Nano Nagle N.S Website

Gardening? Anybody can do it!!
In April 2008 our plans for a school garden began to take shape. With the aid of the Parents Association and under the guidance of two parents in particular, Fintan and Valerie Rice, the pupils and teachers discussed the project.
We prepared to plant.

The class groups learned from Fintan’s gardening experience how to set the bean plants – positioning them correctly near a pole for support, tying each plant carefully and winding them anti-clockwise around the poles.

Jordan found an unwelcome visitor among the plants. She set him free in the wilds of the garden.

We had a tray of lettuce plants:
These were set in between the beans and disappeared without trace in the following days. We fear the local rabbit
had salad one evening!

June 19th
1st and 2nd class made sure the beans were winding their way up the poles. They needed tying higher up the stems as the wind had loosened some plants. We realised that we can’t just abandon our garden. It needs to be looked after. The soil was a little dry so Rebecca and Erica used the watering cans and gave each plant a drink. What lovely red, white and pink bean flowers we got.

Participation: All classes in the school participated in this project to some degree at different stages: setting seeds, watering during exceptionally dry weather, tidying, erecting beanpoles, planting, tying plants, checking progress, reporting, drawing pictures, writing stories, measuring height of plants, watering when planted out.
There was great interest in doing the various jobs associated with growing the beans.

Obstacles:
very dry weather when seeds were planted first
high winds blew the pots over and dried the soil out
rabbits stealing the lettuce plants
the football from the boy’s school beside us
the distance from the school building for hauling water.
the summer holidays, when gardeners were scarce on the ground!

Harvest
Despite the obstacles, when we returned after the summer holidays (in name only, this year) there was a fine crop of runner beans waiting to be harvested.
There was also a very healthy crop of weeds which 5th and 6th class pulled. The children eagerly picked the beans and took them home to cook. It was a bit like the “Magic Porridge Pot” in that the more we picked the more the beans grew.
We are still picking beans.

Integration with other subjects

The bean project spilled over into other subject areas, such as Visual Arts, Storytelling, Drama. There was even some estimating and measuring at maths time to see how tall the beanstalks grew. It inspired an Art Competition, where
Junior and Senior Infants were invited to draw their favourite character from the story “Jack and the Beanstalk”.
First and second class depicted their favourite scene from the story.
3rd and 4th Class could design a book cover for the story “Jack and the Beanstalk”.
5th and 6th were asked to write a funny story, poem or short drama about a scene from the story

Other crops

In June, Ms Kelly’s third and fourth class grew some potatoes in the classroom, which you see Rachel serving up in the photo, on the right. These were cooked by Annemarie, chopped up and quite hungrily eaten in class!

Our two minature apple trees have yielded a bountiful crop of beautiful red apples.

Tomato plants have little green fruits which will ripen in time.
So, yes indeed, the harvest is great!





Yum! We all love chives that we grow in school

Peas at the sugarsnap stage are also very inviting

Watering became very important when the weather dried up.

It was then that our rain-water tank came in handy. There were many willing volunteers for this job. This very useful addition to our garden area was bought for the school by the Parents Association.

With the involvement and cooperation of the whole school community, our gardening venture has been a very rewarding experience. Our thanks to the Parents Association, staff and especially the pupils who worked wholeheartedly. All in all I think we have both enjoyed and learnt a lot since the Spring this year, when all this gardening started. We may even have inspired the development of some garden patches at home, judging by the feedback and positive response from the children. They have seen gardening as an enjoyable and fruitful activity.
Anybody can do it!