Our Rent-a-Hen project enables a school to keep three lovely, friendly and charming chickens for half a term. We provide the ladies, the coop, the feed and all the equipment needed for cleaning and looking after them. We also provide training and round-the-clock support for the school.

The children love looking after our hens and there are many benefits for children as an educational and social/caring exercise. After six weeks at the school the hens return to our farm and prepare for their next school visit.

Enquiries to Pat Gordon info@growinglocal.org.uk or 07813 622890. 

Our three year recipe book project has now come to an end.  Schools were invited to help create recipe books with us using local and seasonal fruit and vegetables, the books and 2018 calendar produced as part of the project are available for sale, email info@growinglocal.org.uk

The project aimed to:
– Enable children to find out what grows locally
– Get them excited about eating fresh, local food
– Offer an opportunity for a creative experience
– Connect with families and reach out to older generations
– Raise the profile of healthy eating and local produce

The African garden is a partnership between Growing Local and the International development agency United Purpose. 

The African Garden is part of the Growing Local garden at Court Farm, Tillington.  Within the garden are African bag gardens, table-top gardens and a key-hole garden.  An arborloo and tippy-tap illustrate sanitation techniques and rain water harvesting enables water to be sustainably collected. It has an ‘African shelter’, providing a location to cook African nsima (maize porridge) and to shelter from the sun or rain.  It is accessible to wheelchair users.

Two hour workshops offer children opportunities to learn about gardening techniques used in Africa to combat issues of climate change and food sovereignty.  The techniques conserve land, soil and water whilst guarding against flooding.  Practical activities include collecting firewood, pounding maize, cooking nsima, collecting water, making a tippy-tap, planting, tending and sowing the gardens and teaching children about the lives of Sub-Saharan African children.

The garden was built with funding from United Purpose (formally Concern Universal), the EU and Defra through the VITAL Herefordshire LEADER programme. 2019 workshops are funded by Ernest Cook, the Pippin Trust and Bulmers Benevolent Fund. 

Instruction is conducted by fully trained teachers and trainers from Growing Local and United Purpose. Workshops are for a maximum of 18 children. We can sometimes accommodate larger class sizes or groups by offering farm walks for half of your group if you book two workshops. 

African Garden Workshops are available for booking between April and July 2019 and September and the end of October 2019. 

Bookings and enquiries to Louisa Foti, louisa@growinglocal.org.uk, or 07902 802982.

 

Growing Local offers tailored land-based courses for primary or secondary school children. Courses are a single half day visit or a weekly half-day visit as part of a three, four or six week course. Each visit will be for two or three hours. Visits are for half classes with up to eighteen pupils or full classes with up to thirty pupils. Half classes are preferred. The courses can be arranged and adapted to provide the most appropriate education for any group of pupils. Full consultation with the school will precede any visit. 

Courses are offered with a combination of any of the following activities:

• Growing vegetables on an allotment – learning about seasonal food production through sowing, planting, crop-care, harvesting, looking after the soil, composting, rainwater harvesting, encouraging wildlife and creating ecosystems.
• Cookery in our field kitchen – learning safe knife skills, food hygiene, the importance of eating locally and seasonally and 5-a-day. Groups can prepare together a healthy meal, soup or snack. 
• Helping with farm animals: learning about animal care through feeding, cleaning, handling and bedding down lambs and calves.
• Conservation activities – learning about the environment that supports farming and food production through pond dipping, hedgerow surveys, wild flower surveys, plant identification and woodland skills.

Instruction is conducted by fully trained teachers and trainers from Going Local.

Enquiries to Louisa Foti, Growing Local’s Educational Officer, louisa@growinglocal.org.uk, or 07902 802982.