Findochty Primary School

Little Red Riding Hood’s Picnic Basket

Our garden tells the story of Little Red Riding Hood’s picnic basket, which was one of Grace’s favourite stories when she was younger. The basket has been split into two sections by the red and white checks of the ‘basket blanket’, which is made out of painted stones. In one section we have planted wild flowers, which we hope will entice a number of insects including bees, and in the other side we have planted a numbers of vegetables, such as onions, kale and cabbage which we hope to harvest in the future. On our shelves we are growing strawberries, wild flowers in pots, herbs which have been grown in plastic milk cartons, and lettuce that has been planted in recycled milk cartons.

Reused cartons for plants

Repurposed hula hoop

Lots of plants fitted in

Under our pocket garden we have made our own bug hotel out of material that we found round our school and community, such stones, shells, broken plastic tubes used to protect our trees, and a large number of sticks.

We also recycled most of our materials from the school shed. We used two pallets and part of an old bed, which had been used previously as a stage, as our main structure. A broken hula hoop, covered in gardening string, was used as the basket handle and weaved in and out of the bed posts to create the basket effect. The shelves were made from the wood of a broken fence that was going to be thrown out. Old plastic cartons were used as plant pots, plastic tubing was used in the insect hotel and left over top soil was used from our other planters.

Our pocket garden has led to links with our wider community, with a pupil’s relative coming and doing the manual labour for us. We have also had help from families within our school community who have helped with growing the vegetables to begin with, before being planted.

Now that the garden has been established, it has inspired other classes to create their own. We have created links with the local men’s shed and they will be working with the pupils to bring their creations to life.

Garden Design