News

175,000 children given opportunity to ‘grow their own’

B&Q is now giving away enough tomato plants for 175,000 primary school children to ‘grow their own’ in a demonstration of its commitment to One Planet Living.

The initiative is part of the Year of Food and Farming’s campaign to offer every child the opportunity to learn first-hand about food, its production and how their food choices impact on themselves, the environment and the wider community.

Primary school teachers are being urged to register for enough free plants for every child in their class, on a first come first served basis. Successful teachers will then receive a pack in the post containing everything they need to get going on their class growing activity.

The growing pack will include a propagator containing 35 pre-sown young plants – enough for one plant, per child, per class. The propagator needs to be opened immediately and the young plants within it watered and put on the windowsill for a week to establish.

By the end of this first week, the tomato plants will be ready for transferring into larger pots so teachers will need to have collected their free bag of peat-free compost from their local B&Q. The classroom activity enables teachers to plan a lesson around the ‘growing’ of food and help their children learn about where food comes from.

Steve Guy, B&Q Category Manager for Horticulture said:

“For any teachers out there thinking ‘this isn’t for me, I know nothing about gardening or growing veg,’ please accept my assurances that this activity is really easy, very rewarding and loads of fun.

Tomato plants are easy to grow and will be fascinating to watch as they develop. The plants themselves will be delivered to your classroom. All you and your class need to do is open the box, give them some water and put them in sunlight. Then within a few days of receipt pot the young plants up and nature will do the rest.

We’re putting 35 plants in each propagator, which I’m told is more than the average class size, so there are even a few spares… just in case!

Growing your own food is a great step towards leading a more sustainable lifestyle. Once you’ve grown your own tomatoes – you’re on your way to One Planet living.”

Having grown the tomato plants to a reasonable size in the classroom, each child can take their own plant home. To encourage the continued growth and care of the plant at home, B&Q is also running a free prize draw to encourage teachers to feedback to B&Q with pictures and information on their class growing activity. The lucky winner will win a coaching session for their school with CBBC presenter and wheelchair basketball star, Ade Adepitan MBE. Ade is a familiar face on children’s television and is most likely to be recognised by children as ‘Baggy’ from the CBBC drama, ‘Desperados’, about a wheelchair basketball team.

B&Q’s campaign will be supplemented with case studies, including one from Roundstone, B&Q’s supplier of its organic plants range, who are kindly organising the sowing and distribution of the tomato plants and propagators for this initiative.

Any primary school teachers interested in registering their interest or getting further information about the initiative and competition should visit www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/b-and-q