School Gardening

Grow – No green space – no holiday watering dilemmas - just Incredible Edibles

Our Grow range of gardening kits were designed in partnership with educators. They solve the dilemma of school-holiday watering and overcome a lack of green space and green fingers.

How our Growing Kits Develop Green-fingers
Our Grow range of gardening kits are designed to develop children’s understanding of a plant’s water needs whilst getting them excited about growing and eating their 5-a-day.

This is how our growing kits develop greener fingers.

1: Children Add Water - Children top-up the growing kit’s reservoir daily, measuring out the volume of water they think the plant needs (unless the holiday watering kit is connected). They record the water added, soil dampness, plant size and weather conditions expected in the period to the next watering.

2: Growing Kit Regulates Watering - The SmartMats in the gardening kits regulate the water that is delivered to the plant, ensuring that only the water that the plants need is provided. When too much water has been provided by the children it is retained in the reservoir for the children to see.

3: Children Check Volume of Water Used – Children place a ruler into the reservoir and calculate the volume of water left and therefore the volume of water that has been used.  If too little is added the children will see that the reservoir is completely empty.

4: Reflection and Discussion - Because the children can see how much water has been used and how much has been left they quickly learn to understand the relationship between soil dampness, plant size, the weather conditions and the levels of water that the plant needs to be given.

5: Children learn to water accurately - They will quickly start to fill the reservoir according to the size of plant, weather conditions and time to next watering.

Healthy Crops Guaranteed

We are so confident that anyone can grow fabulous crops in our growing kits that we include a Healthy Crops Guarantee.

Seeds For Schools

Introduce children to growing with our Incredible Edibles Seed Packs. Our seeds packs for schools include our Incredible Edibles characters, activity sheets and stickers so are sure to get your pupils excited about sowing, growing and eating their 5-a-day.

There’s no need for you to have green fingers as full teacher notes are included and the seeds have been specially selected for their ease of germination and growing-on.

You can also use these seed packs with your Vitogrow or Windowgrow and benefit from our Incredible Edibles guarantee. 

Incredible Edibles Salad Seeds Pack : £5.80

Get your classroom growing with our salad seeds including ...

Radicchio	Rocket	Spinach	Loose Leaf Lettuce	Sorrel

Pack also contains sowing instructions, Incredible Edible character stickers, a word search and plant to food matching activity sheets.

Learn More

 

Incredible Edibles Salad Seeds and Pots Pack : £10.00

Allows each child in your class to have their own seed pot.

Salad seeds including ...

Radicchio	Rocket	Spinach	Loose Leaf Lettuce	Sorrel

And 30 biodegradable pots.

Pack also contains sowing instructions, Incredible Edible character stickers, a word search and plant to food matching activity sheets.

Learn More

 

Incredible Edibles Veg Seeds Pack : £5.80

Vegetable seeds including

Spring Onions	Turnip	Spinach	Short Carrots	Raddish

Pack also contains sowing instructions, Incredible Edible character stickers, a word search and plant to food matching activity sheets.

Learn More

 

Incredible Edibles Veg Seeds and Pots Pack : £10.00

Vegetable seeds including

Spring Onions	Turnip	Spinach	Short Carrots	Raddish

And 30 biodegradable pots.

Pack also contains sowing instructions, Incredible Edible character stickers, a word search and plant to food matching activity sheets.

Learn More

Vitogrow Veg Plot and Mini Greenhouse –
Grow Salad, Low-growing veg and Herbs

Self-watering veg plot for indoor or outdoor use

Prices from £55.57 (excl VAT)

Vitogrow Quick Facts

The Vitogrow self-contained veg plot with a mini greenhouse is…

• Ideal for growing veg (especially low-growing varieties such as carrots, turnips and cabbage), salads and herbs.
• Turns fingers green

• Will get you from seed to harvest in just six weeks

• Can be used indoors or outdoors.

• Enables year-round growing thanks to the mini greenhouse.

• Includes a school-holiday watering kit – to keep plants watered out of term time

Vitogrow In-detail

I’ve already got one girl who wants to be a gardener when she grows up." Phil Blaylock, Brookhouse Primary School in Blackburn

The Vitogrow veg plot and mini greenhouse was developed in partnership with educators to excite children about growing and eating their 5-a-day by turning their fingers green.

Thanks to the unique watering method, which enables your pupils to clearly see how much water the plant has taken-up to satisfy its needs, your pupils will quickly start to understand for themselves the relationship between the soil dampness, weather conditions, plant size and how much water the plants need. They will never over-water or under-water a plant again. The awareness that they have learnt for themselves how to nurture a plant so that it grows into ‘super veg’ will make them feel like ‘super-heroes’..

More about how the Vitogrow turns fingers green.

Options: Choose from the Long Vitogrow L105cm x W55cm or the Square Vitogrow at 55cm x 55cm.

learn more

 

Quadgrow and Octogrow

Self-watering pots.
Prices from £41.70 (exc VAT)

Grow tall plants such as tomatoes, beans and cucumbers in these sets of deep pots.Suitable for greenhouse or outdoors use.

Simply add compost and young plants to the Quadgrow pots and keep the integrated reservoir topped-up.

Thanks to the reservoir watering method your pupils will quickly develop green fingers by starting to understand the relationship between the soil dampness, weather conditions, plant size and how much water the plants need and use.

The optional Quadgrow propagation lids speed up germination and helps learners to understand the environmental needs of plants at different stages of growth (warmth and humidity at germination and warmth without humidity as they grow and the lid is removed).

Options: Choose from the Quadgrow which has 4 deep pots and measures L105cm x W55cm or the Octogrow which has 8 pots and measures L55cm x 55cm.

 

learn more

Incredible Edibles Guarantee

Anyone can grow Incredible Edibles in a Vitogrow, but we don't just claim it. We guarantee you crop success.

If you fail to raise a crop we will replenish your seeds and plant food and one of our horticulturalists ts will work with you to identify what went wrong and will provide you with regular one-to-one guidance to help your school garden be successful next time.

Every school can benefit from the support of our team of horticulturalists, we call them our 'Gardening Angels'.

Victoria, Richard, John  and Paul are experienced growers who provide friendly, expert advice and support to ensure you harvest a healthy crop of Incredible Edibles.

Whether you are planning your veg plot, sowing your seeds, confused about pests or just want to check your school veg garden is on-track - you can call or email our Gardening Angels.

We don't just want to get your school growing, we want to keep you and your pupils growing.

School customers also receive sowing and plant-care guides and activity sheets and a monthly newsletter with hints and tips.

 

Cross-curricula Links
 
Here are some of the cross-curricula links identified by schools already growing in our Solargrows and Vitogrows.
 
Maths
Measure and record growth rates, light and temperature levels and water and plant food use.
Use tables and graphs to compare measurements.
 
Music
Select different types of music to play to the plants, compose a song to play live to the plants.
 
Art and Design
Take photos of the plants weekly, research different artists who are most well-known for painting plants.
 
Science
The Solargrow doesn’t use soil and more water and plant nutrient will be used up when the plant is growing most quickly. Use the internet to research what plants need to grow. The Solargrow can be connected to a water butt and fed by rainwater, discuss the water cycle.
 
Design and Technology
Design and create a support frame for the plants.
 
Geography
The Solargrow helps people to grow their own food, discuss the environmental impact of how we obtain food and the importance of sustainability.
See the speed at which our cucumbers grow.
 
ICT
Essex LEA ICT Consultant Angie McGlashon will be working with three schools in Essex to help them to identify how they can harness ICT and their Solargrows for teaching and learning opportunities across the curriculum.
 
Essex LEA already has a gardening section on its VLE.
 
Angie has identified the following opportunities
Audio recording equipment – children will record themselves talking to the plants and live and recorded music been played to the plants. Test whether different moods of music (for example relaxing classical music, fast tempo dance music etc) have an impact on growth.  
 
Creating animation – load the photographs onto a computer, manipulate the photographs taken to create an animation of the plant growing
 
Spreadsheets – children will set up spreadsheets to record growth rates, flowers, number of leaves, water used and Ph levels. The spreadsheets could be converted to bar graphs and tables so that weekly results can be compared.
 
Internet – research which plants will grow.  
 
Digital cameras – take photos of the plants weekly and post them onto the Green Fingers website. Select the best photos, resize and email to Greenhouse Sensation.
 
Light and temperature reading equipment – using thermometers and light meters to measure light and temperature levels each day. Use a computer to record the information and to track the change as we move into winter. Compare with the growth and water use data to see whether light and temperature has an impact. Decide what scale to use in the graph.
 

Every school will also receive a schools pack which includes
Seed sowing word search and answer sheet

Plant/food word match and answer sheet

Sowing calendar

Salad growing and plant care guide

Vegetable growing and plant care guide

 

Innovation and Social Enterprise Event for Secondary Schools

We attended the Innovation and Social Enterprise Event 2009, at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester on the 19th November.

The event was focused on inventions and innovations to combat climate change so we were delighted to show visitors the concept behind our Grow range of growing kits and reveal some fascincating facts about plant growth.  

We demonstrated the Solargrow, our self-watering solar-powered planter and the Vitogrow, our self-watering mini veg plot and mini greenhouse, both of which are designed to encourage people to grow their own edibles. There are many fabulous reasons why people should become grow your owners, including better taste and greater variety but there is also the environmental impact. By growing your own fruit and veg helps to reduce food miles, that's the distance food travels from field to plate. 

 

Pupils were also encouraged pupils to discover how plant growth rates are effected by the balance of water, oxygen and nutrients. Thanks to automatic watering, our Vitogrow and Solargrow overcome the difficulty of providing plants with the perfect balance of water, nutrients and oxygen – the most difficult aspect of growing your own to get right. We demonstrated this perfect balance using wet and moist sponges.

Visitors were astonished at the 7.5m length of ribbon which we used to represent the length of a tomato vine grown in one of our self-watering growing kits that delivers the perfect balance of water and air.

 

 Vitogrows for 23 schools in Guernsey

The seeds of ideas exchange have been sown as schools participate in an Island-wide competition to grow the most impressive edibles.

The seeds of ideas exchange have been sown in Guernsey as 23 schools grow veg’ and salad gardens using the same equipment.

The 17 schools have each been provided with a large Greenhouse Sensation Vitogrow as part of the‘Bedell Group Little Green Fingers Schools‘ Project’. The project aims to raise awareness of where food comes from, encourage healthy eating and to give children the opportunity to experience the fun of gardening.

Leading the exchange of ideas amongst the schools is Ann Wragg, School Co-ordinator for the States council-body ‘Floral Guernsey’. She has established a website with a blog and galleries, so that schools and the wider community can keep up to date with the progress made by the childrenhttp://www.channelonline.tv/newfeatures/newfeatures/greenfingers/index.htm

The project is a shining example of how gardening can bring together an entire community. As well as actively encouraging communication between the 23 schools the project has attracted the involvement of members of the wider community. Floral Guernsey and volunteers from the Island’s Britain in Bloom projects are visiting the schools, the States Works have provided practical support, Channel-Island based professional services provider Bedell Group are providing funding and parents are encouraged to get involved. 

 

Ripley St Thomas School, Lancaster

Hydro Systems can even be useful to schools with large, established vegetable gardens   

2x Hydro Systems
 Hydro Systems can even be useful to schools with large, established vegetable gardens and farms. Ripley St Thomas School has had a school farm since 1864 as well as a plant centre, walled garden and fine mature trees and now they have hydro systems in a greenhouse as well.

Earth Sciences GCSE pupils at the school are growing tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in the hydro systems, but all of the pupils have access to the greenhouse and the hydro systems are used in many science lessons.

 

Sarah Murch, RHS Teacher Trainer, Nottinghamshire

Sarah likes the simplicity of the Solargrow as it enables teachers with no gardening know-how to get their pupils involved in growing their own food.

Hydro System and Solargrow
Sarah uses hydro systems in her teacher training sessions. As an RHS Teacher Trainer Sarah gives teachers ideas of how they can integrate vegetable growing into their lessons to engage pupils of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

Sarah likes the simplicity of the Solargrow as it enables teachers with no gardening know-how to get their pupils involved in growing their own food.

 

Whitmore Junior School Get Growing

The hydro system is a great way of getting children excited about growing and their 5-a-day because the plants grow so quickly

After the Easter break the class select the best 9 young plants to be transplanted into three different growing environments:

• Growth rates (height) – weekly measurement
• Water use – log whenever topped-up
• Pests and diseases – check and log daily
• Fruit production – weekly measurement

Whitmore's Tomato Update 

Healthy leaves - 30th March 2007  

 

The pupils at Whitmore Junior School are doing really well with their tomato plants. The tomato seeds were sown at the end of December and were planted in the GS100 hydro system on 20^th February. They look wonderful now. 

Eve, one of the teachers at the school, sent us this email: “We are pleased to inform you that our tomatoes are almost up to our roof! They are doing extremely well and we can see a small fruit on one or two branches. Your system is wonderful we have tried growing tomatoes before but we have never seen plants looking so healthy”.

 

 

 

 

 Gorgeous flowers - 30th March 2007  

These lovely yellow flowers are lightly tapped each day to encourage the fruit to set.  

The pupils will have tomatoes very soon and we are confident that all of the children will be eager to have a taste.

Iris Cherney, the school’s headteacher explained the reasons for undertaking the project: “We think that it’s very important that children understand the importance of getting their 5-a-day and that they learn to consider the environmental impact of the way that food is grown and gets to their plates. We have opted to use a  hydro system because it should be a great way of getting children excited about growing and eating their five a day because the plants grow so quickly.”

We will be keeping you updated about how the school gets on so keep checking our website for progress.

 

                                                      First Fruit - 3rd May 2007

On 3rd May Whitmore Junior School sent us this photo of their first tomato fruit. They have also planted cucumbers in their GS100 hydro system and they are now 2cms long.

They told us that they have one red tomato as well as the three green ones, but the red one can't be seen on the photo.

The plants are doing really well, especially as their isn't a great deal of light coming into the room.

 

 







Lesson Ideas  

Growing can be used as a theme for cross-curricula learning covering a range of subject areas including science, maths, art, history, geography and literacy. The pupils at Whitmore will even be using the project to develop ICT skills by posting photos recording progress on a website and by using spreadsheets and graphs to track growth. It is easy for the pupils to get great results using hydro systems because the plants get access to all the water and nutrients they need. The sense of achievement experienced from growing is wonderful for self-esteem 

 

Raising Funds

Here are a few suggestions for raising funds for your school gardening projects:

Fundraising with Flowers

If you really like our Solargrows and Vitogrows but don’t have any budget, how about selling flower bulbs to raise funds? The lovely people at Initiative have a fabulous fundraising pack. 

The Garden Initiative

Raise money for school gardening projects.
We think that selling flower bulbs is a lovely way to raise funds for school gardening projects, and the great people at Initiative make the whole fundraising programme very straightforward with minimal extra workload for teachers. All you have to do is hand out the catalogues and order forms, collect them back in again and then Initiative send you the bulbs for you to distribute to the parents. You collect the money and you keep 30 – 40% of the sales value!
www.thegardeninitiative.co.uk

 

Grants

If you have an idea for how you can encourage young growers you may also be able to apply for a grant to receive funding for your growing kit.

 There are lots of different ways to find funding and support for your growing plans. You can often find funding from your local authority, sponsorship in your local community or you can organise fundraising yourself.

 There are also several national organisations that provide grants for projects. The following list is a good place to start when looking for funding opportunities.

 
Lottery Funding

www.lotteryfunding.org.uk/

 This site provides information on current funding programmes across the UK.

Big Lottery Fund

Every year they give out millions of pounds from the National Lottery to good causes. They fund community groups and projects that improve health, education and the environment.

Eco Schools

www.eco-schools.org.uk/grants

Over 250 schools have applied for a grant through the ‘Switched on Communities’ scheme in the last two years and successful schools shared almost £100,000. The scheme has funded everything from wind turbines and solar panels to energy saving light bulbs, light sensors and draught excluders.

Local Food Grants

www.localfoodgrants.org

Local Food distributes lottery grants to different food-related projects to help make locally grown food accessible and affordable to local communities.

  

Ernest Cook Trust

www.ernestcooktrust.org.uk

The Ernest Cook Trust provides grants between £100 and £4000. They encourage education of the environment and countryside for young people.

 

Trusthouse Charitable Foundation

www.trusthousecharitablefoundation.org.uk

 
The Foundation makes over 300 grants and distributes more than £2 million each year. The average grant awarded by the Foundation is £5,000.

  

Paul Hamlyn Foundation

www.phf.org.uk

They make grants that help fund specific activities and innovative ways of increasing the learning opportunities of people within the UK.
 

 

The Conservation Foundation

www.conservationfoundation.co.uk

The Conservation Foundation promotes positive environmental awareness. Up to 60 projects receive awards every month, designed to support individuals and groups making a positive change in their community.

It’s Your Community Initiative

www.itsyourcommunity.co.uk/

Awards are made up to £1,000 to local groups and individuals. They provide awards for initiatives that benefit the local community.

 

Hilton in the Community Foundation

http://www.hilton-foundation.org.uk

Focusing on disadvantaged children and young people, the Foundation supports activities in education and health to relieve suffering and equip individuals.

Food Standards Agency Award Based in Wales.

If your project contributes to improving diet in your local community, you could apply for a Food Standards Agency Award.