London’s green-fingered students rewarded for winning Capital Growth competition
A primary school producing honey and a university growing food across five rooftops are among the winners of Capital Growth’s ABSeed competition.
Judges selected four winners of the Capital Growth competition, with the entrants ranging from three-year-olds to university students. Capital Growth was launched in 2008 by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, with the goals of boosting community food growing, improving quality of life and driving volunteering.
Youngsters and teachers from the winning nursery, Rowland Hill in Haringey, and primary school, Charlton Manor in Greenwich, were invited met the Mayor at City Hall to receive their winners' certificates.
The children, led by gardeners from the Secret Seed Society, showed off their gardening skills to the Mayor by picking strawberries and planting seedlings donated by Rocket Gardens, at City Hall’s own Capital Growth food growing space.
The competition, which was previously only open to primary schools, was for the first time opened up to nurseries, secondary schools, colleges and universities. Students from Forest Hill Secondary School, in Lewisham, were named as winners in their category for opposing plans to tarmac around their school and instead creating a garden oasis where the students learn organic horticultural skills. The students have been rewarded with gardening equipment, seeds and vouchers, as well as a day for two at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant in London.
The victorious entry in the higher education category was the London School of Economics in Islington, where students and staff joined forces to create five rooftop fruit and vegetable patches.
The judging panel, which included representatives from Capital Growth, the London Food for Life Partnership and the Garden Classroom, selected the winners for involving the local community, incorporating food and the garden into educational life and for encouraging students and their friends and families to grow their own.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: “Capital Growth has now motivated more than 35,000 Londoners to grow food in more than 1,000 spaces. This is helping to bring the best of the village into the city, binding communities together and beautifying neglected patches of earth. Many congratulations to these green-fingered young people who have demonstrated tremendous creativity their efforts to join our thriving network of food gardens.'
Rosie Boycott, Chair of London Food board said: “The wide range of entries we received this year proves how innovative young minds can be, and it’s fantastic to see the many benefits our Capital Growth project is bringing to schools, nurseries and colleges.”
Paola Guzman from Capital Growth added: “Providing food growing spaces for students of all ages is an amazing way to encourage curiosity and creativity in the classroom. We are very happy with this year’s winners as they show us how much the food growing spaces have become part of their curriculum and most importantly part of everyday life.”
More than 120 new projects at nurseries, primary schools and universities were created during the period of this year's competition. It was first launched in 2010 to encourage students to work with staff, teachers and their local communities to grow their own fresh, local food.
Capital Growth is supported by a partnership of the Mayor of London and the Big Lottery and aims to create 2,012 new food growing spaces by the end of 2012. The Mayor announced in June, there are more than 1,050 community food growing spaces already up and running in a diverse range of places, such as by railways, on housing estates and on roofs.
This year’s schools competition winners are as follows:
BEST NURSERY SCHOOL EDIBLE GARDEN
Rowland Hill Nursery School and Children Centre, Haringey
Rowland Hill nursery has used the food growing project to strengthen links with parents and the local community, including local people from sheltered housing, local allotment groups and the surrounding community. The garden has been extremely successful as people from all ages, from children in the nursery to local older people, have come together to grow food. Events are regularly organised in the garden and produce has also been sold to the local community. The community involvement, different generations working together, the enterprise angle and regular events have made this garden the winner of its category.
BEST PRIMARY SCHOOL EDIBLE GARDEN
Charlton Manor Primary School, Greenwich
Pupils at Charlton Manor worked with landscape architects to develop their food growing space into a real life garden that includes an allotment, pond and greenhouse. All the teachers at the school use the garden as an outdoor classroom for teaching a wide range of subjects from food technology to science and maths. In addition the school set up a beehive and five pupils have set up a business selling honey, making £160 profit from the first sale. The integration of the garden into the school’s life and curriculum was the key factor in choosing this primary school as the winner in this category.
BEST SECONDARY SCHOOL EDIBLE GARDEN
Forest Hill School, Lewisham
Forest Hill School was refurbished in 2008 and as part of the refurbishment the architects planned to tarmac all the outdoor areas surrounding the school campus. Students and teachers persuaded the head teacher to create a food growing space for the school. The result has been a fantastic garden where pupils have come together to learn new skills. The school organises a big celebration every year in July where the children sell produce, flowers and hanging baskets made and grown in the garden. The judges were very impressed with the level of importance the school has given to horticultural skills learning and the engagement of the local community through events.
BEST UNIVERSITY/HIGHER EDUCATION EDIBLE GARDEN
London School of Economics, Islington
LSE Main Campus has five roof tops in which they are growing food, about 30 staff members and students are involved. They have worked with Sustain to train chefs to use more sustainable food and they hope in the future they will be able to supply the chefs with fresh herbs from the roof tops.
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. In London there are around 2300 primary schools, 1500 day nurseries, 850 secondary schools, 50 colleges and 32 universities.
2. Capital Growth is funded by the Mayor of London and by Local Food, part of the Big Lottery Fund's Local Food Scheme. It is managed by London Food Link, part of the environment charity, Sustain. The programme was awarded a Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Commendation last year for its success in getting communities growing. For further information go to www.capitalgrowth.org
3. Capital Growth’s ABSeed competition had four categories
- best nursery edible garden
- best primary school edible garden
- best secondary school edible garden
- best college and university edible garden
4.Boosting the amount of locally grown food in London has a range of health and environmental benefits, such as improving access to nutritious, low cost food in urban areas and helping to increase flood protection. It also reduces food miles and cuts carbon emissions. There is rising interest in self-grown food and inner London boroughs have waiting lists for allotments that can be decades long.
5. Prizes for this year’s competition were donated by:
Bulldog Tools
The Secret Seed Society
Gardening Express
The London Seed Company
Woodblocx
Victoriana Nursery
The Seed Pantry
B&Q
Fifteen Restaurant
