied "mustard", to which the teacher responded "I like that, I've never tried it before".

When Charles asked "Does anyone know what a polytunnel is?", the answer from a Year 4 pupil was clear: "It's like a greenhouse but it's a tunnel".

Charles Dowding at Hanover Primary School

Charles Dowding, grower of organic salad leaves and other vegetables visited Hanover Primary School on September 16th.

Year 4s listening to Charles talk about growing vegetables and fruit, local food, and the watercycle

When asked for adjective words to describe the taste of the leaves (endives, lettuce, basil, rocket, etc) the children said:

Helena, tasting endive: "it's bitter and spicy"

Tushian (endive): "hot and juicy"

William (basil): "pesto!". Teacher David Rosenberg: "that's not an adjective, it's a noun!"

Comments and questions from Hanover's Year 4s (aged 8) to Charles:

"My mum is growing tomatoes and peppers, and the peppers are really hot"

"I have a flower at home that has died. Should I take it out and use the same pot and soil to plant rocket?"

"Do you grow venus fly traps?"

"At my grandma's house in Cyprus she's growing pomegranates and lemons"

"At my grandma's house in Dulwich she has a really big garden; she grows plums, strawberries, apples and green beans"

Cali tastes wild rocket for the first time

Mohammed tries some salad

St Jude's & St Paul's Primary School

Year 4s growing vegetables in raised beds at their school with Dina Jung on 14th September. Look at the tomatoes!

Hanover School's 'Farm Shop' in July