Dorset Works get to work!!!

During the first couple of weeks of the school summer holiday 2008, Dorset Works set about putting together the pencil fence and the raised beds and Poulton Portables came to re-erect the garden classroom.




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Where is it going to go?

The old nursery site had been left empty for over a year and had grown somewhat wild:











The council (Dorset Works) came in and did a degree of clearance work for us.
The last remaining portacabin was removed:





Then .......... the garden arrived on the back of an artic lorry supplied and paid for by Goddard Landscapes of Okeford Fitzpaine in Dorset (www.goddardlandscapes.co.uk). This is the company who had done such a magnificent job of constructing the garden for the show.







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A summer of garden construction fun

Myself and my Mum, Helen Toft and her friend and Miss Bennett and her friend all went up to Hampton Court Palace and saw the garden in situ at the RHS flower Show 2008.
We met Nick Williams Ellis and had a private tour from Mandy Cooper of Positive PR who works on the edible gardens project and who has also been of so much help to us with the garden and beyond. By this time the garden had won the Tudor Rose award for Best in Show and a Gold Medal award. Everyone had a great day out and the crowds were buzzing about the garden. Everyone knew it was going to a primary school in Dorset and thought it was a great idea.

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Introduction

Hello all,

My name is Samantha and I am starting this blog with the help of some friends and colleagues (hopefully) in order to share our experiences of starting up a school garden at our local primary school. We are a brand new school - just over 1 year old, created by the amalgamation of an infants and a juniors to create a primary school.

Holy Trinity Primary School in Weymouth, Dorset has just under 700 pupils and is indeed the largest primary school in the county.

At the end of the summer term in 2008, the school was contacted and made a once in a life time offer that we couldn't refuse. Dorset Cereals were offering us their edible playground garden, designed by Nick Williams-Ellis especially for the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2008. The garden formed part of the edible playgrounds initiative, a campaign to try and get an edible playground in all schools in the country. Initiated by Screen Bites in Dorset, this project has now been taken up by Dorset Cereals.

The garden had not yet been built but we were shown a pencil plan of it and we, of course, jumped at the chance. We had a perfect piece of land within our school grounds that would be ideal for this project and could be developed even further.

We said "yes please".

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