Team Green Britain

My new project is at Monkshill Farm near Whitstable. The farm is owned by the Royal School for Deaf Children Margate (RSDCM) as are the premises for my other gardens.

I am a teacher of horticulture and environmental issues, and my new project is to power our education block by solar with readings that can be accessed by my students. I have some small educational tools that already utilise wind, water and solar power in my classes and the workshops I run for various organizations. And I'd like to build on these.

The education block is our hub for Animal care, Horticulture and Environmental (including Forest School) courses, as well as Voluntary and Day Care provisions which include all of the above on a more informal basis. The community is growing and this month we have doubled our numbers from this time last year.

The reason for the change of project is that I was successful in securing funding for the dry space for my garden club, which is now run by one of my colleagues as part of the Thanet Social Hub. And therefore I was ready for a new challenge

If we were to be the lucky winners of the prize we would look at the viability of solar panels on the farm education centre. In addition to providing renewable energy, this would increase our potential for educational diversity. When they first arrive many of the young people who come here have no grasp of the environmental concepts we are trying to address. I am passionate about helping them understand, for with understanding comes the desire to make a change.

I now have interest and participants as far afield as Sittingbourne (13 miles in one direction) and Margate (21 miles in the other).

An interesting development on the farm recently: the farmer asked my line manager to find out where he could spray weeds as he didn't think I could manage them all but didn't want to upset me, knowing my dislike of chemicals.

Finally a garden tip for the months ahead: plant green manures during the off-season; Broad beans, clovers or my favourite Phacelia (scorpion weed) which has beautiful flowers.

As summer draws to a close and most of our vegetable harvest slows down it's time for all involved to sit down and plan next years crop and plant overwinter crops.  We have almost completed our (no sea in sight) beach hut area. Gardeners and students have started taking their lunches there and chilling. The farm will also soon have a new tearoom and farm shop so we are considering many options to stock this:

It's not about who does this or who does that. It's about everybody doing the best they can!

If you try to suddenly change everything thing you do, you will find a mountain of changes, so start with an anthill and gradually change to more sustainable products and practices and eventually it will become second nature to you as it has to me and the other Team Green Britain Heroes. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and just to add another 'R' Rethink.

We clearly need to have a different attitude to our world than our predecessors. Nowadays, there are so many of us and only a tiny area of our world to sustain us. We need to think of innovative ways in which to do this and this is a challenge I put to all members. Invent something amazing and do it for the love of our world.

What a fantastic day I and the other Heroes had at the Olympic Park this week. One of the things that really struck me was a conversation with John, a former builder and the husband of fellow Hero Kay. He explained that the whole stadium is modular, so if after the games are over, someone wants to buy or use all or part of the stadium, it can be packed up, shipped elsewhere and reassembled for use there. Fantastic.

It was great to watch some basketball, which I've played but never watched before. I didn't realise what an exciting sport it is. The day was also a good chance to chat with the other Heroes, and discuss sustainability ideas. What a great bunch.

I have already secured the building for my garden club and am looking at a couple of new projects. I talked these through with my fellow Heroes at our trip to the Olympic Park yesterday and came away brimming with good ideas.

It always amazes me how life takes different directions that somehow lead you back into the same setting. My job has changed dramatically not only in content but also in location. I now work at Monkshill Farm, Nr Faversham, a working farm with educational facilities. It is owned by the same corporation and I work with many of the same young people.

I have been developing a Forest School area on the farm getting everyone out and into a wilder setting. I have a polytunnel brimming with vegetable plants soon ready to harvest. I feel that the farm is a much better setting for getting the message across about sustainability, as within my teaching I can now add more elements of food production at the source.

If you do have a garden try to allow spaces for wildlife to thrive, old logs in a corner for reptiles, amphibians and a multitude of insects, which are also great things to investigate with care, remember it is the home of a living creature. Let nature take its course. In my garden at home a frog has moved into the strawberry patch for shelter under the straw, fantastic, I thought. But even better the frog has eaten nearly all the slugs in the patch, lots of strawberries for my family to enjoy.

I realize that people have busy lives, me included and sometimes feel that gardening is another job.

It's not.

I find that growing vegetables is such a nice activity because it is an anomaly of exercise and relaxation: Exercise in the action of hoeing and relaxation from the repeated movements backwards and forwards. It becomes almost meditative.

Try growing your own vegetables if you have any space at home or find a community garden near you and get involved.

Use less, waste little, repair more. It's important to start small rather than be daunted by the mammoth task of changing the way we do stuff.

My solar panels have now been fitted and are producing loads of lovely sustainable electricity.

I've been very busy lately. I abseiled down the side of a building to raise funds, secured £5,000 of insulation for the school and a further £1,000 to buy a shed/shelter for one of my gardening clubs. I also arranged for a volunteer group from Cummins to supply and fit insulation to my biggest project: The Orchard Shed. This is an old derelict tractor shed that we have developed into an environmental classroom and more.

Spring is always busy in the garden, and also on the farm. I have been developing conservation classes and getting more groups involved with them. We had a film crew from BBC See Hear to record some of our students including my class.

I have written and delivered a day of conservation workshops to secondary school children at the Kent County Showground and several workshops with local Rainbows and Brownies groups, from these I was asked to help train the trainers in conservation matters at the Girl Guides County Day.

My new project is at Monkshill Farm near Whitstable. The farm is owned by the Royal School for Deaf Children Margate (RSDCM) as are the premises for my other gardens.

I am a teacher of horticulture and environmental issues, and my new project is to power our education block by solar with readings that can be accessed by my students. I have some small educational tools that already utilise wind, water and solar power in my classes and the workshops I run for various organizations. And I'd like to build on these.

The education block is our hub for Animal care, Horticulture and Environmental (including Forest School) courses, as well as Voluntary and Day Care provisions which include all of the above on a more informal basis. The community is growing and this month we have doubled our numbers from this time last year.

The reason for the change of project is that I was successful in securing funding for the dry space for my garden club, which is now run by one of my colleagues as part of the Thanet Social Hub. And therefore I was ready for a new challenge

To cut a long story short my biggest inspiration to become an ambassador for green issues was my wife. Before I met her but after she was made homeless my wife Cindy cycled from the Netherlands where she was born to England, I laughed at her but was secretly impressed by her stamina. She has since gone on to gain a degree in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management, whilst I have trained as a teacher.