Raising money using your school garden
Involve your pupils in using produce or plants from the school garden to raise money.
Learning objectives:
- Create a list of ways to raise money
- Plan an event or activity that will help raise money
- Describe how to grow and sell plants
- Learn how to share and advertise an event or activity
Curriculum links:
- Maths: Plan budgets, costs, and profits for garden-based sales
- English: Develop promotional materials and recipes for garden products
- Art & Design: Create crafts, decorations, and packaging for sale items
Jump to
Key vocabulary
Vegetable, fruit and plant sales
- Sell surplus crops to staff and parents by having a garden produce sales table in the school reception
- Hold pick-your-own days in an established fruit garden
- Sell surplus plants such as tomatoes, pumpkins, salads, herbs and strawberry plants grown from runners
- Take cuttings of fruit bushes and other plants in the school garden and grow on to sell
- Make up bunches of fresh flowers or herbs
- Grow flowers or bedding plants from plug plants. Pot them on into small pots or trays, grow on and sell at a school fair
- Approach your local market or farmers' market and see if they will allow you to hold a stall there occasionally. This is a great way of engaging with your local community
Fruit and vegetable products to sell
- Garlic and herb oils, jams or chutneys
- Carrot cake, parsnip cake, courgette cake or beetroot cake
- Fruit syrups made with raspberries, rose hips or blackcurrants
- Herb butters to go with bread
- Vegetable soup
- Mint syrups to serve with cakes or ice cream
- Recipe cards or books with vegetables for sale in a priced bag
Remember to comply with food hygiene regulations and list ingredients for allergens.
Where to sell your items
School fairs
- Sell seeds or plants along with care instructions produced by pupils. This can be linked to the maths curriculum by doing a costing exercise to ensure that sufficient profit will be made
- Sell the products of your harvested produce such as cakes, cookies, jams, chutneys, soup, oils and drinks
- Ask pupils to bring in a plant or produce from home that can be sold
- Run other stalls with seed sowing activities or garden-themed games such as guess the weight of the pumpkin, fruit and vegetable feely boxes or a lucky dip in a bag of compost
Host a garden open day
- Charge an entrance free
- Pupils can provide garden tours with produce tasting
- Offer a pond dipping activity
- Treasure hunt or trail around the garden or school grounds
Non-uniform day
- Ask pupils to bring in £1 towards the gardening project in exchange for not wearing uniform
Seasonal suggestions
Spring term
- Make your own scarecrow
- Potato day - buy in seed potatoes for sale and cook tasty potato dishes
- Plant sale of spring vegetables and flowers
- Make your own plant container – paint and decorate a container and plant up with flowers or vegetables
Summer term
- Sell vegetables, herbs and fruit from your harvest
- Strawberry fair
- Edible hanging baskets and containers
- Organise a party using produce from the apple picking and pressing day
- Make flower posies or bouquets from the gardens flowers and sell them
Autumn term
- Apple bobbing
- Bulb planting day
- Make your own seed packets for sale
- Seed swap events
- Pumpkin carving
- Guess the weight of the giant pumpkin, squash or your harvested vegetables
- Make lavender bags using the dried flowers collected in late summer
Winter and Christmas
- Christmas craft events
- Make wreaths or willow stars to sell
- Host a wreath- or decoration-making workshop
- Sell containers planted up with spring-flowering bulbs
- Make and sell bird feeders for the garden