A Vegetable Walk and Washing line 
Come walk, pick and make a map of key plants and then eat some!
Tuesday 13th June 2017

This workshop enabled the children from St Maddern’s Church of England Primary School to revisit the vegetable walled garden and so build on their plant identification training. Plants were touched, smelt and samples carefully picked. The children worked in small groups and numbered and bagged their samples. Words and colours also got bagged.

Dominica discussed different aspects of the vegetable garden as the children followed her. Potato and Beetroot ready for harvest were dug and pulled, and herbs such as different Chamomile and Marjoram were touched and some tasted. Herbs for teas were shared, herbs to keep you calm were pointed out.

During the second part of the morning, the children worked in the Orchard. Here, the children helped each other order their bags into a sequence whilst pegging them onto purple and green washing lines. Dominica pointed out that they had now had become walking plant maps - a record of where they had just been. They photographed them and then played around them.

After playtime, Nicky from the restaurant made an appearance and led the children to the bee hives and then to the restaurant garden where blankets under apple trees awaited them. She gave them a talk about the cost of food in the restaurant compared to the cost of it when pulled in the vegetable garden. She then produced slices of chocolate cake and when they had all finished eating it, she announced it was beetroot cake. The children loved it and there was a request for courgette and lettuce cake!

Whilst the children ate cake the general public viewed their work. There was such interest in the walking plant maps that Dominica left them up for the afternoon making videos of them, and talking to people as they enquired about the work and the children.