What Did We Grow? - 2003

Every school garden should have some sunflowers, as they're easy to grow and very impressive.

This earlier shot of the sunflowers (taken before their heads began to bend from the weight of the flower heads) shows just how tall they had become - over 3 metres tall! The metre ruler at the base of one of the plants gives a good indication of their height. The children were agog at the size they had become - I was amazed, just think how they would have felt.

This is another plant that schools should think about growing - runner beans. Not only do they provide a huge amount of runner beans (and these did even in the drought) but they also have very striking flowers.

These are the beans that were a part of meals for many teachers and children. They tasted great. In fact, they tasted so good that one pupil used to but loads of them each week and eat the whole lot, raw (uncooked), before she got home. As no chemicals were ever used on these plants, after a quick wash they were perfectly safe to eat. The beans were sold in school, which helped to raise some funds for the garden in 2004.

These were another type of tasty bean grown in the garden - broad beans. The tasty green beans were taken out of the fluffy insides of their pods to be eaten. These tasted great too. Unfortunately (or fortunately), most of them were ready during the summer holidays, so it was Mr C. and Mr S. who ate most of them. Nice!

For those people who want to be like Popeye, this is the plant for you. Spinach. It grows like mad, it's very tasty and it's good for you (although it is not as high in iron as people first thought. But that's another story...).

It wan't just vegetables that were grown in the garden. The borders of the garden were full of flowers, like Calendula (seen to the left). Mind you, you can eat the petals of these flowers, so they are a good friend of the vegetable garden.

However, don't eat these flowers, the Marigold. Your stomach will not feel very well afterwards if you do so. Despite the drought, they were determined to show as many flowers as they possibly could.

This is one of Mr S.'s favourite plants, the Nasturtium. Not only do they grow like mad and take over your garden, their leaves, seeds and flowers can be eaten and make a peppery addition to salads. I was joking, by the way, when I said that Mr. S liked these plants.

The plants were tall, thin and delicate, but produced amazingly coloured flowers that you could see from a long distace away. The Purple Flowered Flax certainly made itself known in the garden, just by its looks.