The Rainbow Gardeners
At Pakeman we have our very own gardening team, known as the Rainbow Gardening Club. The team has already achieved level 3 of the RHS gardening awards and are now working towards level 4.
The Rainbow Gardeners are a team of 8 children. Each week they choose a Head Gardener to help organise the necessary tasks. They work really well together and get a lot of jobs done each session.
Last year the Rainbow Gardeners worked incredibly hard clearing out all the weeds which had taken over the gardening spots during lockdown. They had some enormous weeds to tackle.
They have regular weekly meetings about what to grow in the garden spaces and have been working hard as a team for just over a year now.
So far, they have attempted to grow crops from seed and planted small crops of vegetables. They grew a successful batch of potatoes, broad beans and garlic. All of these were passed over to our Pakeman Cooking Club so that they could be used in their recipes. The gardeners discovered that garlic is actually simple to grow and managed to get plenty of fat, juicy garlic bulbs. The sunny site they planted in really helped with this.
Another important task they have been up to in recent weeks is weeding and composting the nursery plot. They have also created some lovely hand made signage for planting areas.
One thing they have really learnt through the RHS Gardening Scheme is to plan projects and to identify the needs and benefits to our school. So far, they have learnt how to grow plants in the very limited space they have at Pakeman. They have also learnt some gardening terms and how to use tools safely.
Now the Rainbow Gardeners are now on a new mission. They are very keen to help the reception children have their own gardening space at the front of school. They want to provide their younger peers with a planting space of their own and teach these very young children how to plant and care for their garden. They feel it is important to pass on their gardening skills to the younger children at Pakeman.
New Mission:
There is a small, disused area at the front of Pakeman that the gardeners would love to develop. It consists of hard, weedy, bare soil.
The area gets some sun so they know that something will grow there. They are currently thinking up some good planting ideas because at the moment the area is looking sad and neglected. They want it to look attractive to the public who pass by. They also want to make it useful to the school, so they would love to grow more vegetables to pass onto Cooking Club and the school kitchen.
This mission is particularly important for our gardening team because our school council identified our grounds as an area in need of improvement. They thought that garden planters would have a positive effect on our well-being and that this might be important for people as they entered or passed by our school.
The team have recently been measuring out this area at the front of school and thinking of some little adjustments that could be made to make the area easily accessible to the Gardening Team, the Reception children and others who might like to be involved. They have discussed how this area could help everyone in their science lessons.
These photos show the team measuring the area and setting out some of their design ideas:
Can you help?
At present, the Rainbow Gardening Club are trying hard to find ways to fund their project so that they can make their Pakeman gardening wishes come true. They are being helped by a few adults who really want to help the team achieve their goal. If you know anyone who can help us find funding for our school garden improvements please email:
Arlene ascott@pakeman.islington.sch.uk or Marcia mharris@pakeman.islington.sch.uk
The adults and children involved would really love to hear from you.
