Pupil Editors: Gardening Club at KCJS

The King’s College Junior School Gardening Club is a unique place and run in the school’s Rushmere garden.

It is a popular lunchtime club run by two of our teachers – Mrs Phillips and Mrs Walker and open to all Junior school pupils. We find that gardening is a relaxing, enjoyable pastime where we also learn a ton.

Our teachers have taught us how important it is to grow and look after our own fruit and vegetables.It creates a sustainable planet and helps the environment. In the garden we grow many different types of vegetables and when they are ready, there is no greater pleasure than yanking a fresh beetroot out of the ground. Gardening Club’s members can take the fresh produce home when it is ready to eat. This year we’ve had a successful harvest. We have grown beetroots, beans, potatoes, salad leaves and several varieties of herbs.

We have also learnt about the occasional visitor to our garden such as the badger and squirrel who decide that they have buried food in our plots and try to dig out our bulbs. We have come up with away to prevent this – we have covered our raised beds in non-plastic netting and long canes which seem to be preventing this problem for now.

Gardening Club also provides an excellent way for pupils to unwind with their friends and enjoy the peace and serenity of this wonderful space. It is calming and relaxing which helps our mental wellbeing. Last year, we wanted to do more for the garden. Some of us organised a fundraising bake sale at the school’s Christmas fair. We used the money we raised to renovate the whole garden, removing the old path, making a new pond, creating whole new host of plots and a barkchip floor. Some of the new plots have been given to Year Six members of Gardening Club to maintain on their own. Any of the food grown in their plots will be given to them. The money has also been used to buy new tools, new seeds and more. 

The Gardening Club will always be a treasured place for us.'


Written by Rehan 
Photos by Leonid