Scout project.
ricky25
Posts: 2
Hi,
I am wanting a bit of advice as a complete gardening novice, I run a local beaver scout group (kids aged between 6 and 8) and one of there badges is a gardening badge which consists of them planting and maintaining a garden for 3 months. We start the project on the 14th april and my idea is to plant a vegtable garden.
The plan (which i dont know if its even possible) is to plant various vegtables on the 14th april that will be ready mid/late july before they break up for the summer to sell all together at a event to raise funds for the group.
just a few questions really:
is it possible to run a project with various veg to all be ready at the same time in such a small window?
if it is possible what vegtables would be best to do it with?
and finally how do i do it? we have decent spare bit of land to create a small allotment but having had no experience any advice would be great. I have done a bit of research but would love to hear advice from people hearing my circumstances.
Thanks in advanced
Posts
Where in the world are you Ricky? This will help give people an idea of last frosts and weather conditions that might affect you.
You could easily grow salad veg in that time. Small carrots, lettuce, radishes are all easy to grow. Research raised beds so there is not too much ground preparation.
Most vegetables take longer than 12 weeks from sowing to harvest and you wouldn't get very large crops from anything in that time. You could grow salad crops though, radish, lettuce and/or mixed salad leaves to bag up. Pak choi is fairly quick too, or grow a leaf beet like Mr Mcgregor or spinach for baby leaves. You could also make bunches of fast growing annual flowers like marigold (calendula), cornflower, clarkia and godetia for selling.
I grow spinach and radishes between rows because they can be harvested before the main veg needs the space - as said they are more salads than vegetables but they should both be ready to harvest in less than 12 weeks.
Some first early potatoes might be ready in time, to give yourself the best chance it's probably worth getting them now and chitting them in advance introducing them to the kids already shooting and ready to be planted.
And to maintain interest from the start how about mustard? Germinates in a couple of days and can be ready to harvest in a fortnight - I haven't grown it since I was a kid but sowed some on damp kitchen towel and some on a little seed compost a couple of days later and the batch on compost has overtaken the kitchen towel batch and is about ready to harvest after 9 or 10 days.
Might be worth getting some cloches or a couple of those small polythene grow tunnels to warm the soil when you sow the seeds - take them off once the plants are getting established though to make the most of the rain for watering on the days there is no one there.
Would you consider raising perennial flowers in pots to sell? Teach a bit of plant propagation and seed collecting?
I've been giving your query some thought, and I wonder if it is a truly viable project. Sorry if that sounds so negative, and I really hate to pour cold water on your enthusiasm, but you say you have a decent bit of land for the project - but don't say where. Is it by, say, the Scout Hut? Or at the local allotment site?
You see, the location could make a lot of difference: you will only have the Beavers for an hour per week, and they won't want to be gardening every week through the summer term. They may start off as being enthusiastic - but you may very well find that you and your assistant leaders end up doing most of the work.
So here's my two penn'orth: why not aim for simple salad crops that will mostly look after themselves (well, with just a bit of TLC from you and the kids!). You could work mainly with lettuce (and I know you would end up with a lot) but you could mark out a circle for the World Membership badge i.e. a circle with the Scout spearhead in the middle. The normally purple background could be red lettuce, such as red salad bowl or lollo rosso, and the spearhead itself could be green lettuce bowl or similar. The stars could me picked out in red lettuce. The edging? Well, if you're feeling brave, you could try to do a fancy reef knot at the top, but simple edging would probably be simplest. Perhaps simple annual flowers, low-growing like Alyssum?
Obviously there will be some need for watering and weeding, but the results will be pretty rapid (which is what you want) and if you take a series of photos, ending with what would hopefully be an eye-catching Scout badge, you could gain extra publicity in the local paper, Scouting magazine etc etc. Result!
Other people are welcome to pick holes in my suggestion - but it was the best I could think of given the constraints of time (both from sowing to cropping and maintaining weekly interest of youngsters).
PS I used to run both Beavers and Cubs. Lovely little cherubs (!) not all of whom could always be relied on to co-operate to the full on a long-term project. Even the older Cubs were unlikely to keep up their full interest for a whole term - especially the Summer Term when they wanted to get out and about, build bivvies and camp etc.
Thanks pansyface - I hope there is some merit in it.
btw Ricky - I do know that it's an arrowhead not a spearhead - but I slipped into local in-joke mode without thinking! ooops!
Oh, and re the raising funds from selling the produce - rarely successful in my experience. But you could get local businesses/parents/politicians (LOL) to sponsor you. Just a thought.
What about just planting a load of early potatoes? Just the right time of year and you should get a crop in 12 weeks. Not too much maintenance to do - just some gentle weeding and earthing up.
You'd be surprised how many children just don't know where potatoes come from, and the magic of planting potatoes and getting lots back never ceases to amaze them. Then they can take the crop home with them or maybe you can even cook and eat them all together.
I did it with a group of young children years ago - each of them brought a couple of potatoes from home, most of them had started to develop shoots as that's what I'd asked for - but they don't need to have shoots - commercial growers don't chit potatoes. They were amazed at how they grew and how many potatoes they got and they were so proud to take them home and eat them - most children will eat potatoes
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.