School's out for summer and what better way for children to spend their sunny hols than at the Skool Beanz allotment.

Dates available in August:

Full Day Clubs, 10am-3pm

Wed 5, Tues 11, Wed 12, Tue 18, Wed 19, Tues 25, Wed 26,

£35 (sibling £25)

Sat Morning Clubs,

10am-12pm

1, 29

Sun Morning Clubs:

10am-12pm

9, 16, 23

£10 (sibling £5) Pupil Premium Free

*In the current times, affording to pay for clubs for your child can be tricky, do get in touch as we welcome 'pay what you can' too .

This is a pinch me dream moment! To be given the opportunity to have a second Skool Beanz Children's Garden at the beautiful Yeo Valley Organic Garden near Blagdon Lake in North Somerset. It was the golden gnomes in the cafe that made me think this would be the perfect place to have another Skool Beanz garden! Thank you to Sarah and all the garden team for making us feel so welcome. We can't wait to start the arty gardening clubs in August.

August Dates:

10am-12pm or 2-4pm

Thurs 6

Sat 8

Thur 13

Sat 15

Frid 29

£15 per child (including free entry into main garden for 1 adult during session).

The best time to be on the Skool Beanz allotment is during the summer. These clubs are open to all children and I am happy to collect any children from Chilthorne Domer School.

We currently still have spaces available for Tuesdays and Thursdays.

We are proud to offer adult day courses for anyone interested in starting a children's gardening club, creating a children's garden or just looking for top tips on how to engage little beanz in the garden. No gardening experience required. Everyone welcome aged 18+.

Our next dates:

Sun 28 June

Sun 13 September

Sun 11 October

10am - 4pm. £95 Lunch included.

Thank you to everyone who came along to our open day in April. It was our best yet with over 200 visitors, raising £900 for Skool Beanz and £399 for the National Garden Scheme.

Our next Open Day is on Saturday 5th September 12-5pm. Hope to see you then to marvel at our dahlias.

Hosted by Charles Dowding, with Olivia Shave, Eddie Rixon and (me!) Lara Honnor. I'm honoured to be on this panel with Olivia Shave of Soil.Ed who is working so hard to successfully get food and farming on to the National Curriculum and Eddie Rixon, a forward thinking farmer, who goes by the slogan 'Get on My Land' educating and welcoming school children and his wider community on to his 200 acre farm near Oxford. Thank you Charles for hosting what I hope will be an action provoking converstation of what we can do collectively as gardeners and farmers to provide our youngest generation with regular meaningfull access to land and nature to learn and grow.

We are excited to run this weekly Home School Club for children aged 4+ at our children's allotment in Chilthorne Domer. Activities will be guided by the seasons and include lots of fun gardening and nature crafts. Starting back on Wednesday 25th February 2026...

We are so happy to offer this monthly gardening club welcoming all children with SEN. The Skool Beanz children's allotment is a safe and calming place where children can be themselves and parents can relax. Dates coming up:

Sat 28 March

Sat 23 May

Sat 20 June

We are super excited to announce this incredible opportunity for a young person in Somerset interested in growing food to come and work at Skool Beanz two days a week where you will be tending our children's allotment and help out at gardening clubs and our volunteer mornings, plus the fantastic market garden, Off-Grid Organics run by Cam, growing beautiful veg and packing veg boxes for happy customers for two days a week and This Living Place run by Laura - the mastermind of this whole placement - for one day a week, supporting her amazing project and the community it serves. If you have a love for nature, people and growing veg with endless enthusiasm, this is the job for you and we can't wait to meet you!

Deadline has now passed for applications.

Lara started Skool Beanz as a Saturday morning gardening club in April 2021. Just 4 children attended that first club. By the end of the year, 18 children. Four years later in 2025, we welcomed over 200 children. We strive to keep welcoming more and more children to the Skool Beanz allotment to inspire and engage them in the magic of gardening.

Lara was thrilled to be invited to the first ever Yeo Valley Organic Garden Festival in September 2025. She gave a talk in the morning all about how she created Skool Beanz and then ran micro green milk carton workshops in their beautiful yurt for the rest of the day. What a successful 3 day event. Make sure to book your tickets for next year.

What an honour to be featured on the front page of The Sunday Times - Home section chatting all things gardening with children and highlighting the importance of Children's Gardens and clubs.

Lara shares her story of how she got into gardening and then created the Skool Beanz Children’s Allotment which runs after school, weekend and holiday Gardening Clubs.

With a Q&A afterwards, this is the perfect opportunity to bring together anyone interested in gardening with children, whether you’re a teacher, parent or grandparent. Get ideas and put them into action for the growing year ahead.

We love this joyful design of the Skool Beanz Allotment by talented illustrator Rachel Akerman. So much detail including Bobjon and Barbara Scarecrows, Secret Den, Quiet Wildlife Garden, Muddy Buddy compost heap, veg and flower beds.

What an honour to be on the front cover of Permaculture Magazine. We love spreading the Skool Beanz joy and hope that sharing our story will inspire others. This issue celebrates community gardening, our favourite kind of gardening. 

Lara was thrilled to talk to the lovely Shannon @diaryofaladygardener flying the flag for Skool Beanz and children's gardening on her brilliant 'The Lady Gardeners' podcast. Hope you enjoy.

Skool Beanz was thrilled to design a children's garden for this legendary show. We pulled out all the stops, recreating all the favourite must haves from our original Skool Beanz allotment. This children's garden included a quiet wildlife garden with dead hedge and secret den, a polytunnel kindly provided by First Tunnels, water collecting station, Muddy Buddy compost heap, No-Dig veg beds, raised beds, bath tubs, and toilet planters, upcyled art by Yeovil Creatives and 'Imagine, Learn and Create' and lots of colourful plants generously sponsored by Brimsmore Garden Centre. Big thanks to everyone who helped build and put this together. What an experience!

Lara from Skool Beanz is honoured to be speaking at this online event. Are you a gardening club leader, teacher, parent, or grandparent? Would you like to start a gardening club or create a children’s garden in your local community? With a panel of experienced children’s gardening creators and teachers, this is a place to share ideas and top tips on how to inspire the next generation of gardeners. Charles Dowding will introduce the forum and our panel of speakers. Each speaker will give an overview of their project, once everyone has spoken we will have a Q&A session. Start time is 11.30am GMT and we expect to finish at 1pm

Another pinch ourselves moment this summer was when the Willy Wonka of Veg and my old boss, mentor and friend Charles Dowding came to film a holiday gardening club. The sun shone and the children helped Charles pick fruit, veg and flowers. A wonderful morning we will never forget.

A pinch ourselves moment was welcoming the Gardener's World team and community gardening hero Tayshan Hayden - Smith to spend a couple of days with us on the Skool Beanz allotment filming some of the activities we get up to. In true English summer style, it absolutely poured down on the second day of filming but that didn't dampen the little beanz spirits and we hope the magic and joy we experience from gardening shines through your tv screens.

Thank you National Garden Scheme for publishing this article I wrote about the reasons behind starting Skool Beanz and why I'm so passionate about teaching gardening to children.

Thank you so much to the Sherborne Times for featuring us and sharing the Skool Beanz joy.

Biggest thanks goes to garden writer extraordinaire Matt Biggs for seeking me out and writing this lovely article about my gardening story and the reasons why I'm so passionate about teaching children the joys of gardening.