Hartley Botanic and Waitrose team up for kids' greenhouse project
Friday, 7 October 2011 4:32 PM
These days, it seems like people are less appreciative of the process that fruit and vegetables must go through before they're fit to sit on the shelves of greengrocers, supermarkets and market stalls up and down the country. However, a new campaign is looking to set the record straight and prove, with a grassroots approach, that young children can appreciate this issue and learn to grow their own fantastic produce in a green-fingered way.
Hartley Botanic - the expert in greenhouses - and leading supermarket chain Waitrose have joined forces to create the Get Your Grown-ups Growing competition, which partners with the Royal Horticultural Society's (RHS') Campaign for School Gardening.
The overall scheme wants to encourage and support schools to actively use a school garden, developing the skills of those who utilise it on all manner of levels. As part of the campaign, the RHS and its affiliates provide teachers with all the resources they need to succeed in their task, while giving them plenty of ways to get their creative juices flowing to develop something truly spectacular.
Both Hartley Botanic and Waitrose are using the Get Your Grown-ups Growing offshoot scheme to encourage educational institutions to host an event in October where grandparents, parents, friends and carers are invited to help out in their garden, creating an excellent way to understand nature whilst boosting community spirit.
Of course, the whole competition is not without a grand prize. As a specialist in glasshouses, it seemed only natural for Hartley Botanic to offer the award, given its charitable nature as well as its links to the world of horticulture. That's why the lucky winners of Get Your Grown-ups Growing will win a Tradition 6 walk-in greenhouse, so long as they demonstrate the most inspiring event staged as part of the scheme.
Given the open-ended nature of the task, it is truly up to the school in question as to the direction they want to take. Many may visit the UK's Victorian greenhouses for inspiration - such as those found in Kew Gardens - to see how ancestors were able to engineer the perfect garden set-up. Indeed, others may go so far as to look for other greenhouses for sale, using small greenhouses as part of their project. With British weather being largely unpredictable, it many make sense for schools to make this investment.
While Hartley Botanic is a key player in the scheme, it is Waitrose Education that has really helped push the initiative to new levels. As part of the retailer's desire to help raise awareness of food and ingredients from an early age through to adulthood, Waitrose has identified the importance of healthy eating as well as the jobs associated with the industry, from farming to cookery. As a long-time supporter of organic and GM-free farming methods, the Get Your Grown-ups Growing seems to be the perfect opportunity to prove the benefits of the natural approach much further.
As such, the three-way partnership between the RHS, Waitrose and Hartley Botanic is the perfect combination. All three are passionate about helping children understand the basics of consumables, right down to the wide range of methods employed to show where individual fruits and vegetables come from, whether it's on the other side of the Atlantic or simply a nearby field. Hartley Botanic also wants to do away with the notion of seeing gardening as more than just a hobby, given the broad range of benefits that growing your own food brings.
After all, this drive towards agriculture means you can pick fruits and vegetables as you need them, enjoying them at their natural height of taste while cutting down on food waste. Home-grown produce also means that the environment doesn't have to deal with further unnecessary packaging waste, as well as additives often found in processed food like excess salt, sugar and flavour enhancers.
Hartley Botanic, the company supplying the event with the aforementioned grand prize, was extremely excited about the event and asserted that it was a truly important initiative to get the young demographic involved with. The company said: "We're thrilled to be supporting the initiative, which gets children involved in gardening, teaching them practical skills and the theory behind plant nutrition, as well as giving them the chance to grow their own tasty fruit and veg while at school.
"We can't wait to see teachers, pupils, parents and guardians get stuck into a bit of gardening – and see what inspirational events and activities they can come up with to win Waitrose's competition and secure a Hartley Tradition 6 greenhouse for their school."
If you're a parent, grandparent or even a schoolchild, please convince your school to take part - they may never know what they're missing! With a great community opportunity there to be savoured, partnered with RHS-led support and a grand prize of a greenhouse, it may be the best chance you have to get involved in a spot of gardening!
