Meadowside Community Primary School

Get Your Grown-ups Growing

The RHS Campaign for School Gardening is supported by Waitrose and recently the Harrogate store provided their support in a practical manner.

Before the work begins

Friday 13th May turned out to be a lucky day for Meadowside Community Primary School in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire when a group of eight parents assisted by staff from the local Waitrose store (Jackie Geen and Kaye McDonald) and the Regions Manager for the Campaign for School Gardening (Deirdre Walton) turned their hand to a number of tasks needed to develop the school’s growing areas.

Six raised beds were assembled and placed in the school grounds.

Meadowside Community Primary School GYGG event

Then followed the biggest task of the day - shifting large quantities of top soil into the newly-built beds. Fortunately, additional labour was available in the shape of several pupils and the Headteacher. The top soil and some fruit bushes to be planted at a later stage were obtained with money from the Waitrose Community Matters scheme.

A mountain of earth

Tending to raised beds at Meadowside Community Primary School's GYGG event.

Each class in the school will now have their own bed and plans are already being made with one class keen to grow wildflowers to attract insects, while another class will be planting pumpkins they have grown from the seed they collected when carving pumpkins last autumn!

The group also weeded several beds and containers around the school and re-located daffodil bulbs to a new position along the fence at the front of the school where they should provide an attractive display for parents and visitors next Spring.

Tending other beds around the school

Headteacher Nigel Ashley said “I would just like to thank everyone for their help. I am really pleased with how the school is improving - the grounds look so much better and I am sure that this is just the start of what we can achieve’’

Before the big GYGG event 2010 at Meadowside Community Primary School

For more on Waitrose, click here and to find out more about GYGG 2011, please click here.