We are excited to announce that OWL have been asked to be involved in the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. We will be taking part with 7 like minded community groups in The Community Brain's 'Crop-Ups' garden as part of the Community Allotments category
All groups of children at OWL and Forest School have been busy planting seeds and growing our exhibit since early spring and tending to the young plants in our greenhouse. We have now planted them up in their final positions before delivering them to the project to be placed in the garden.
We have been looking at how nature support's itself and have been researching the "no dig' method in our allotment. With this in mind and to support our mental health work looking at supporting each other, we have planted the 'Three Sisters' - corn, climbing beans and squash.
A number of Native American tribes interplanted this trio because they thrive together, much like three inseparable sisters. As older sisters often do, the corn offers the beans necessary support. The climbing beans, the giving sister, pull nitrogen from the air and bring it to the soil for the benefit of all three. As the beans grow through the tangle of squash, they wind their way up the cornstalks into the sunlight and hold the sisters close together. The large leaves of the sprawling squash protect the threesome by creating living mulch that shades the soil, keeping it cool and moist and preventing weeds.
The garden has a fantastic location at the Garden Festival this year, just behind the main entrance to the show by Ditton Gate (Gate 16).
We would love to see you there and any photographs of you and the children visiting the stand. You can buy tickets here.