One of our good causes we support is a local childrens home, they have around 20 children who are not the usual rabble often found in such homes, they are generally decent kids with an interest in things new and are willing to try new things.
Last year with budget cuts, they decided it would be nice if they grew their own food in a smallish plot of unused land they had, and I went to one of our clients who manufacture gardening equipment, and they supplied a large van full of gardening tools for them, free of charge. They cleared this overgrown plot and although late in the season they managed to get it planted with winter vegetables, harvested them, and froze what they didn't use, and picked all the fruit off the delapidated apple and pear trees they had, and even found a damson tree which they didn't know what it was at first, and all the blackberries off the wild brambles on another part of overgrown land surrounding them, and bottled anything they didn't use. I supplied them with a large industrial poly tunnel which is double skinned, surplus ballast, and cement, and they dug out and put a concrete footing in and secured the poly tunnel in place.
This year they have really gone for it, I said I would plough and muck another area which is about 1 1/4 acres if they cleared it, and Tuesday I got a call saying they had cleared it. They removed all the grass, trimmed the various trees, made bonfires every Friday evening using the wood and placed the large grass sods on it grass side down, and let it smoulder over the weekend to produce lovely organic ash which they spread over the cleared plot. After this mornings escapades with the truck, I left work at 1pm and took a load of muck in the muck spreader and spread it, several more were taken and when about 100 tonnes were spread I deep ploughed it to break up the soil and get the muck well in, being rotted muck (stood for 2 years) it will do the ground the world of good, and it can be planted.
As the kids returned from school they saw me and they all came down to see their new plot of cleared land ploughed, mucked, and broken up, and they showed me around at what they had done.
The poly tunnel is 30X16' and was full of virtually every salad material you could think of, it had plenty of early, mid, and late tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, radishes, and of course the indoor strawberries I had given them, as well as many other things, and it was all flourishing and doing remarkably well considering it was their first real year of large scale production, and no space was left, it was full.
They took me and showed me their freshly pruned trees which were now immaculate, and their veg plot which was brimming with vegetables, and with not a spare inch in site, they had everything they could think of in there, and it was doing remarkably well also, their hedges had all been trimmed by hand and were neat and tidy, and they were itching to plant the newly prepared ground.
One member of staff is a cook, she told me all the kids were trying every vegetable they could as they had grown them, and many liked what they tried, but the best was yet to come, several of the girls had found some large old glass resealable jars which they cleaned and sterilised, and any surplus fruit was being bottled, they proudly announced that they had bottled 40Lb's of surplus strawberries this year alone, and would be saving them for the winter, and still had many more to come. This was over and above what they were all regularly eating.
She also told me how enthusiastic they all were with their gardening, and how they all worked together, which is a good thing these days, and how they all sat down and planned what they wanted to grow and then researched it so they knew how and what to do, and they all made the decisions and were not led by the usual small group. She also told me their sweet consumption had dropped by over half, with many just picking a few pieces of fruit straight off the bushes instead, and only having sweets as a treat periodically. Most of the kids preferred a piece of fresh fruit or raw vegetables they had grown themselves, and most were trying and liking things they had never tried before.
It just shows us all that if kids can be left to their own devices, and offered a little encouragement, they can do things for themselves, make rational decisions themselves, and despite all the modern technologies, old tricks like bottling fruit is still the preferred and best method of preservation; and all while teaching the kids new skills which will stay with them for life.