Horticulture module in TY school

Dickie10

Hi I was asked by the principal to do a horticulture module in TY I was just wondering what type of veg or flowers we could use or what we could grow from dec 1st to say Mid March? there might be 5-6 week modules per class what could we do in a small period , it might be fairly basic module on horticulture.

macraignil

Here is a link to a seed sowing calendar from one of the bigger vegetable seed producers. As you can see your choices are fairly limited in the cold months of winter and most things take longer to get to full size. Cloves of garlic can get going now as well but the ideal planting time is September for harvest the following summer. If you're not really worried about the harvest there are a number of things you could just get started with a bit of protection indoors and leave it up to the students to plant them out somewhere to harvest themselves later in the year. It would be around that time that potatoes are put through the process of chitting to get them ready for planting.

gozunda

Do you have access to a polytunnel or similar?

If not I would suggest that you run the course with the aim of providing knowledge of basic horticultural skills aimed at plant production.

So preparation of growing mediums, seed tray preparation, watering, potato chiting, taking cuttings from houseplants such as geraniums or vegetative propagating from spider plants, early seed sowing such as Sweat Peas, Alyssum and other early bedding plants. Plus most edible crops can be started in modules under protection / inside for later growing on.

A good guide to growing vegetables, bedding plants etc such as The Expert Series by Dr. DG Hessayon eg The Vegetable Expert, The Bedding Plant Expert will be invaluable. Most Libraries have copies of these books.

Dickie10

sorry , i should have said i have access to 2 big polytunnels. Now apart from some benchs they are completely empty. I was thinking of getting a few 45 litre barrels and cutting them in half or sideways down the middle and using them to grow smaller things like lettuce, cloves, garlic, herbs etc. I want to kind of close the circle by using things we have grown in the class for use in home ec for soup making or something like that. maybe the end result could be a soup made completely from what we have grown maybe serve it in the canteen of school for students.

gozunda

Dickie10 wrote: »

sorry , i should have said i have access to 2 big polytunnels. Now apart from some benchs they are completely empty. I was thinking of getting a few 45 litre barrels and cutting them in half or sideways down the middle and using them to grow smaller things like lettuce, cloves, garlic, herbs etc. I want to kind of close the circle by using things we have grown in the class for use in home ec for soup making or something like that. maybe the end result could be a soup made completely from what we have grown maybe serve it in the canteen of school for students.

Unheated polytunnels will only be suitable for winter hardy varieties of vegetables up to mid March.

For propagation - you will need to sow any seeds under heat. Indoors if possible. Seed trays will be useful for this. Once germinated and grown on - the seedlings can slowly be hardened off and transferred to the polytunnels. That said very cold conditions and hard frosts will still be an issue. Using frost protection such as horticultural fleece and covered beds will be usefull.