the school allotment was not working, it was dark and sad and nothing would grow. I teamed up with another RHS trained parent Fleury Crumb and the school lead on all things nature and nurturerelated Alison Waters, to analyse the site and come up with a plan. We concluded it was too dark and the soil very compacted. We arranged to cut back some of the trees blocking the sun and apply the Charles Dowding ‘No dig’ approach to create new raised beds, by piling compost over cardboard. The children helped us set out and build the new beds and we funded the project with support from the school PTFA. We started work at the end of winter 2023 and by that summer we were growing vegetables, fruit trees and flowers, and even won an Wilder Kent award from the Kent Wildlife trust