Squire’s Garden Centres Help Children to Harvest Potato Crop!
We have been teaching children from primary schools and local groups to grow their own potato crop – and then have the chance to turn them into chips and enjoy!
In the springtime, we launched a local initiative, ‘Grow Your Own Chips’, to encourage children to enjoy gardening, with the 11 groups visiting their centres learning how to plant potatoes and care for them. Each child was given a pot, compost and three chitted potatoes, which they were shown how to plant and care for. The pots were taken home and looked after by the children.
Excited and eager children have now returned to their local centre to harvest their very own potato crop and have it weighed – and see who grew the most! The winning child from each school received a goody bag – and all the children who returned their potatoes had them made into their very own chips by our Café Bar team.
Sarah Squire, Chairman, comments: “’Our ‘Grow Your Own Chips’ events were designed to be a fun, learning experience for our young visitors. It’s important that children know how food is produced and growing potatoes with us meant they got to understand the whole sequence of growing, nurturing and harvesting as well as having them made into something they could eat and enjoy! The children had a lot of fun on both visits to our centres and they have been on a great, growing learning journey. We hope it inspires them to continue growing their own!”
Squire’s Garden Centre | Participating School |
Badshot Lea | Badshot Lea Village Infant School |
Chertsey | Stepgates Community School |
Cobham | 1st Cobham Cubs |
Frensham | St Mary’s Infant School |
Hersham | Burhill Primary School |
Long Ditton | 10th Surbiton Brownies |
Milford | 2nd Milford Brownies |
Reigate | St John’s Primary School |
Twickenham | Bishop Perrin Primary School |
Washington | St Mary’s Primary School |
Woking | Horsell Junior School |