[davedrivesamini]

I am a geography teacher with no gardening knowledge. As part of our school's bid for eco-school status I have organised composting of fruit/vegetable waste from the canteen and staff room. The next logical step was to ask for an allotment (so that i could use my compost) which I have been given!

I have four parallel strips measuring 1.5m x 5m (with a 1.5m walkway between each one). At the moment the area is grassy - I've read on here about covering the grass with black plastic to kill off the grass. I'd like to get the students involved in as much of the work as possible, but due to the nature of schools I need an idea of timescale:
1. how long to kill grass?
2. when can i start growing stuff?
3. what can i grow? (I want to use the produce in food tech lessons)
4. what else should I be thinking about?

Thank you in advance for all your help!

David

[noshed]

Sounds like you've got an airport, not an allotment - giant paths. Anyway what you could do is strip off the turf and stack it up. This will a) build the muscles of your students and b) create lovely loam in a few months.
You will be able to sow broad beans soon and plant garlic and onions if you fancy it.
Sounds like a great project. Good luck.
I've found Grow Your Own Vegetables by Joy Larkom very useful - cheap and knowledgeable.

[silver8]

Sounds like a great idea and good luck.
Will it be organic as I think it is important to teach students how to look after the environment. If it is then companion planting is important. Sunflowers are great for attracting the bees and are great fun to grow. I know my children love them and cannot wait to see how big they grow.
Likewise Pumpkins are fairly easy to grow and again great fun and the students can use them for halloween.
You can also try growing some different things. For example there are alot of different coloured carrots you can grow as well as orange ones(in fact it was the Dutch that made the eating of orange ones popular to promote the Orange Order).
But I suppose this is all for next year. Covering the plot will only suppress the grass and weeds but wont kill them. Probably best to dig over the plot first,getting rid of many weeds as possible and then to cover it.

[Plot25]

Some plants can be grown through the black plastic. If you raised the broad beans in pots/polystyreen cups, the plants could be inserted through crosses cut in the plastic into the soil.  Alternatively see if you can scrounge some curly kale or sprouting brocolli plants to do the same (may be a bit late in the year though). I'd say the grass should be dead, or at least very ill within a month or so. Don't try to dig the whole plot at once unless your pupils are very keen. A few 6' x 3' strips should be enough to grow things fast keep their interest.

PS: Note you're in Hertfordshire - my site in Bishop's Stortford has loads of vacany plots I'm  currently trying to fill.

Good luck

[John]

I know the HDRA (or grow organic) do a lot of work with schools - could be worth your while contacting them

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/

I'd strip the turf off, stack it upside down and it will turn into a nice loam. Double dig the plots, incorporating manure and check pH - lime as required in the spring.

Gardening should be great for a school - you have so many areas to get into.

pH - chemistry, biology (obviously), maths - how much to grow to produce what at various yields, ecology, wormery, compost, lifecycle of various beasties (slugs, whitefly) Nutritional values - why tomatoes are better for you cooked, genetics

Phew - throw in English writing it all up and you have covered it all - even PE when you get the little darlings digging. I assume you'll be doing a risk analysis.

Nice One

[mum of 3]

what a great idea!   I would be over the moon if my kids school had an allotment ,my daughters friend came over last weekend and was so excited in being able to pick a tomato off our plot.kids need to learn life skills like this as well as computer stuff.

[davedrivesamini]

Thank you for all your support. I have more questions!

Do you think that I should make narrower pathways? We haven't started any digging yet.

When i take the turf off, how deep do I need to dig?

How soon after this digging can I plant stuff?

[noshed]

Pathways can obviously be as wide as you need them - mine are about .5m - just enough to get a wheelbarrow down and wide enough to kneel on to weed, so just play about with a tapemeasure and some string and pegs. Some people use alternating wide and narrow ones so there's always a wide one down each bed.
You can slice the turf off to about 100mm - just enough to take the slab of turf off and most of the roots. Do as John says and stack them up and they will rot down in time.
After that you can double dig ie dig out a tench a spades depth and then dig manure into the bottom of the trench. You need to get a book or look on the web for pics of this because it would take ages to explain. This will undoubtedly build the character of your students.
Then you can plant whatever is in season - broad beans and peas would be OK now.

[Zak the Rabbit]

Thats smashing David! Just what the school needs


This is part of my plan to get an allotment site opened in my village of Hambleton, suggesting to the parish council that one of the plots should be exclusively for the use of the school (primary in our village),

as it happens, the school is about 200yds from me across a farm, the field beside the school would be ideal as a site, and i could be there in 2mins flat!


Martin

[Zak the Rabbit]

It might well be a good idea to keep the wide paths, kids knealt down weeding or sowing take up space, and wide paths will give you the room to move about supervising them, and for them to move around without risk of ending up face first in a furrow


Martin


'ere, that fellow had a face full of manure'
'now thats what i call class!...'

[The Blackadder]

[James]

when you refer to fruit and vegetable waste, I presume that it's not the canteen slops you're getting?  They'll be full of meat etc. and you will have more rats than slugs...

Otherwise, follow John's advice.  You'll know what to do when you take off the turves, it's obvious.  If you're a Geography Master, surely you know what grass looks like...

[davedrivesamini]

No it's just the fruit and veg peelings from the kitchen side. Keep the tips coming.

[James]

I must say, although it's in a good cause, I should have thought that a schoolmaster might have managed to google 'how do I run an allotment?' before asking a chat forum the same question.  Research, old bean.

[Zak the Rabbit]

Perhaps a knowledgable teacher understands that a search engine will mostly give results trying to flog him stuff, whereas a peer-peer forum like this is real first hand knowledge and experience.

I think he's done just right.




Martin

[James]

Certainly not!  Would you rather take your advice from a book (e.g. The Vegetable Expert) which is peer reviewed, or from somebody whom you don't know who the dickens they are that you find on an internet chats forum?

Any schoolmaster will (or should) understand the necessity for verification of sources.

How would you feel if your child was being taught by a master who had picked up all he knew on a chat forum?

People today have become very lazy.