The Sanctuary Garden

The Budding Gardeners Course offers an engaging one-hour adaptation of our adult program, featuring a more hands-on approach and an exciting addition – baby chicks! 

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Designed to cater specifically to children, the course covers essential garden basics. Adult participants play a vital supporting role, actively working alongside their child throughout the session. This collaborative experience not only enhances the learning process but ensures that these newfound skills are effectively retained and can be seamlessly applied at home.

Drawing from valuable experience in local primary school gardens, we’ve found that the ideal age range for participants falls between 7 and 13 years old.

The aim is to encourage everyone to start small in their gardening journey, learn to upcycle and keep costs to a minimum.

Normal Price is £45 for an adult and child and £15 per additional child for a 4 week course in January 2024 – location tbc in Dunfermline

*  EARLY BIRD  * Prices are £30 per adult and child and £12.50 per additional child if booked before 24th December 2023

*All gardening materials are included – just bring along pen and paper to take notes*

This is what we’ll be covering:

WEEK 1
Choosing pots and pot sizes
Choosing compost, sand and drainage
How to prevent lopsided plants
Feeding seedlings
How to keep seedlings thriving

WEEK 2
Multiply your plants
Growing herbs on the cheap
Knowing when to plant out seedlings
Mistakes to avoid
Seeds and how to collect your own

WEEK 3
Choose what to grow in you garden or balcony
Being self-sufficient
Frosts, wind and sunshine
Why grow organically?
What enhances soil microbes?

WEEK 4
Your microclimate and improving it
Micro-green tasting
Introduction to square foot gardening
Simple and effective planning system
Perpetual planting

Here are some reviews from attendees to previous courses:

• “Amazing class again, thanks”
  
  

• “I’ve been enjoying it, i was genuinely surprised by how much too. I’m about as green fingered as a dolphin. I have started messing about with plants in mum’s green house”
  
  
• “Thank you so much Grant for another wonderful growing course crammed with wisdom, laughs and the odd experiment.”
  
• “Thanks for another great session”
  
  
• “Great class this afternoon, I have learned so much”
  
  
• “Great class, with great group of people, will miss the class when it finishes next week”

Come and join us!

Grant Stewart
Head Gardener
The Sanctuary Garden
Kingseat, Dunfermline
www.thesanctuarygarden.co.uk

This course has been successfully running for the last 3 years, the content and delivery are relevant, interesting and fun!

Click here to buy tickets
Sell tickets online with Ticket Tailor

You’ll finish the course feeling enthusiastic and confident, knowing where to find any information you may need – in a position to start gardening and growing your own vegetables immediately!

The interactive presentation allows a deeper appreciation and understanding of gardening. It will be easy to start growing and harvesting by understanding the underlying principles of plant biology.

Also, wellbeing is woven into the course as we’ll be looking at the connection between growing your own vegetables and the health benefits it brings from improved mental and physical wellness to better nutrition and a stronger immune system.

The aim is to encourage everyone to start small in their gardening journey, learn to upcycle and keep costs to a minimum.

* Save a 1/3 by buying an ‘EARLY BIRD’ ticket before the 24th December 2023 *
Total price is £50 per person for a 4 week course in January 2024  – location tbc in Dunfermline

There are two courses running simultaneously, one on Tuesday evening and the other on Saturday afternoon. If you can’t attend a session, you can join the other group so you don’t miss out.

*All gardening materials are included – just bring along pen and paper to take notes*

This is what we’ll be covering:

WEEK 1
Choosing pots and pot sizes
Choosing compost, sand and drainage
How to prevent lopsided plants
Feeding seedlings
How to keep seedlings thriving

WEEK 2
Multiply your plants
Growing herbs on the cheap
Knowing when to plant out seedlings
Mistakes to avoid
Seeds and how to collect your own

WEEK 3
Choose what to grow in you garden or balcony
Being self-sufficient
Frosts, wind and sunshine
Why grow organically?
What enhances soil microbes?

WEEK 4
Your microclimate and improving it
Micro-green tasting
Introduction to square foot gardening
Simple and effective planning system
Perpetual planting

Here are some reviews from attendees to previous courses:

•   “Amazing class again, thanks”
  
  

•  “I’ve been enjoying it, i was genuinely surprised by how much too. I’m about as green fingered as a dolphin. I have started messing about with plants in mum’s green house”
  
  
• “Thank you so much Grant for another wonderful growing course crammed with wisdom, laughs and the odd experiment.”
  
• “Thanks for another great session”
  
  
•  “Great class this afternoon, I have learned so much”
  
  
• “Great class, with great group of people, will miss the class when it finishes next week” 

Come and join us!

Grant Stewart
Head Gardener
The Sanctuary Garden
Kingseat, Dunfermline
www.thesanctuarygarden.co.uk

The children saw how easy it was to assemble a raised bed in less 15 minutes. The pallets are 8′ plasterboard pallets that were broken up and denailed. The nails were used to reassemble the beds. “It’s free” they said “and all you need is a hammer and a hand saw!”

Cooking oil is used to preserve the wood; it’s non poisonous, cheap and easy to apply with a little roller.

The delivery of 8 cubes of organic mushroom compost has a few glitches; the truck got stuck and the shaft of the spade broke. It should be all moved to the beds in a week or so, depending on the weather.

The children planted winter spinach, pak choi, spanish radish and lettuce and it’s November.

Thanks to The Cookie Jar Foundation for the support

The criteria for becoming a member are clear and match the general aims of The Sanctuary Garden. There is some work we’re looking forward to, in order to become fully compliant in 2024

Demonstrated making a syrup that is diluted and sprayed or watered onto the plants. It’s genuinely effective against slugs and caterpillars and cheap and easy to make. All you need is onion, garlic and sugar. Here is the recipe link

The season started with building raised beds with children who enjoyed the process and had a great deal of satisfaction when the beds were filled with compost.

It started with two classes at a time, and then reduced to one class of 30 children to give each child more time ‘doing’, rather than standing around. Lots was planted, mostly seedlings by the children and it all grew.

On Friday the children were asked what did they enjoy.

• Planting seedlings and seeds
• Learning about how plants grow
• Tasting vegetables
• Being outside
• Four children said they did not like mud on their hands 
• All the children wanted baby chicks to be brought to the school.

These are board beans planted from seed by the children that will provide beans that can be tasted and enjoyed or spat out in the garden. I hope the school can raise funds for this important project to carry on.

There are a few I’ve missed and this does not count all the garden visits.

Children ask such interesting questions. My favourite was “what is a chicken’s favourite colour” My mind had red because they peck relentlessly at blood. The drinker is red so I said “red” and pointed at the drinker. Phew…

“How do you kill a chicken?”
“Do chickens really come out of an egg” I’d shown an egg as a comparison to the size of the 3 week old chick
“Can they fly?”
“Can I take one home?”
“Are you going to eat them?”
“How do you make chicken nuggets?”
“Does the rooster like another hen, when he does not like the one he’s with?” This was a 12 year old asking me (I nearly cried)

The disconnect between where food is produced and a packet of processed food, is real.

I love taking chicks to schools; I had no idea how much joy it would bring me. If you would like a visit, get in touch.

The children have grown produce!

The last Friday of June is the last day of term so we can expect courgettes to be marrows and pumpkins ready for Halloween!

Visited Beanstalk nursery with baby chicks, lettuce is doing well in the polytunnel, Buff orpington chicks, Carron Primary School pupils planting their own seedlings and a stand at the West Fife Show with RHET (Royal Highland Educational Trust) where 100 pots of salad were planted up and taken home.

If you want lots of content have a look on instagram or facebook @the.sanctuary.garden

Seedings in soil and different composts, chilli flowers already, aubergines, runner beans and tomatoes

Lots of pallet projects – raised beds and a design for the new toilet, based on Shrek’s long-drop

The usual chores, cutting grass, collecting eggs and dehydrating.