Green-fingered pupils at an Aberdeenshire primary school will be getting their hands dirty at a public garden.
Youngsters from Craigievar Primary School have been enlisted to help maintain the kitchen garden at Craigievar Castle near Alford.
The pupils will then swap greens for green by selling the fruit and vegetables to raise funds for the school and community activities.
They will spend a few hours each week carrying out tasks at the garden.
Andrea Drummond, head teacher, said: “Craigievar School is delighted to be working with the community to develop Craigievar Kitchen Gardens as a place for the whole community to meet, enjoy and grow.
“The school regularly uses the grounds around the castle for outdoor learning and this opportunity will give us another area to use.
“As a school we place a high value on getting children to learn through real contexts so growing vegetables and fruit will enable us to find out more about how things grow, learning skills in gardening and using our crops to eat and make different products.
“We hope that visitors to the castle will come and visit the kitchen garden and see what the local school and community are doing. If there are any other people willing to get involved in this project, have any tools or seeds which they would be willing to donate, please contact the school.”
Meanwhile, the National Trust for Scotland, who manage the castle, say they hope this is the start of getting the whole community involved.
Senior assistant John Lemon said: “This is a really exciting initiative. Throwing open the doors to our garden and encouraging the local community to get hands on with their heritage will, we hope, encourage more people to explore and experience all that Craigievar Castle has to offer.
“We already work closely with Craigievar Primary through our forest school project which has been helping them learn about their local plants and wildlife. Now they’ll be expanding their expertise into horticulture, bringing the kitchen garden back into use to the benefit of themselves, the local community and the castle too.”
