Growing Children

Pupils from Crossacres Primary School and Rackhouse Primary School will be celebrating Wythenshawe’s green space this summer.

The children will be taking part in a gardening competition, which will see them growing their own vegetables to enter them at the Brooklands Show.

Cath Carmont, parent of six-year-old Kiaya at Rackhouse Primary is teaching the pupils to grow their own vegetables after becoming a gardening convert herself.

Cath is a wheelchair user and has two raised beds at Yew Tree Allotments in Wythenshawe. She began growing her own vegetables last year after being inspired by BBC Gardener’s World campaign and a friend who is a landscape gardener.

She said: “I wanted children to understand where their food comes from, how it grows and to be able to taste the difference. Rackhouse is really enthusiastic about this and we have done really well so far, growing everything from seeds.

“Wythenshawe has a lot of green space and we should make the most of it. We have been growing marigolds, chard, beans, peas and pumpkins and the children are really enjoying it. It’ll be great for the children to enter the show.”

Wythenshawe Real Lives has arranged for Parkway Green Housing Trust, one of the campaign partners to make some raised beds for Rackhouse Primary School so that Cath and the pupils can plant more vegetables.

Real Lives is an image campaign, which aims to challenge outdated and negative perceptions of Wythenshawe through activities and first-person accounts from residents, investors and employees of the district in Manchester.

There are a number of Ambassadors for Real Lives including headteachers Tracy Wood at Rackhouse and Suzanne Blay at Crossacres.

Tracy said: “We are delighted to be involved in the campaign and agree that we need to focus on Wythenshawe’s assets. There is a lot of green space here and we need to celebrate that with the pupils.”

Suzanne Blay at Crossacres Primary School said: “I am really happy to be an ambassador and encourage the pupils to think about Wythenshawe in a positive way. It is their home and they deserve to see the good things.”

Teacher Wendy Miller at Crossacres has been working with pupils to grow herbs and berries as well as planting out pumpkins. The pupils have also tasted jam made from the berries they have grown.

The Brooklands show will be held on Saturday 5th September at St John’s Hall, Brooklands Road, from 2pm until 5pm.

This show has been running for 45 years and is organised by the Brooklands Gardening and Allotment Society Committee.

The Real Lives campaign will be supported by visuals featuring real people in real situations and real locations in Wythenshawe. These are being rolled out on outdoor sites in the coming weeks and already feature on Parkway Green Housing Trust’s vans.

The campaign is being funded through a partnership made up of Manchester City Council, Wythenshawe Forum Trust, Parkway Green and Willow Park Housing Trusts, St Modwen and Marketing Manchester.