In March 2011, Mr. Kavanagh's 5th and 6th class began to discuss the idea of a school garden. They talked, drew plans, measured, and worked to begin the journey which had become the wonderful space we have today.
The first planning and measuring started on March 3rd.
On March 14th they cut a circle shape into the ground, and they used skipping ropes to plan where fences might be put.
Parents and friends all contributed to the effort; a trailer load of hardcore, a mini digger and a loader to help with the cobbled area, fences sponsored by Glanbia... It would have been an impossible task without the help of the machinery!
Then on Saturday April 9th a big gathering of parents and friends, pupils and past pupils got together to put up the fences and make frames for raised beds.
We sourced cobbles from the County Council... the paving in Tallow had been replaced and the old cobbles were made available to us. Joe Power was incredibly generous with his time and expertise and laid the cobbles expertly for us.
After that it was a matter of hard work, skimming off the grass, planning pathways, digging into hard, stony soil and planting shrubs in the ground and vegetables in the raised beds.
Sometimes it was digging work, sometimes it was school work in the garden.
Then on June 26th 2011 we had the official opening of the School Garden and Outdoor Classroom! A large crowd of parents came to see the work that had been done over the previous few months. Although the whole garden wasn't completely landscaped, a good start had been made and the work was going to be continued by future classes.
This is what the garden looked like at the end of June 2011, 4 months after the first plans were drawn!