ESPOO MAGAZINE 2/2017

MY ESPOO
TIMO PORTHAN
FROM YARD TO TABLE
LAST SUMMER, the vegetable patch of Yläkartano
day care centre looked like Cinderella’s pumpkin
coach had turned from fairytale into reality. Instead
of magic, the giant pumpkins and the sunflowers
surrounding them were planted by the day care centre.
Families and the centre’s personnel tended to
the vegetable patch in July when the day care centre
was closed.
“Parents got pumpkin cake. The children learn
about the circulation of food when we plant edible
plants,” says Leena Häkkinen, Day Care Centre
Teacher.
Yläkartano day care centre is part of Espoo’s outdoor
maintenance’s School vegetable patch movement
with which the city started to establish vegetable
patches in schools and at day care centres
in Espoo. This spring, the outdoor maintenance
unit delivered a total of 100 farming boxes
with soil to approximately 20 vegetable patches,
and the goal is to introduce a vegetable patch into
all schools and day care centres in Espoo.
The children of Yläkartano day care centre stride
around the vegetable patch, planting tomato seedlings
and watering apple trees, berry bushes and
tulips.
“The flowers sway nicely in the wind,” says Hugo (5)
as he takes a nettle he has weeded to the compost.
“I like to drop seeds in the soil,” says Saara (6) as
she continues planting a carrot.
PIRITTA PORTHAN
Children’s own
vegetable patch. Robin
(left) (7), Rianna (4),
Saara (6), Klaiden (7)
and Hugo (5). Day Care
Centre Teacher Leena
Häkkinen guides the
little green fingers.
THIS SPRING,
A VEGETABLE
PATCH WAS STARTED
IN A TOTAL OF 27
DAY CARE CENTRES
AND SCHOOLS.
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