Green-fingered youngsters from St Peter’s School in Marlborough have been given everything they need to make their garden bountiful, thanks to Waitrose.
St Peter’s is the first school to receive a free Grow & Sell seed kit from the supermarket. And after hearing how children struggled to keep their raised beds – at the Richmond Fellowship’s Community Garden – watered during the summer holidays, the store’s customer services manager, Maxine Chandler, offered help as part of Waitrose’s volunteering scheme.
The school runs a popular gardening club where children are encouraged to grow flowers and produce. Children from the Skylab class were delighted to discover that the bulbs they planted in Occtober are now in full bloom.
The Grow & Sell scheme, which began in 2013, aims to inspire seven to 11 year olds to grow their own produce during the summer months whilst learning where their food comes from and developing their entrepreneurial skills by being given the chance to sell the produce they grow outside the store.
The kits contain seeds to grow vegetables such as basil, beetroot, courgettes, red lettuce, green lettuce and snap peas, as well as step-by-step growing instructions and gardening equipment. Children also receive badges to designate roles for both the growing and selling elements of the scheme – the pest patrol badge, featuring a snail, proved particularly enticing.
The kit also includes wild flower seeds, which will help boost the number of bees, butterflies and other pollinators in school hedgerows.
Waitrose Marlborough has nine more kits to donate to schools and community youth groups. Schools or groups interested in receiving a kit should contact Maxine at 71573763.mail@waitrose.co.uk
