Future Gardeners

Dear Gardeners,

Finally, the weather has cooled a little here and we had some drizzle this morning, though no proper rain so the watering continues. St Swithin’s day on 15th July was dry this year and the 40 mostly dry days have a while to run yet, until late August.

The onslaught of the flea beatle also continues, so I have been potting on some brassica seedlings in the greenhouse, for planting later as larger plants. This gives them a better chance when planted out and means less watering, because it’s easier to water many plants together in the greenhouse than when widely spaced in beds.

There doesn’t seem to be a cure for flea beatles, only the very finest mesh can help. I am trialling diatomaceous earth, and sticky traps held just above plants. The latter would be a great project for children, see this link. Although in the description it says they are for whitefly control, they certainly catch any flea beetles, which jump up onto them – you can hold them just above any infested plants.

Despite the beatles, it's a wonderful time in the garden with many harvests possible. Melons, sweetcorn and tomatoes are such a joy in high summer. Sweetcorn would normally be ready to crop in early autumn but everything is earlier this year, including many fruits.

We have a course day here tomorrow so I’m looking forward to sharing all the produce with those who come along. People come to learn in the garden but they often forge connections and friendships too, over a wonderful lunch. Sally's piece below really leans into the community side of growing and the benefits of that. Through her work with schools and communities, the focal point of a school garden increases a sense of belonging for the children and adults involved.

Lara Honnor has also contributed a piece about her new Skool Beanz garden club at Yeo Valley. Lara is passionate about children having access to land; I wonder where the next Skool Beanz garden will pop up!

Do plan now for your August sowings, which can include salad rocket, dill, coriander, parsley, Chinese cabbage, turnips and broccoli for spring, as well as endive and chicory – so many options! August is sometimes called ’the second spring’.

Happy gardening,

Charles

I have always believed that children should have the opportunity to get their hands dirty and understand where their food comes from. As a headteacher, I worked with Hampshire Garden Trust to establish an edible kitchen garden at Beacon View Primary Academy in Portsmouth. I saw children's confidence grow, new skills develop and engagement with school increase.

What I didn't realise at the time was that gardening's impact reaches far beyond education.

In 2024, while recovering from illness, I began volunteering at The Secret Garden in Boscombe, part of Grounded Community. Experiencing the benefits firsthand changed my perspective completely. Gardening was not just about growing food; it was about improving wellbeing, building relationships and creating stronger communities.

When I joined United Communities in 2025, I brought that passion with me. Our charity works alongside schools and communities, starting with what is already strong and helping local people build on the assets, skills and enthusiasm they already have. Gardening felt like a natural fit.

With an initial grant from The Grace Trust, we launched the Grace Gardens Project across three school communities. The aim was simple: create spaces where children, families and residents could grow food together, learn new skills and strengthen community connections.

What has been most exciting is how quickly the project has grown beyond the original funding.

At Marlborough Road Primary Academy in Salford, the community hub’s existing garden supplying their pantry has expanded through a partnership with Grow to School, helping families become more confident and independent growers. Additional support has since funded a polytunnel, extending the growing season and increasing production.

At Glenmoor and Winton in Bournemouth, raised beds have been installed through a partnership with Grounded Community. Bee Mission 500 hives now sit on the school roof, an orchard festival has raised further funds and a new community entrance is helping open the growing space to residents. Funding has also been secured for an outdoor learning building to support young people's wellbeing and engagement with nature.

In Nelson, Lancashire, women from Mums2Mums, a sisterhood of local women who come together to support one another and make positive change happen in their community, have joined forces with Positive Voices, the school's youth leadership group. Together with the school team, they have combined the Grace Gardens project with Nature Park funding to develop an allotment alongside their existing orchard, creating even more opportunities for local people to grow, share and enjoy fresh food.

What began with a relatively small grant has attracted significant additional investment, new partnerships and hundreds of volunteer hours. More importantly, it has demonstrated what can happen when schools are supported to act as community hubs and local people are given the opportunity to shape something together.

Just seven months in, the stories emerging are not really about vegetables. They are about confidence, connection, wellbeing and belonging. The gardens are producing food, but they are also growing friendships, skills and community spirit.

As the project develops and a framework emerges, we hope the lessons learned and resources created will encourage more schools and communities to open their gates, start growing and discover the wider benefits that gardening can bring, both in United Learning and beyond.

A brilliant first time for me this year at Groundswell with my festival buddy Charles (and we’re still friends after putting up two tents together in the blazing sun!) This is a wonderful coming together of growers, farmers and anyone interested in food and the environment. 

I instantly zoned in on the Growing Futures Talk: how farming, food, soil and nature can shape children's futures, exploring the decade-long partnership between Euston Estate (Farm) and Barnham Primary School, the two conveniently positioned next to each other. The forward-thinking head teacher, Amy Arnold, works closely with farmer Oliver Tyrrell to get the children visiting the farm weekly throughout the year and incorporating this into their curriculum. The results from the past 10 years are astounding, with some of the students, now young adults, working at the farm, and other students going on to study agriculture and the environment in higher education as a career. 

Giving children regular consistent access to land, farming and gardening, all year round, allowing them to experience every season and every weather, is the answer. It’s what I’m finding is really working at the Skool Beanz children’s allotment I run.

This is why I’m keen to spread the children’s gardening joy. Imagine if every formal garden in the country had a children’s garden that offered weekly gardening clubs all year round. I pitched this idea to the lovely Sarah Mead of Yeo Valley. The beautiful, quirky organic garden at their farm in North Somerset is the perfect location for a children’s garden (it was the golden gnomes that sold it to me!) Sarah kindly offered me a beautiful, cosy space to transform, with two large raised beds and a shed with a covered area, and the friendly garden team there have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome.

My team of volunteers and I have visited weekly to plant and paint, to get the skeleton of the garden ready for holiday clubs to begin in August. The children who then attend will help to decorate and plant up bath tubs, hanging baskets, mobile ‘Jamdeliers’, veg signs and cane toppers, as well as harvesting veg, picking flowers, sowing seeds, planting and playing nature-inspired games with garden-themed stories.

Inspired by our main Skool Beanz garden, we are growing dahlias and a variety of veg including tomatoes, cucumbers, sweetcorn and courgettes, and we have also managed to squeeze in a secret den made out of a wigwam of beans, dead hedge and chestnut paling fencing, with succulent welly boots.

Just like the way that Skool Beanz HQ started as a weekly Saturday morning gardening club, we are starting off small, offering two-hour clubs over the summer holidays in August. The garden will also be open for everyone to see during the Yeo Valley Organic Garden Festival, 17th–19th September. We look forward to welcoming children either at our main garden near Yeovil for full-day clubs and weekend mornings, or the two-hour clubs at Yeo Valley where an adult gets free entry into their stunning gardens and cafe. 

Visit www.skoolbeanzcic.com for more details on our children’s gardens and clubs.

Would you like to share your experience of growing and gardening with children?

However large or small your project, we would love to hear from you.

We hope that by showing what’s possible, others will be encouraged to get started with their ideas.

Please email Nicola: [email protected]

To help with the planning of a school garden, please see this page of my website.

For a Sowing Timeline in the Northern Hemisphere, please see this page, and for the Southern Hemisphere, please click here.

For starting a new no dig allotment or garden, this is the page.

First Tunnels offer schools a 20% discount. Do see their page here, where they feature the Future Gardeners Forum!

We would like this resource list to grow and turn into a toolkit to help set up and run a successful growing space for children, so if you have any resources you think would be helpful, please email Anna, [email protected]

Below are the contact details for the Future Gardeners Forum speakers, 2024 and 2025. Do follow along with their projects via Instagram or their websites.

Alby Jones, @nodigkid

Beth Rochford, @rootzup

Karen Waterston, @thegardenofideas

Helen Cross, @grow_cook_inspire

Tom Houghton, @thecommunitygrowers_cic, @thebostonmarketgarden

Hannah and Ross, @lettinggrow

Lara Honnor – Skool Beanz 
@skoolbeanz

Jess Creasey – Cornwall Grows CIC 
@cornwallgrows

Phil Brown – Headteacher, Bottesford Junior School 
Website: https://www.bottesfordjuniors.com/school-garden/

Sarah Alun-Jones - GROW
@wearegrow
https://www.wearegrow.org

Dan Romans-Hay – Woody School Farm, Streatham
@woodyschoolfarm
[email protected]

Matt Willer – The Papillon Project
@thepapillonproject
https://www.thepapillonproject.com