Ask Trev – What to plant in Primary School gardens at this time of year.

This question comes from Morg176 in Shellharbour

“I’d like to see an article on gardening for Primary Schoolers – What to plant, when, what might be interesting, what grows fast?”

Well first off it’s great to see teachers talking about this.  In my opinion every school would benefit from a gardening program.  It teaches so many lessons that take into account so many parts of the curriculum – horticulture, science, environmental studies, English, maths etc etc.  But most importantly, it teaches kids where their food comes from and how it is created, it doesn’t just magically appear on the supermarket shelves.

 

What to plant and when? 

As for when – as soon as you can!  Get started and it will gain a momentum of its own.  In fact I will tailor all my answers around the idea you will start as soon as possible.  At this time of year you can easily plant the following: cabbage, pak choi, lettuce, rocket, spinach, carrots, celery, cauliflower, spring onions, leek, onions, radish, turnips and swedes all should grow quite well.

If you are looking at a new garden for your Primary School and the soil isn’t great, I heartily suggest you plant some legumes which will stick in valuable nitrogen for your soil.  Peas of all kids do this but I have a soft spot for broad beans.

What might be interesting?

If the idea is to make the garden interesting for your students, I recommend putting in a variety of vegetables that all look quite different so the students can see the variety.  Broad beans will grow nearly 6 feet high, pack choi will turn into these lovely green vase shapes, radishes will provide these red bulbs half in the soil for kids to hunt for, leeks become little palm trees, rocket will become little willowy forests and cauliflowers look like big round soccer balls.

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What grows fast?

At this time of year?  Bugger all.  Spring and summer are the seasons where things grow fast.  However a general rule is the smaller the vegetable the faster it will reach its full potential.  Avoid swedes and turnips as they take forever, cauliflowers, leeks and cabbages take a while too.  Perhaps pak choi, celery, spring onions, rocket and broad beans may be your best bet.

 

Good luck with your school gardening program!  Don’t forget to prime that soil with lots of fertilizer, don’t forget to work in some water and weeding programs into your timetable and any more questions feel free to post them – I’’ll tackle them as best I can.

5 thoughts on “Ask Trev – What to plant in Primary School gardens at this time of year.”

  1. Thats a great article Trev! I’m sure the kids will love growing vegetables.
    But we also grow flowers (we did last year), what flowering plants have tall flowering spires
    Sage?, delphinium?

    1. Hmmm, I must admit to growing very little that is not edible, my wife would know better than I. I shall ask her tonight and get back to you 🙂

      In the meantime you can try artichokes – they take ages to grow but if you don’t pick the artichoke bulbs off the top of the tall plant when they are ready, the bulbs then turn into huge beautiful purple flowers 🙂

  2. Hey Trev

    Got some space to garden in one of my schools
    What vegies would go well this time of year? Tomatoes etc
    Was also thinking of putting in passionfruit.

    What do you think

    1. Coming in to spring I would plant Tomatoes plants interspersed with Basil plants. They compliment each other very well in the soil as well as the pot 😉

  3. I recently read about a gardening style called gutter gardens, or more accurately, growing vegetables and other plants in lengths of fain gutter. Have you ever tried this technique? I thought it might work well in primary schools. I might have to build one and see how it goes

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