Today I am telling you about a project that we started at school.
This was something that bothered me a lot as there was about a half hector of the school on the other side of the parking area that we could not use for any sport activity.
This was just a sore eye to me and I thought maybe we can start teaching children how to plant some vegetables.
One of the farmers offered to come and plough this piece for us and cleared it; he also put a lot of fertilizer in the ground.
The children did not know what was happening and I told them to wait we will have them enjoy this as it will be a surprise.
We as teachers decided that we will plant vegetables in this area, and that will also teach children how to grow them.
I called all the children from the age of 10 years to 13 years to the hall and said, we are starting a vegetable garden.
This garden will be your responsibility and you will grow them and look after them.
They were all very excited, as some of them liked gardening, but there were children that knew nothing about it.
We picked 8 types of vegetables and the children were dealt into groups. They were unbelievable happy.
All the age groups were put together boys and girls apart as it sort of became a competition who did the best work.
We put all the vegetable names into a bowl and one of each group came to draw a name.
That was the vegetable that they had to plant and look after.
The lady from the nursery was so kind and said she would come and help them as this was our first try and wanted to make it a success.
There were 8 types of vegetables.
Carrots
Onions
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Beans
Pumpkin
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Now we had to find seeds and plants from all over so that we could start our garden.
Everyone asked their parents for help and you will not believe how all the different vegetables came to school from homes, even from grocery stores that heard what we were doing.
This was a very big project as each child had to get gardening gloves, small garden forks and we had to show them how to plant.
It was a lot of fun and they were all enjoying it tremendously yet the sun got to some of them and they came to school with hats.
The children enjoyed it so much and had so much fun and laughing all the time.
Then they will start competing at who was looking after their garden the best.
They had to clean all the gardens and water them. I must say I never thought it would be such success as this kept the children outside happy and learning something they did not realize you had to know.
When other schools came to play some kind of sport it was so wonderful to see how the children took them to their gardens and showed them all their vegetables and hard work.
Some of the children even convinced their parents to make them a place at home where they could plant vegetables.
See children do not always realize how nice it can taste when you pick something off and eat it so fresh.
Most children who live in towns just know how to buy vegetables and not how they grow.
Because of the fertilizer that the farmer put in for us, and the hard work of the children I must say, they really had very nice vegetables.
The little ones could not wait to be 10 years old and start helping, but they did sit and watch the children work.
Most children stayed after school just to make sure that their garden was wet and well looked after before they went home.
Once their vegetables were ripe they brought plastic bags and made up packets so that the children who wanted some could take some home and most of it was sold to out greengrocer as he was very impressed with their fresh vegetables.
The money was used to buy new plants and seeds and this just never stopped.
They had raised so much money with their vegetables that they could build a hothouse so that they could carry on in winter time as they all enjoyed it so much.
It was just a simple hot house with plastic, but the fathers came to help and it really looked very smart.
The children who left school often came to see what the gardens looked like as they missed it a lot.
Children who get fresh air and learn about plants are happy children and they do not just sit I front of the television or computer. They realize that there are more fun things to do.
Hope you enjoyed my story and have a wonderful day here from the Wild Coast.
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