Today Year 5 had another amazing opportunity to enhance their learning and visited a real organic market garden farm!  We travelled to Gold Hill Organic Farm in Child Okeford near Blandford for a day to experience and take part in life on a market garden farm.  We saw the process of plant and vegetable growing from propagation in tunnels, through to planting in trenches and were amazed to discover it only takes a few weeks of growth to be large enough to plant out for some varieties of lettuce.

We had no idea there were so many varieties of lettuce and really enjoyed tasting some, our favourites were the green and red oak lettuce, yum yum!

We were also lucky enough to sample some of the produce fresh from the plant, what an experience and what a taste!  We tried, broad beans, spinach, sugar snap peas, asparagus, kale and lettuce, phew!  We learnt that ‘organic’ means food grown entirely naturally with quality natural soil, no chemicals, fertiliser or pesticides and we could really taste the difference, every thing was so much more flavoursome.

We also saw a natural way of weed killing by covering the land in black tarpaulin so the weeds die and rot down to provide nutrients in the soil for next seasons planting, what an amazing thing to do – so environmentally friendly, sustainable and really good for the food grown there.

After a quick lunch and game of memory with the types of produce we had leant about in the morning, we then had a short walk to the farm woodlands and had some time to explore all the varieties of trees grown there and meet some of the local inhabitants, sheep!  We found leaves from oak trees, silver birch, maple, cherry, alders, sycamore, hazel, hawthorn and hornbeams, wow!

We are sure most of you are now inspired to grow your own organic vegetables for picking and eating fresh from the garden, let us know what you plant and how you get on!

We were all so proud of every single member of the class today for their bravery and excitement in food tasting (some of us were nearly too full for lunch after all those broad beans!) the farm staff commended us on how much we tried.  Well done also to the children for representing Southill so well in your behaviour and enthusiasm, it was a pleasure to see!

Thank you to Mrs Aitken, Mrs Butler and Mrs Hill for making the trip possible and to Gold Hill Farm for hosting such a great experience for the children.  They have a lovely farm shop and organic cafe on site, so do please visit them if you get the chance.  you can take it from us, their food is delicious!