When we learned that the theme for this year’s pocket garden competition is heritage we immediately thought of coal mining.  Mining was the main industry of our local area and its legacy is still here today.  The Scottish Mining Museum less than a mile away from our school, and many of the houses built for the original miners are still in use.  We arranged to visit the museum to gather ideas for our design.

Some of the features that we saw at the museum influenced the pupils' designs.  The pit head wheel was the feature that everyone agreed on to be a focus.  Pit head wheels are visible in our local area and are a true symbol of our heritage.  We planned a variety of different ways to make it, but were delighted when a clean out of our PE cupboard yielded an old bent hula hoop and some snapped team bands.  It felt good to repurpose something destined for the bin.  It is also instantly recognisable as the wheel that people drive past every day.

Pupils were particularly fond of the chimney pot planter that they saw at the mining museum.  We were delighted when a parent was able to locate one for us from a local roofing company.  We placed the chimney pot in the centre of the garden as a symbol of our coal mining heritage and filled it with strawberry plants. 

Before the Easter holidays we started to plant our seeds.  We planted marigolds, nasturtium, potatoes, sweet peas, cosmos, runner beans, basil and chives.

Pupils researched the type of veggies that were traditionally grown in miners’ gardens and found out that potatoes, carrots, cabbages and turnips were particularly popular.  They planted them a circular fashion to replicate a design they had seen at the Mining Museum.  They are hoping that there will plenty of veggies to enjoy in the harvest and that the rabbits and squirrels don’t feast on them first.  We want to make a nice pot of soup and a tumshie lantern from the turnips.

Additionally, pupils have arranged a herb shelf – most of these herbs have been grown from seed.  Other edible features include a home grown cucumber plant, a raspberry plant that has been in all our previous pocket garden entries and nasturtium flowers.

Our P5 pupils were particularly enthusiastic to include an area for insects and bugs in our garden.  They found old bricks, bark, sticks, pinecones and moss to construct into a bug hotel.  The format of the hotel changes daily as pupils are engaged and frequently explore and adapt the area.

We added a bird feeder and a dish full of beads and water.  From the moment that they were placed in the garden the birds and squirrel started to visit.  We have had to refill a few times already.  

The heritage theme has allowed us to forge links with different organisations in our community.  At the mining museum we met the volunteer gardening team and were so impressed with their dedication that we offered our services and have since returned to the museum to help with weeding and litter picks.

When we walked to the mining museum on our initial visit we encountered a litter and dog poo problem. This inspired us to make posters and write to our MP and local organization to highlight our concerns for the environment.  The posters are now on display in different venues in our community and ‘Gorebridge Community Cares’ helped us to highlight the issue further by going on a ‘dog poo walk’ where we identified problematic areas in the community.  They have kindly shared our progress on their social media.   These new connections have been beneficial to all and will be ongoing after the pocket garden competition has ended.

We have thoroughly enjoyed making this garden and the connections to our community that it has allowed us to make. We hope that we have captured the essence of our mining heritage and our community spirit in our pocket garden entry.