Pupils' Page / Leathanach na bPáistí
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Griffeen Valley Educate Together School Garden
GVET have an ambitious plan to build several gardens for the school children to teach them the benefits of growing your own fruit and vegetables, about wildlife and the importance of gardens. The main garden will be the “Circle” garden - for all children. A smaller “Triangle” garden for the Junior students, and Pallet Mini-Gardens for each class dotted around the school grounds.
All gardens are designed with children in mind – since it is the children who will be doing the planting and maintenance of the garden – ease of access, shallow beds, low maintenance. Scroll down to find out more.

Wow! Look at our garden grow!

Maggie's dad Patsy helped us create raised circular beds in the garden. We think they look great.

Junior Infants got stuck in to help with the building of the new flower beds in the school garden! They learned a bit of brick-laying!

We're in the garden every chance we get.

Look how busy we've been !

We'v e started a new pallet bed and made a start on the frame for the eco-shed. We also made an insect winter lodge for the posh insects - basically it is roofed box with large and small stick, some turf,some dried grass and some twigs. It even has an insulated attic with some earth and grass attached it to the sheltered side of the shed.

Some of us in Liz's 5th Class class helped Michael to plant pak choi, spinach, beetroot and chicory (autumn vegetables) into the Triangle Garden.

Aims of the Garden:
There are 2 main aims of the garden
1. Teach the children about gardens and gardening
o When the gardens are built, each class is scheduled to spend 30 minutes a week working and learning in the garden. The children will eat the produce from the garden and
2. Win - win Fund Raising:
Extra produce from the garden (fruit , veg and flowers) can be sold in a market garden to parents. In this manner the funds are raised for the school and parents can reduce their shopping bills.

Building the Gardens:
The gardens are still being built and help is needed, therefore, any parents, guardians and grandparents who
• Would like to help
• Are interested in gardening,
• Can lay bricks, can work wood or who can weld (seriously) are asked to come along anytime between 1pm and 4 pm every Saturday to help build the gardens or email gvetgc@hotmail.com

Gardening Club:
We are starting a Gardening Club and invite all parents and grandparents to join; we need both experienced and inexperienced gardeners to help out and teach the children and in some cases – the teachers, so come along anytime between 1pm and 4 pm every Saturday or email gvetgc@hotmail.com

Materials:
We want to make as much of the garden from recycled materials as possible, therefore, we will be trying to beg, borrow and “liberate” as much material as possible. If you have or know of any of following materials, it would be fantastic if you could donate them to the school:

9 inch bricks
Lengths of wood
Paving stones
Paving bricks
Perspex sheets
Gardening tools / plants
Wood preservative
Circle Garden Plan:
Circular Raised beds:

We want to use 9 inch bricks or paving bricks for two reasons,
1. They can be used to make curved shapes
2. They will not rot and will last a lot longer than wood

The Eco shed:
Every garden needs a greenhouse and ours will be the Eco-shed. The Eco-shed will be used to start seedlings and over winter plants so they can be planted in the spring.
It is made of a wooden frame, with Perspex roof tiles and walls made from 2 litre plastic bottles and bamboo canes. The children will be involved with the building of the shed walls.

Compost Bins:
We have 4 compost bins to make compost for the garden
Plants for the Gardens :
Fruit and vegetables – all types for the children to eat and to sell to fund-raise.
Flowers – we will concentrate on plants and flowers that attract butteries and insects, bulbs and climbers for colour.

The Triangle Garden:
The Triangle Garden will be used for the junior children. It has about 15 ft of raised beds for peas, beans, tomatoes etc.
There is a metal frame built to grow blackberry and raspberry plants, this frame is in a raised bed which will be planted with strawberries.
The ground of the Triangle Garden will be covered in ground sheet and stones.

Pallet Mini-Gardens:
These are small gardens / beds made from treated or untreated wooden pallets, dotted around the school grounds. Each class can have own mini-garden and decide what to put grow in it each year.
However treated pallets while they will last longer than untreated pallets, will only be able to be used to grow flowers and plants as the chemicals used to treat the wood would possibly contaminate fruit and veg.
The Pallet Mini-Gardens are easy to make and replace and can be easily used by the children.

Other ideas for the garden:
A Pond: if we put a pond in the garden it will have a steel frame and strong wire mesh over it to prevent children from falling in.
Raspberry and Blackberry plants for the senior yard: we can attach some strong wire mesh (which we have) to the back wall in the senior yard beside the fruit trees to grow the berry plants.
Water Butts – Repurposed Wheelie-Bins: the garden will need lots of water so we will need to attach old wheelie-bins to the drains on the school roof to collect water.

The Green School, some parents and other volunteers have been working really hard to get the school garden finished. Below are some photos of how they've been getting on.

The Circle Garden.

The Triangle Garden.

The Mini Beds.

Compost bins for all our recycling.

All hands on deck! Thanks mums and dads for all your help.

We made our mark.

Everybody helped in their own way.

And we examined all the nature we found.