Gardening Club - setting up on a shoestring

One of the biggest hurdles facing many gardening clubs is a lack of resources. Below are a range of ideas for setting up your club without spending a fortune.  Please feel free to add any extra ideas you have in the comments section below.

Freecycle

Joining your local Freecycle group is a great way to get your hands on loads of freebies.  People post emails offering things they no longer need, but you can also post 'wanted' notices listing things you would love to have - from pots and seeds to tools and plants.  If you let people know it's for a local gardening club they are often happy to help. 

Greenhouse

This is one of the largest items in any garden club budget.  Occasionally, you will see one offered on Freecycle but they also go very quickly.  Another option is eBay where you can often pick one up for less than £200 but you will usually need to collect, dismantle and construct again.

If you want to go for a homemade option, you can construct your own greenhouse. OK, so you're going to need 1500 plastic bottles but, if this doesn't put you off, there are some instructions here.

Cloches

These are incredibly useful - particularly for autumn and early spring plantings.  You can make your own cloche out of old plumbing pipe or hula hoops plus some horticultural fleece and bamboo canes - more details here.

For individual plants, you can recycle clear plastic bottles - the bigger the better. Simply cut off the base, sand down the rough edges and remove the screw lid (to allow some airflow) and then place them over the plants you want to protect. More info can be found here.

Raised beds

These are a great way to set up your growing space - particularly if your soil is not very good. Raised bed kits are quite expensive, but you can make your own from new timber or old scaffolding planks (try contacting local builders or scaffolding companies to see if they have any they no longer need).  There are some instructions here, here and also here.

Seeds

Seed-sharing scheme - The cost of seeds can soon add up, so why not contact other gardening clubs and set up a seed sharing scheme? A central fund can be set up to buy seed packets, with these then being split between groups.  As many seeds are packed in their hundreds, this can be a very cost effective option.

Seed saving - Don't forget you can also save your own seeds.  This is a great way to teach children about a plant's lifecycle at the same time as saving money.  You will need to let one or two of your healthiest plants 'run to seed' - for example, this means allowing a lettuce to 'bolt', flower and then set seed.

Lesson plans/ fact sheets

There are plenty of lesson plans and teaching resources to download on the web including:

• RHS - Campaign for School Gardening
• Garden Organic for Schools - a Range of Free Courses How To leaflets and What to do Now half termly planner
• Morrisons Let's Grow
• Harrod Horticulturals' Budding Gardeners
• Growing Schools - resources library

Vouchers and schemes

• RHS - Campaign for School Gardening - sign up for benchmarking, free start up kit, free seeds and access to regional advisors
• Harrod Horticultural - 20% discount for schools on Budding Gardeners site
• Woodland Trust - free native trees or hedgerow plants for schools
• Morrisons Let's Grow - voucher scheme redeemable against a supplies catalogue
• Victoriana Nursery - 20% discount on seeds and 10% on equipment for schools
• Potato Council - free potato growing kit for schools

Sponsorship

Try approaching local businesses, particularly nurseries, landscape suppliers or garden centres, to see if they can offer any sort of discount, sponsorship or donation to your gardening club.  It is worth clearing this with the school in advance and checking if they have any existing corporate sponsors who could be contacted.

If you are writing to any companies, make sure you call and check the correct person you should address your request to and be prepared to follow up with a phone call.

It is also worth letting potential sponsors know how their support will be acknowledged - for example in a newsletter distributed to all parents - and that you will be contacting the local media to publicise the donation.

Fundraising

As well as traditional fundraising activities (lots of inspiration here and here), you can look at garden-themed ideas:

• Plant and produce sales
• Guess the number of sunflower seeds in a jar
• Lilfords Nursery - Hanging basket fundraiser
• Open gardens weekend (ask parents to volunteer their own)
• Suttons Fundraiser Catalogues

In addition, the RHS have an excellent list of grants and competitions which you can apply for.

Comments

[Deb]

Great ideas!

We had a cake sale which made enough to fund us throughout last year.

Another school I know asks for £5 for the term (they only run for one term a year) which no one seems to mind paying.

Parents have also been generous in our club with bulbs, children's gloves etc.

[Dawn]

Brilliant Deb - I knew I could rely on you for some great additions. Like the idea of subscription. Thanks!

[Joanne Roach]

Great ideas Dawn, nice one!
I only have a couple of extra suggestions as this list is pretty comprehensive!

Another good weblink is http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/schools_organic_network/
This is their old schools site. The new set up is much shinier but what I like about this one is that it groups gardening tasks into half term chunks for you.

The Woodland Trust Free Trees for Schools scheme is worth a try for hedging and borders. http://www.treeforall.org.uk/

And I like square foot gardening if you haven't got much space or dosh because you can apply lots of ideas and learning in small spaces. http://www.squarefootgardening.com/whatissfg to get some ideas to get you started.

[Dawn]

Joanne - fantastic links - thank you so much. I've added them into the piece above.

[trisha xx]

As a gardener people give you duplicate presents over the years, particularly trowels and seed labels, it's worth asking parents/carers to donate spare, useable equipment they no longer need.

[Dawn]

Trisha - Ah yes, the present duplication - good point. I'm still trying to get through multiple 'gardeners hand cream" from a Christmas overload.