Spring is here! What a fabulously warm beginning we have had.

If you would like a workshop to help get your gardens growing and flourishing this year, please do get in touch. We can offer a day of garden tidying, seed sowing and seedling planting, or a session on composting and even build your own compost bins. Costs are £150 for a whole

day and £75 for half a day.

NEWSLETTER Summer Term 2007

Schools we have worked with:Kingsbridge Community Primary Kingsbridge Community College St. Christopher’s, StavertonSt. John the Baptist Primary Diptford Primary Burlescombe PrimarySandford Primary Ilsington Primary Ladysmith Middle, ExeterUgborough Primary Dartington Primary - Brimhay Nursery Highweek PrimaryLandscove Primary Charleton Primay Yeo Valley PrimaryStoke Gabriel Primary Stokenham Primary Thurlestone PrimaryStoke Fleming Primary Harbertonford Primary St. Peter’s Primary

Edible Gardens in Schools has at last published the teaching resource - ‘Edible Gardens in Schools - A Growing Guide for Teachers’. This timely new book and CD are essential for anyone wanting to begin vegetable gardening at school. An excellent and comprehensive guide, it will help teaching staff create and sustain edible gardens in the school grounds and enable schools to use the gardens as a valuable resource for teaching many aspects of the curriculum. The book and CD contain clear information about the practical aspects of gardening in school, and include lesson plans, activities and worksheets to support this work and broaden pupils’ knowledge. Cont. on page 2....

HOT OFF THE PRESS!

FREE

SEEDS!

Many thanks to

Tuckers Seeds in

Ashburton who have

very kindly donated

some seeds to this

project. I hope you

find the enclosed

packet to your taste!

NEWS

...Cont. from page 1

The fifteen seasonal topics include Companion Planting, Seed Saving, Nutrition and Local Food. Through games and activities in the garden and classroom, pupils will learn how to compost their food waste, the importance of reducing food miles, the role of different minibeasts in the soil and much more.

The book:

• Clear and straightforward introductions to each of the 15 seasonal topics including Composting, Nutrition, Companion Planting, Seed Saving and Local Food.

• Charts showing how the activities and worksheets on the CD link to the national curriculum at Key Stage 2.

The CD:

• Over 70 pages of lesson plans, activities, games and follow-up worksheets to help schools integrate vegetable gardening into the curriculum.

The resource costs £16.95 and can be ordered from the publishers:

SOUTHGATE PUBLISHERS LTD.The Square, Sandford, CreditonDevon EX17 4LWinfo@southgatepublishers.co.uk01363 776888

Why not: Try planting some edible flowers in your vegetable gardens; they not only attract beneficial insects such as bees and ladybirds but also made a pretty and tasty addition to a salad. These two pictured are nasturtiums and pot marigold. They also help by attracting aphids away from your veggies!

Planting Potatoes

Now is the time to be planting potatoes. If you haven’t been able to buy them early and put them on the windowsill to chit, don’t worry, you can still plant them - different people say different things about chitting anyway. On the whole, it will give you a bigger harvest, but the potatoes will still grow if you plant them straight in.

Plant in individual holes about 15 cm deep, or dig a trench and lay the potatoes in the bottom. Leave a space of about 30 cm between potatoes. As the plants grow, you will need to ‘earth up’ which means pulling soil or mulch around the top of the plants so that only 5cm or so of the plants are showing. This way, the potatoes will have more space to grow, they won’t go green in sunlight and it should keep in the moisture. Do this when they are about 15cm high.

Perhaps try to grow some potatoes in a glass or see- through plastic container. You can then watch the development of the plant and see how the potatoes grow.

HALF TERMTips

Sowing seeds

It is almost warm enough to be able to sow all seeds directly outside, but probably safer to sow the more tender plants inside - for example courgettes, squash, corn and runner beans. If you have young seedlings inside, start hardening them off by putting them outside for a few hours each day. This way they will get used to the colder temperatures slowly.

Experiment: why not try hardening off some plants slowly and put others directly outside without this process? What difference does it make to their growth?

Write a description of what it might be like for a plant to be nice and warm inside and then suddenly be planted in the cold soil without any warning.

RECIPES

Purple sprouting broccoli is my favourite vegetable of this season - it keeps on producing lovely tender shoots for weeks! Here are some recipes to give it a bit of variety:

Buttery lemon sauce

Steam the broccoli for a few minutes.

Melt some butter in a saucepan, squeeze in some fresh lemon juice and mix well.

Dip the broccoli shoots in the sauce for a yummy starter!

Stir Fry

Steam the broccoli for 5-10 minutes. Heat some sesame oil in a frying pan and add the broccoli, spring onions, pumpkin seeds, soya sauce/tamari and some chilli if you like it spicy! Stir fry for a few minutes on a high heat and serve straightaway.

With bacon and garlic

Steam the broccoli for about 5 minutes. Fry the chopped bacon in a pan until golden brown. Add sliced garlic and fry for a further few minutes. Add the broccoli and braise with the bacon and garlic for another few minutes and then serve and eat!

Edible Gardens in Schools is a project of Devon Development EducationCharity Number 1102233.

Many thanks to our current supporters:

Contact details:Telephone: 01364 73058Email: raych @onetel.com