Broadford School Wildlife Garden
"The garden of Broadford Primary School on the Isle of Skye"
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Bumble bee on an orchid
Lily on pond
Dorset Cereals donates 100 Edible Playgrounds to UK schools
As part of its continued drive to encourage every school in the country to start a food producing garden, and importantly to cook what they have grown, Dorset Cereals has given Edible Playgrounds gardening kits to 100 primary schools. From Cornwall to the Isle of Skye, it is hoped that school children will be harvesting and cooking vegetables and fruit that they have grown in their Edible Playgrounds.
We feel that never has it been more important environmentally and economically to teach children how to grow food and how to cook it. It is one of the most important life skills a child can learn. Our 100 Edible Playgrounds are just a start. Through our website www.edibleplaygrounds.co.uk every primary school in the UK can access information about how to start and develop an area in their school grounds to grow food, said Patrick Horton of Dorset Cereals.
Thousands of schools entered the Dorset Cereals Edible Playgrounds online competition to win the gardening kits worth over £300. The competition was free to enter and the kits include two wooden raised beds, children's trowels and forks, vegetable seeds, a cookbook and even a mature apple tree. The winning schools are based all over the country from deepest Devon to the highlands of Scotland.
These kits will then be followed in the spring with a set of vegetable plug plants from us for the schools to grow and harvest crops before the end of the summer term, continued Patrick Horton.
Gordon Wyness head teacher from Broadford Primary School in Isle of Skye, Scotland was thrilled with their win. "Before we started growing food at school a lot of our children thought vegetables came from the Co-o p! Making the connection from seed to plate is one of the most important things children can learn and we have definitely found kids are much more adventurous in their eating habits once they have grown it themselves. This starter kit from Dorset Cereals will enable us to plant a small Edible Playground in our nursery area. If you start them growing food early on hopefully this experience will stay with them throughout their life.
Dorset Cereals is supported by The Royal Horticultural Society's Campaign for School Gardening and together they are hoping to persuade as many schools, parents and teachers to sign up to the Edible Playgrounds website to encourage schools across the country to get growing and cooking their own food.
Contacts:
Press: mandy@positivepr.co.uk. Tel: 01935 389497
Dorset Cereals & Edible Playgrounds: Patrick Horton patrick@dorsetcereals.co.uk.
Tel: 01305 751000. www.edibleplaygrounds.co.uk