This year both St Mary’s school and Bridport Primary school edible gardens have made amazing progress in educating children about growing food and eating less processed food.

The funding that has been provided by the Ernest Hecht Charitable Trust is already in use and as per our report, application and budget we have made very swift progress in the re-generation of the Edible Garden at St Mary’s after over 10 years of hard work, and providing educational programmes and events for the children of both schools.

We replaced the shed at a cost of £1000, at a reduced price from Beaminster Sheds 

2. We removed the old and falling apart cob/pizza oven and replaced it with a stable base, safe area of work and new pizza oven which will last the school over 20 years if not longer. This cost £2750 including several days labour, embedding a  concrete base to avoid damage by flooding and proving the tools, wood etc.,  It was expensive but it has already fed over 200 children who have been taught dough making, pizza making, picking greenery to make toppings etc., and it even provided an evening for the teacher’s final staff party where they made their own pizzas and celebrated the end of the summer term in the Edible Garden. It provided over 80 small pizzas at the children’s food and art fair. This will be used extensively for multiple baking and cooking purposes and workshops in the long term.

3. The two poly tunnels will be given new skins next month

4. The pond will be built next month to a point where the children can collaborate with its development and planting when they return in September.

5. We have met with Kate Batorska the Head of St Mary’s and discussed with her the making of the documentary and the long term relationship with the school, with Bridport Primary and with the more than 17 schools of the new Academy.  Kate is totally committed to the Edible Garden work and has given total access for the film and will help us to arrange the presentation to the schools when it is finished.  We will take 9 months to make the whole film as we will be working with the school each term through the seasons and through the curriculum, how the garden is being used, what the children are learning and benefiting from.

6. We did two day long visits in May to Tamarisk Farm for 70 children to fit in with their regenerative farming module. A huge success and we are working on developing this as an annual event. Extra toilets had to be hired + lunch for 80 including teachers and volunteers from local organic produce. https://tamariskfarm.co.uk/

7. The Children’s Food and Art Festival was held on the 12th June and was a massive success. We estimate 250 people came. What was important this time was that we worked hard to invite and involve the different food cultures that are represented in the town and partnered with the Jurassic Multicultural Network. They provided food to taste from Columbia, Nigeria and Sudan and we had other flavours from Italy, the pizzas and foods provided by other local businesses in the town. We also provided a series of arts workshops with music, storytelling and painting for two whole classes in year 3 and 4, 75 children in total, all of them involving the garden, soil, insects etc., and building up to the exhibition the children made and a presentation at Bridport Food Festival. There was a treasure hunt to find as many plants and insects in the Edible Garden and we had 30 small books about food and gardening as prizes from our local Bridport Book Shop.

8. We now have the summer to plan the activities for the Autumn which will include the workshops, cookery classes, and joint activities from September 2024 to Summer 2025 when we will deliver the next stage of the plan, the flower meadow and the nut spinney. We are planning to work more with BPS as well who are struggling as a school and need more support from us to engage the families and community. So planning is underway for more workshops, activities and events.

9. This week we have a meeting with Dr. Sue Beckers who is leading on a Public Health Collaboration with primary schools called Real Food Rebellion. She is based in Bridport and will be working with the two primary schools on the dangers of ultra processed food. We are planning to design the project in collaboration with the Edible Gardens so the children have practical examples of what real food is, empowering children to make real food choices. This is absolutely in line with everything that we’ve been doing with the gardens so we’re very happy to collaborate.