Carrick win £1,000 in gardening competition

Carrick are this year’s winners of the Sam Gardiner Primary Schools Gardening Competition.

They received the cheque for £1,000 from Mr Gardiner at an award ceremony in the Members Dining Room at Stormont.

Joint runners-up were Gracehill Primary School near Ballymena and Ballycraigy Primary School in Antrim. They each received a cheque for £100.

“The judges had a hard time deciding because the finalists were so close,” said Mr Gardiner.

“I want to compliment Carrick’s Headmaster, Mr Jess and his staff for their work in developing gardening in the school. The standard is getting better every year and both the Judges and myself want to compliment all the schools who entered for the quality of their work.

“The whole object of the competition is to encourage primary age kids to grow their own, so that they can be more self sufficient in future. Not only will it save them money, it is a healthy pastime, away from computers and chat rooms.”

The judges were David McNarry MLA, who is an avid amateur gardener, and Kyle Geddis, owner of Hoophill Nurseries in Waringstown in Mr Gardiner’s Upper Bann constituency.

“I think politicians should lead with ideas like this and do something rather than just talking about it. I suppose with a name like mine gardening was the obvious choice. That is why I set up the Primary Schools Gardening Competition and funded it out of my own pocket,” said Mr Gardiner.