Lara shows children| How to grow and harvest food on her no dig allotment| Charles Dowding

[Music] wow so here we are uh scool beans allotments this is Lara honor whose project it is it's amazing you will see lots of lovely detail I'm so pleased at Sunny yeah we're really lucky because you've had the BBC here a couple of times yes Garden as well came and filmed a few weeks ago and we were lucky on one of the days but the other day it was torrential rain and wind so we' got lots of kids coming today yes we've got around 10 children coming and it's a 2hour session so I normally run it 1

0: till 12 we have a half halftime break and I write a list of jobs to do on the board I normally walk around the plot and see what needs to be done write it down we have a little meeting and then the children pick and choose what jobs they want to do wow sounds great well should we go let's go who's watch Charlie in the Chocolate Factory before and who knows Willie Wonker and so Charles is a bit like willly Wonka but instead of chocolate he grows vegetables but amazing vegetables like the bigge

st vegetables you've ever seen I like this like this big and I used to work bigger than that big yeah biger than that big so I used to work for Charles yeah I used to work for Charles and when I went to see his garden has anyone ever um heard of Royal doell you know the Royal doell books you know I've got I've got royal doell um George's magical yes and you know like James and the Giant Peach yeah so and do you remember what a CO rabie is yeah so we had goes didn't we do you remember the big pur

ple vegetables I didn't really like it I know it didn't yeah we eat it in colaw but it looked like something from outter space so when I worked for Charles and I saw one of those vegetables for the first time I thought I want to grow vegetables for the rest of my life and that's why I want to teach you guys how to grow veg too because it's a bit crazy and a bit wacky isn't it well we got sunflowers at home but they died yeah but don't worry because they come back don't they so we can teach you h

ow to grow them for next year right should we quickly show Charles to keep Charles safe and to keep us all safe should we quickly go over the rules I know some of you know these back to front Okay so first one Maya please always walk on the plot please always walk on the plot brilliant Oliver do you want to do the next one sharing is caring so when we pick the veg at the end of the day we're going to share it aren't we Eden can you do the next one as before picking or eating a very good why do w

e ask before picking or eating a plant Oliver at a chili without asking he did a boy ate a chili without asking and what happened he had to go home he had to go home because it was really hot wasn't it yeah he had to drink he had to drink lots of water so always ask before picking a plant I'm Blown Away by the productiveness of this place and the fertility Lara's got into the soil I mean look at these sunflowers here and every little place you look there's kale brussel sprouts asparagus there's

fruiting plants raspberries apples plums runner beans of different sorts potatoes harvested or waiting to harvest look at these little Tomatoes here so little trellises on the end of beds and then flower pots wherever you look it's it's clearly High summer so it's a really good time to see it and I was here in early April last and it was still actually pretty interesting then but this is the season all through the summer look at these doas she specializes in doas okay so the jobs to do today are

can everybody see this so the first job is feed the birds okay then we've got lots of fruit and veget to Pi to pick we've got rubub plums raspberries to pick and then we've got Runa beans French beans corett potatoes and beetro oh yeah and I like be you've just reminded me H you've just reminded me the carrots I'm going to put carrots how could I forget I love carrot yeah okay so you can come and help pick the carrots I carrot then we've got the daers to pick and then also the dead heads can be

turned into confetti so Jackie is going to be in charge of that so whoever wants to do that can go with Jackie then Dan over here this is Dan he's going to do seed packet making you know when we made the seed packets and decorated so we've got parip seeds to make yeah you can do that if you want and then we we're making felt flowers and also we can decorate a rainbow chair and also the watering can and um some Welly boots if anyone wants to do that right who wants to feed the birds profal you'r

e a professional samper are you wonderful yeah are you you're so lucky that's going to be so outfit doesn't it aren't they pretty they're called straw flowers yeah did you is it stuck do you want a bit of help so if you what what you Oliver do you want to go and help H needs help pulling the carrot out spotted and I found another be oh where yeah look they like these flowers don't they I was just doing a bit of weeding actually for you and I noticed this God this mer tail yeah you had this absol

utely prolific this plot with Mar's tail but we did obviously the no dig method and when it started to appear I thought it looked like witch's fingers coming up out of the ground so I turned it into a game The Witch's fingers league and so the children got a little bucket we'd put the timer on for 10 minutes and they had to find as many witch's fingers as they could in 10 minutes It Was a Race Against Time and then we had a category we had the longest witch's finger we had the bushiest or the mo

st and then we had a table and the children would write it all down and at the end of the season the child with the most points they got a score out of 10 each time would win a prize and two years of that there's hardly any left little you really have to look for it there's and it's not that it's it's you know you don't know may ta and it's it's very deep roots and if you don't tackle it it's prolific isn't it yeah but it's definitely not I don't find that a problem I don't even find Bine we a p

roblem no oh there's a better one look look at all these oh you come through look at this just the raspberry Fairy come three do you want to try eating it see how they hide under the leaves look at that oh yeah it's three I have a tail you have a tail that's true actually or look you could do this look like a rabbit do you want to do that I'm a rabbit here you go well I must congratulate you though was quite an experience yeah you've survived yeah it's full on there isn't it it is full on but as

the weeks go by this is quite a fairly new group of children and as the weeks go by and they become so used to it it becomes much more natural and they can be left to do what they want and they they they then know how to do it because this is quite a new group yeah so it's actually quite lucky that I was here and also Dan who's chef from London isn't it he's going to be starting a school garden and so great this is a great CH training place as well definitely so I had my first adult course I th

at I ran a few days ago and um yeah I want to teach adults who want to run a gardening club how to do it how we run how you can set up you could set up a Children's Garden on an allotment just like we've done here yeah you've actually got two allotments but they're quite small actually this is like one full size I think it's this so it's two allotments put together so it makes up 30 m by 12 M but I do want to expand to a few more every time I see you you want to expand yeah we need more room to

build a compost toilet I'd love a little cabin for winter time and just more veg and flower beds and you'd like to get this rolled out over the country wouldn't you I would love that I would love you know how Forest school is completely normal and it's brilliant cuz it's getting children loving nature we need that but gardening clubs all over the country and then work out how to finance them cuz if it's in school you you Hest the problems of the the budget this is separate to school so we it's b

rilliant that we're right next to the school so we I can bring the children here from school cuz I teach gardening at the school on a Friday but this is completely separate to school it's your own thing and own just started charging money this year just start Char this year yes you're hardly covering your costs I me just covering costs but I have never applied for any funding for this so that's what next year I'm going to do this fulltime so I can focus on the admin side of it cuz I've dedicated

3 years of making this Garden what it is and so well you know that we're going to have this future gardeners Forum that you've been helping to plan isn't it and get people like Jess from Cornwall grows who's brilliant at getting funding yes she is amazing at getting funding and what we want to do I get a lot of people contacting me on Instagram saying how do you go about starting a gardening club where do I begin and that Forum will be giving people all the so what is the point of contact for a

nyone listening at the point of contact you can follow me on Instagram our our Instagram address is school beans School beans so SK b e a n z and message you from there yeah you can direct message me on there yeah and in future there'll be more you got a website yes we've got a website yeah a little one a little homemade one yeah but there's cuz I must say that Lara's done all this on less than a shoe string it's totally admirable and she needs every bit of support and I hope that lots of you wi

ll join her and and follow her journey and and also you know do your own things this could be really exciting it's all about Grassroots it really is it's if you are passionate about gardening and you want to share that with children then just do it start it in an alotment in your village and just just do it see where it leads yeah see where it leads well thanks for sharing it great thank you so help yourself to flowers there's veg you're okay you're okay are you okay three go again [Laughter] ag

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