School Garden
In my spare time, I’m an avid gardener and I’ve worked with Ysgol Pant y Rhedyn on the past four years to develop their school garden. I’ve given the project a little green space with ItsLello so you can learn more about it.
Ysgol Pant Y Rhedyn’s school garden in Llanfairfechan is a fantastic outdoor resource. You will find it in the field directly behind the school.
The simple idea behind it is to develop this space into a outside base. A place where children, teachers and families are all able to enjoy gardening and the outdoors. It is run entirely by volunteers.
The school garden is there to help children to learn practical gardening skills. How to grow vegetables and fruit. To simply enjoy being outside in natural surroundings. It’s an opportunity to be outside. Have time out. Enjoy some downtime. Have fun. Learn new life skills.
Inventory and thank yous
We have six big raised beds, a small but growing orchard of fruit trees, a small shed, recycled pallet benches, one wheelbarrow and a collection of second-hand tools and wellies!.
The garden has been created through community effort.:
- Pedro has made us benches out of recycled pallets.
- Carol has given us old feed tubs to use as planters. Tony donated some wonderful rhubarb plants.
- Jake and Nippy Norm and Dafyyd have given us pallets. Dylan and Simon helped install three new raised beds.
- Mimo has tirelessly watered, mended, painted and planted. Huw has built benches and mowed the grass.
- Rick built us a compost heap again out of recycled pallets.
- Margaret gave us garden tools and gloves.
- Steve, Steph, Catherine, Barbara and Jo donated seed. Sara has donated bags of compost;
- Diane sacks of manure.
- Platt’s Farm have given us bags of woodchip.
- Craig and Gwyn both donated tyres – we are using some of them as planters and the children enjoy bowling the others around the garden!
- Tracey and Rhian help to run the weekly lunchtime gardening club.
- Fran and Bleddyn gave us willow cuttings which we’ve now grown into a willow arch.
We’ve negotiated the installation of a new water main free of charge. This now means that the garden can be easily watered when needed, much to Mimo’s relief! And the list goes on…
This school garden is a growing project and to keep it moving along, it will continue to need support and practical help. Next, on our to-do list are fundraising for a polytunnel which will allow us to use the space throughout the year and the creation of a small pond to encourage wildlife.
We plan to use two of the raised based for vegetables grown from seed. One for strawberries. One for soft fruit (raspberries, blackcurrants), One for pumpkins. And last but not least, one for wildflowers. The children are already really excited. The ground has started to dry out and they can’t wait to get planting.
Check out our school garden wish list to see where we may need practical help this year.
If you are able to help out with Ysgol Pant Y Rhedyn’s garden in any way, please do get in touch. You can contact ItsLello or, if you are a member of the school’s Facebook group, pop a note on the page. Diolch!