Self Sufficient Vegetable Gardening
Children of all ages at the school spend lots of time in the school gardens, where they plant seeds from cabbages to watermelons and learn about watering and nurturing them until they produce fruit and vegetables. The children are then able to cook with the produce, making recipes from soups right through to jams and lemon curd. They show and display the huge pumpkins they grow in the Autumn prior to cooking with them. Their most recent venture has been to sow grains like wheat, barley and oats, learning about the importance of farming and where our food comes from.
YPTE Director, Peter Littlewood, said: “We were really impressed with the children’s knowledge and enthusiasm. They are already experienced gardeners and the range of produce they care for and grow is quite amazing. We’d never seen cucamelons grown at a school before! It’s so important that they realise how their food is produced and their work in the school gardens throughout their time at the school gives them a deep appreciation of the natural world. It’s even more exciting for them that they get to cook and eat their produce too. That’s such a good way of encouraging children to eat vegetables that they might otherwise turn their noses up at.”
