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Help please with quick growing plants for school fete
Laura May
Posts: 7
Hello
I found out last night that my year 4 class (9 year olds) will be in charge of the plant stall at our school fete. I am very keen that they grow as much as possible themselves for the experience itself but have a slight problem; it is on the 4th July! We will plant next week.
I would be extremely grateful for any advice on what you lovely gardeners would suggest to grow that will look appealing by then. Also any advice for a cheap solution for potting on containers for the finished plants to be taken away in.
So far I am thinking of runner beans, lettuce leaves, calendulas, sunflowers and linaria. I can provide two heated propagators to speed things up a little!
Thank you so much
Laura and Year 4
0
Posts
Nasturtiums are great confidence boosters for kids and they do germinate quickly. They're often used as beginner seed sowing examples for kids because of that. I'm confident that if you sowed them now, you would get a result good enough to pot them on into 3" or 5" pots ready for 4th July. Members of the public are often willing to take them at the seedling stage as well.
If the schedule looks too tight for other things, you could maybe approach a local B&Q or other store as they are likely to have some bargain trays of things they haven't taken care of too well. You can sometimes get as many as 25 little plug plants for 50p or £1 if they have surplus to get rid of. You can tidy up the plants and just repot them into the next size up pots and they would be good enough to sell. The potting-on exercise would be a good lesson for the kids also and it wouldn't tax their abilities and would give them confidence that it's easy to do and serves a purpose in growing things.
Dwarf french beans, two to a pot, planted in those little fibre pots that can be planted direct into the soil - they should germinate fairly quickly and should be cropping in 10-12 weeks from germination.
Pak choi is a quick germinator too.
Little Gem lettuce.
Pots of mustard and cress.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
...even squashes etc. germinate pretty fast and have nice big impressive seed leaves; courgettes are very productive and pumpkins will produce Jack o'lanterns and soup come the autumn.
Definitely radishes and rocket. They seem to pop up in a few days.
Mustard and cress are instant magic