Teaching resources

Garden Organic and RHS Campaign for School Gardening have a wealth of 'How to' resources for teachers and pupils.

Garden Organic
A series of downloadable teacher/student 'How to' leaflets on Composting, Using mulches, Controlling pests & diseases, Crop rotation, Growing from seed, Vegetable gardening, Growing in containers, Growing on a windowsill, Creating a pond, Square foot gardening, Saving seed, Attracting wildlife and No-dig gardening.

Set of 10 A2 posters which complement Leaflets: £15 (+£2.50 p&p) for Garden Organic for Schools Project members.

List of monthly jobs for the veg garden.

For beginners, the list of 10 easiest veg to grow is very useful.

As part of the Food for Life Partnership Garden Organic has produced a set of beautifully illustrated quick reference Growing Instruction Cards.

Sowing the Seeds is a KS2 resource pack to support the teaching of the life cycle of plants.

RHS Campaign for School Gardening
Kate's Vegetable Growing Poster shows month-by-month growing tips for 10 vegetables which fit in with the school year.

Crop sheets to complement the poster include origins of the name, history, interesting facts, cultivation and pest control: Carrots, French beans, Leeks, Lettuce, Onions, Peas, Potatoes, Pumpkins & Squashes, Spinach & Chard and Radishes. Complements some of the vegetables in The Origins of Fruit and Vegetables poster

The Little Rotters Composting Handbook aims to inspire primary schools to compost their organic waste.

Natural gardening: sustainable techniques from Africa to try in your garden Send a Cow
From keyhole and bag gardens to water conservation, these simple methods are an effective means of illustrating practical solutions to problems faced by gardeners around the world.

Singapore's National Parks publish some very good teaching resources for their school gardens in its Community in Bloom programme: primary and secondary. 

Reference books

Growing vegetable, herbs and fruit
It is always useful to have at least one general reference book. These are recommended:

Matthew Biggs, Jekka McVicar & Bob Flowerdew The Complete Book of Vegetables, Herbs & Fruit Kyle Cathie 2004 £30 hb
At over 2kg and 640 pages this is a real bargain! Beautifully presented with colour photos, double page spreads on over 100 herbs, 70 vegetables and 100 fruits, it includes recipes as well as the usual information on organic cultivation etc.

HDRA Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: the complete guide to natural & chemical-free gardening Dorling Kindersley 2001 £18.99 pb
Sumptuous! Illustrated with hundreds of colour photos. Covers ornamental as well as vegetable gardening.

Joy Larkcom Grow Your Own Vegetables Frances Lincoln 2002 £9.99 pb
Sound practical advice on setting up and maintaining an organic kitchen garden.

Unusual vegetable
Sally Cunningham Asian Vegetables: A Guide to Growing Fruit, Vegetables and Spices from the Indian Subcontinent Eco-Logic Books, 2009 £14.99 pb
This will encourage you to grow some of the vegetables you encounter in the 'Indian' restaurant. Most are not hardy, but can be grown in a greenhouse.

Simon Hickmott Growing Unusual Vegetables: weird and wonderful vegetables and how to grow them Eco-Logic Books 2003 £14.95 pb
Comprehensive cultivation instructions and fascinating notes on origin, history and uses of over 90 unusual edible plants from all over the world.

Joy Larkcom Oriental Vegetables Frances Lincoln, 2007 £14.99 pb
Everything you need to know on growing oriental vegetables, from mitsuba to pak choi.

Weblinks

Dig-In is the BBC campaign to popularise growing food. Includes tips for 5 easy-to-grow crops: tomatoes, squash, beetroot, spinach and lettuce, recipes from Nigel Slater and a blog.

Grow Your Own Grub is a step-by-step guide which is ideal for teachers who want to run a school growing project but have no experience. It is suitable for schools with no land or acres, and concentrates on four vegetables – tomatoes, carrots, peas and spinach which can be harvested before the end of the summer term.

The Herb Society website has an excellent schools section for use by teachers and students. It includes information on history, uses and growing.

Seed Savers is an Australian network established to preserve local varieties of food plants but now encourages an supports similar projects internationally.

The Soil Association site has many resources to get primary and secondary children excited about growing and cooking local, seasonal and organic food, and learning about organic farming.

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