As part of our Edible Playgrounds programme where we create outdoor teaching gardens that get children excited about growing and eating healthy food, we have produced a range of resources to support their food growing. Check them out here! 

While the resources are focused on schools, there’s lots of helpful information about crop growing that could benefit all green-fingered garden lovers. We hope it’ll help gardeners both big and small get ahead with their planting endeavours.

Have a look at the ‘crop guides’ to get expert advice on how to take care of your fruit and veg, and check out the ‘how to guides’ to get a nice run through of how to sow seeds and how to plant out. Maybe you’re tempted to plant carrots or sow seeds in a greenhouse? If so, we also have a handy tool guide and weed ID sheet that can help you excel in your garden.

Focus on: homeschooling

Unexpectedly found yourself home-schooling your children? We want to show you that not all learning needs a computer screen, and that lessons in food growing can be linked to any subject in the national curriculum. Give it a go and have fun!

1. Growing at home linked to the curriculum

Curriculum Guides

We have curriculum guides with ideas of how to link food growing to every subject in the national curriculum (years 1 – 6) available.

Lesson Plans

Take a look at our lesson plans and you’ll see how just about every activity can be turned into a learning opportunity. We turn a seed sowing activity into a literacy lesson (instructional language) and a planting activity into a maths lesson (measuring and estimating).

2. Learning games about food and plants 

Edible Detectives

The aim of the game is to work out how to group the vegetables, fruits and flowers based on the part of them that we eat. You can learn some science (what is the function of this part of the plant?) and about other plants in the same group. Link here.

Heroes and Villains

Heroes and Villains looks at all the different creatures that could make an appearance in your garden. Your job is to decide whether they are a hero and we want to encourage them into the garden, or a villain and we want to discourage them. Link here.

3. Learn about food growing with fun experiments

Propagate your plants

Did you know how simple it can be to propagate (breed) new plants from existing ones you have growing? This is a good (and free!) way to increase how many plants you have, and it is fun to watch them grow! One technique is to take a cutting from an existing plant and plant the cutting in its own little pot. You can do this from late spring with shrubby herbs like rosemary, thyme and Sage. It’s also possible to propagate strawberries. If you already have strawberries then in previous years you may have noticed that they start to reproduce on their own accord. Did you know that it is possible to cut the new plants (the runners) from the mother plant and re-plant it somewhere else?

Re-grow your kitchen scraps

Cut the base from your lettuce head and put in a glass with the cut side facing upwards. Cover with water to just below the top of lettuce and leave on a sunny windowsill. How long will it be before the magic starts to happen and the lettuce regrows? Try the same with a leek or spring onion. Cut off the root-y end and place in a shallow glass of water.

Experiment with recycled pots

Not having all of the right kit should not stop you from having a go at growing. If you have got seeds and some soil but no pots then fear not, you will definitely have something around the house that you can improvise with. It may just take a bit of rummaging through the recycling! The key point to remember here is that all pots need to have drainage holes. Plants don’t like to sit in stagnant water. 

• Egg box - the bit where the eggs go and the lid can both be used for seed sowing. 
• Eggs – after eating a boiled egg you can use the empty shell for seed sowing. Or, if you haven’t cooked the egg by boiling it, make sure you pour boiling water over the shell before using it to kill off any bacteria. 
• Plastic fruit punnets – these are great because they already have drainage holes in. 
• Yoghurt pots – small and big will both work. 
• Toilet roll tubes – an ideal size and biodegradable too.
• Grow with seeds from your shop-bought veg

We recommend trying this with tomatoes, peppers and chillies. It’s really simple. Scrape the seeds out and spread them out on a piece of kitchen roll. Leave them somewhere well-ventilated for a few days to dry out before sowing them.

The latest from our Edible Playgrounds

Trees for Cities has created 100+ Edible Playgrounds across the country, and many of them were gearing up to start the food-growing and outdoor learning before the pandemic and subsequent lockdown hit. Quite a few schools are still open for kids of key workers and vulnerable kids, and it’s been great to hear how they are enjoying being outside in the sunshine planting and growing. One school even donated their crops to a local soup kitchen!

If you’re interested in learning more about the Edible Playgrounds programme, check out our section on the website, or get in touch Schools@treesforcities.org. Don’t forget to share your food growing efforts and tips with us on social media!

Thanks to our funders All Saints Educational Trust and Bulb for enabling us to share the food growing resources.