First ever School Garden Conference to be held!

The First Conference on Organic School Gardens - TEACHING IS EASY IN A SCHOOL GARDEN, was held in Marino College, this weekend gone by, SAT 5th Oct 2013. It was a fantastidcally succesful day, organised bt SEED, our first ever national school gardens network (www.schoolearthed.ie) Fantasitc and memorable day-great to see school gardening getting the attention it deserves! With Trevor Sergeant giving our opening address and old stalwarts of the school garden world such as Paddy Madden and Ian McGrigor in tow. There were workshops and talks throughtout the day, and more to come in the near future we hope! 

Aine from www.irishseedsavers.ie giving a talk on seed saving at the SEED school garden conference at the weekend in Marino College(picture right).


http://www.schoolearthed.ie/conference.html

From the Ground Up...representing Holy Trinity School Garden

Fionnuala Fallon, horticulturalist and Irish Times journalist has published a book, 'From the Ground Up' that tells the stories of some very talented and very different `ticklers of the earth', all of whom live and garden in Ireland today. From schoolchildren to retirees, amateurs to experts, what they share in common is a delight in growing their own fruit and vegetables.

Most notable for me, she visited our amazing organic school garden in Holy Trinity National School in Donaghmede in North County Dublin over three years ago now, I had completely forgotten about it until I saw myself in print and in photos in the book at Christmas. It's a really good read, and really promotes the positive aspects of developing gardens in schools! To read more about rthe book see below.

http://www.collinspress.ie/from-the-ground-up.html

Heritage in Schools Scheme is Open for Bookings!

Heritage in Schools Scheme is Open for Bookings!
The wonderful panel of 165 Heritage Experts are all ready to bring heritage to life in the classroom for your pupils!

Find out more at...

http://www.heritageinschools.ie/

Let's get those gardens growing! You can find GROW on the website above..book us in if you want to get your school garden a growing!

Dublin Zoo - Teacher Training and Summer Camp Madness, Summer 2012

I was invited in to work with Dublin Zoo this summer on their teacher training course and on their summer camps. They have a purpose built school garden now in the zoo with a vegetable patch, fruit area, composter and pond for dipping in, as well as a purpose built classroom and a kind of urban farm next door complete with cows, sheep, goats and pigs.
I spent 2 days teaching primary teachers about how to set up their own organic school garden, I covered garden design elements and how to re-design your school grounds, seeding seeds, planting potatoes and science in the garden experiments.
The summer camps were run over 5 weeks during the summer, I was only doing one day a week on them, and fair play to the rest of the staff in the zoo for doing them full time during that time, don't know if I would have had the energy! I did some veg tasting, seed in a pot, mini-gardens,pond dipping and bug hunting in the school garden, it was a busy day in the zoo.

April 2012, The Outdoor Classroom, redesigning the school garden!

It had been a while, but I went across to Tullamore today to work with Geraldine O'Toole from Sonairte. We did a school garden design day for the school. We worked with 4th class for the day, bringing them through the whole process of redesigning their school grounds from the perspective of making it into an Outdoor Classroom. so we went through the possible elements - vegetable patch, woodland, pond, orchard, fruit area, wild area etc, then we went outside and mapped the grounds, measuring the buildings and green spaces and auditing the site so we knew what the school already had onsite. Then in the afternoon we returned to the classroom and together with the kids we came up with the design that you see here in the picture, a fabulous 10-year plan for the school to work towards. We already made some preliminary plans to come back and start building the vegetable patch in a few weeks!

Progress being made at Piper's Hill, April 2012

The ladies are making huge progress in the new school garden we're building for the students down at Piper's Hill School in Naas, Co. Kildare. I'm working with a parent's group to develop the garden, and it has turned out to be an all women's group, but let that not deceive you, there has been trojan work done by the ladies, during April we built the beds for and planted up the herb and fruit areas in the garden. We planted raspberries, currants, strawberries, and rhubarb to name a few!

Getting your school garden started...

‘The Year Round School Organic Garden’, A Guide to Designing, Creating and Using an Organic School Garden’

by

Lucy Bell, Niamh Ni Dhuill, Áine Ni Fhlatharta of Kerry Earth Education Project and Irish Seedsavers

The Year Round Organic School Garden’  is a practical guide for teachers and other education practitioners.  It aims to help with the planning, design, creation and use of an organic school garden with children and teenagers. It demonstrates the huge possibilities of using the school grounds as an educational resource, to learn about organic food production & the importance of bio-diversity. 
The guide incorporates cross curricular activities such as Science, SESE, Maths and Art into the garden. It sets out practical projects on growing local food, creating biodiversity and native habitats in the school grounds; encouraging healthy eating, doing nature based activities and getting children active.  It aims to highlight for the children, that important link with where their food comes from, and above all is a fun and rewarding project for children to undertake.

Email me about purchasing the book at growingardens@gmail.com, it costs 15e, with 2e for p&p.

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Willow Haven in the city

We built these willow half domes and fence with a group of willing 4th class from St. Finians Nat. School in Finglas, they are to be a little haven and chill out spot for the kids, when they need some time out from class. We're going to get pieces of wood to sit on, and hopefully when spring finally fully bursts out it will become a living structure. We also found shield bugs, a bird's anvil and lots of other interesting finds on a wander along our nature trail we've built at the school.

You can book us through the INTO Heritage in Schools Scheme to do this type of work in your school. Check out www.heritageinschools.ie

*NEW COMMUNITY GARDEN PROJECT AT PIPER'S HILL, NAAS*

I have just been asked ot get involved with the development of a new community garden at the Piper's Hill school in Naas, CO. Kildare. the idea is to kick start a garden that will be used by the whole school, the initial plan is to work with a group of parents to get the garden going. This project will be starting in February 2012! Watch this space...