A team of community volunteers from Chilton have been working away on the overgrown area behind the car park in Chilton Academy to turn it into a school garden and nature area for the pupils. The new garden will allow pupils to receive hands-on science lessons and start a gardening club.
The first stage of site clearance and digging the beds is nearly complete. A few stubborn tree stumps are holding out. The plan for the garden is to grow food and plants in a series of beds and polytunnels. The polytunnels will allow use throughout the year and allow the children to grow more exotic foods than the local weather will allow outside.
Soon a wattle style fence, made from the waste tree branches and foliage from the site, will be built to create a fenced-off area which will be allowed to grow naturally. This will attract local plants and wildlife. The volunteers are all spending hours on YouTube learning how to build it. The fence itself will attract plenty of insects. The academy pupils are already planning additional five-star bug hotels. Once finished it is hoped to install cameras to capture images of the local wildlife and to conduct studies of our local ecology.
This is a joint school/community project with keen local volunteers planning to teach the pupils how to grow food and pass on their gardening and allotment skills. The project has been made possible by the hard work of the community volunteers and the generous support of the Friends of Chilton Academy, Chilton Town Council, Chilton Junior Town Council and Chilton Green Energy Foundation. The kind donations will allow the purchase of weatherproof clothing, gloves, waterproof boots and working tools so that all the pupils can take part and stay warm, dry and clean.
The Chilton Junior Town Council also voted to donate funding with the ambition of being able, in the future, to supply some of the food grown to the local foodbank.
Ferryhill & Chilton's local community newspaper.
