Who or what is Pollinate you may ask, well yesterday I spent a day with them working at Canal View Primary School helping them out preparing and repairing their small garden, orchard, raised beds, Willow structures, fruit tree maintenance and many other little jobs in a rather long list.
About Pollinate I quote from their website below.
We are a small Edinburgh-based collective interested in sharing the joys of the seasons, growing and wild foods with young children. We aim to teach basic growing skills and collectively grow an abundance of fruit and vegetables to eat and cook at school. Through these practical endeavours and energetic, hands-on workshops we explore wider social and environmental justice issues associated with food.
Since August 2012, we have been regularly volunteering in Canal View Primary School, in Wester Hailes Edinburgh. We have worked collaboratively with their P5 class (children aged between 9 and 10) to design an orchard, which we will be planting out in the early months of 2013, and we have facilitated weekly sessions with two P3 classes doing a range of activities from planting seeds and making compost, to storytelling in the woods and making bread, to learning about the water-cycle.
Website- https://pollinatedinburgh.wordpress.com/about/
Yesterday was pretty cool to start with but we soon warmed up once we had sorted out our chores for various people to work on. I myself helped out in clearing an area around fruit trees and bushes and covering with cardboards and mulch, also putting some protection around trees from rabbits and strimmers and overzealous council weed sprayers.
Other team members worked on building new raised beds, repairing the willow Bumble Bee, preparing and creating willow roundels around the fruit trees, and creating a grass seating area.
I also helped out in creating a seating circle with old tyres, which will be planted out with wild flowers. I later moved on to filling up some of the newly created raised beds. There was a fair bit digging involved, so I was soon nice and warm and as the day progressed the sun popped out for a wee while.
I did wander about at times to grab a few pictures which accompany this article. Hopefully when the children return to school on Tuesday they will be pleasantly surprised and eager to carry on the work with the Pollinate team in continuing to create this wonderful growing space for future generations to enjoy.
My thanks once again to the wonderful Pollinate team for the invitation to help at this project once again, I went home a very tired and pooped out old fella but happy.
The Team Yesterday
Katie David (helper)
Rhona Neil (helper)
Zoe Brad(Joiner)
Ben
Daisy
Soraya
Story and photos submitted by David Jacobs.
