In the day time, when I'm not pounding the cold/wet/hard streets of Reading knocking on doors, delivering newsletters and the rest of it for the Green Party, chances are that I'll be gardening. One of my more fun and rewarding jobs is working with kids at the Oxford Road Primary School as part of a gardening club.
Through the spring, summer and autumn we've grown, we've eaten and we've got muddy. The winter is kicking in now and we're on tops of the jobs - garlic, onions, broad beans and winter salad all in. We've not got much pruning or preparation to do. So I've been looking for other related activities and came across thekidsgarden website. This led onto us doing some of the activities mentioned about house plants - we divided spider plants. Next time we'll be doing a survey that one of the teachers found on the BBC Breathing Spaces site, and then making some habitat for wildlife - bird boxes, insect hotels and a bark bucket for stag beetles.
I think getting kids and families interested in gardening opens up many doors - healthy living and eating, learning, community building - with possibilities and rewards only limited by the imagination and energy of those involved.
I've also been involved in a project to get some lottery money for a growing in schools network in Reading. Fingers crossed that we made a good case, get the money and can pull it off...
UPDATE
I also came across this Do One Thing page.
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