Bottesford Juniors High School
Introduction
Who are you?
Gareth Preston, Bottesford Juniors High School, Scunthorpe.
How did you come to hear about Cultivation Street?
3 years ago, I was running a community group called Beckview Garden, which I am still a part of today. We entered Cultivation Street and won ourselves £500 in garden vouchers! So when I joined the school last April as a groundsman and janitor, I thought it would be great to build up the school garden and enter it into Cultivation Street.
"It's exciting because we have a blank canvas"
What has your garden been doing since you joined last April?
Since then the gardening club have established we have maintained our little forest area, built a learning cabin with a built-in wood burner (generously funded by the school) and developed a polytunnel, raised beds as well as a special memorial for one of the teachers.
What would you like to get done in the garden this year?
We have a section of about an acre that we are leveling of – we’re not sure what we would like to do with it yet, but this is exciting because we have a blank canvas and it can be up to the children to help decide what we fill it with. But we do know that we want to grow more vegetables to go alongside our orchard, as well as some raspberry bushes and more raised beds.
Finally, we really needed some more tools. Alice from Cultivation Street has put us in touch with the Tool Shed; which was great because we can refurbish and recycle our broken tools and apply for more for free!
The plan
Both the children and I designed this plan for the school garden. We are really excited to begin work on it. As they say, watch this space.
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