Schools & the RHS

A bumper harvest at St Peter Chanel

Jane Palmer, a teacher at St Peter Chanel RC Primary School, Kent, writes:

“St Peter Chanel is a small primary school with just 200 pupils. We have been busy developing a haven for wildlife and a stimulating environment for the children to work and play in. This year, as part of our development we have been growing vegetables. This has been a whole school project involving both parents and children. We enlisted the parents to help us prepare an area of ground for an allotment.

"Each class had their own section and chose which vegetables they would like to grow. We had lots of disappointments at first as vandals kept pulling up all our vegetables as they started to grow. We were not put off though and the children were determined to make a go of it. The school employed security staff to help with the problem and we started again. We were completely organic and even tried a bit of companion planting.

"Reception Class harvested their potatoes in July and cooked and ate them on the same day - they were delicious. We were also able to harvest radish, beetroot and lettuce before we broke up for the summer.

"When we returned to school after the six weeks holiday we were amazed to see all the vegetables that had grown. We had hundreds of green tomatoes, courgettes, parsnips, onions, beetroot, rhubarb, strawberries, carrots, green beans, leeks and potatoes. We were also delighted to see a marrow and an aubergine.

"This year we are hoping to plant things that we can harvest earlier and use them as part of the school dinner menu.”