Harvest festival and Dandelion tattie celebration at Hythehill Primary in Lossiemouth
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
TATTIES, cakes and community spirit were in abundance at Hythehill Primary School.
A combined Harvest Festival and Dandelion Project showcase were held at the Lossiemouth school.
The event brought pupils, staff and parents together to celebrate a sustainable growing effort as part of the national Dandelion project.
Each child was given two seed potatoes earlier this year to take home and grow, while the school also planted a number of potatoes.
Funding for the potatoes and compost came through the Dandelion project, a national drive to get communities involved in ‘grown your own’ initiative.
The end result was delicious tattie soup and stovies for visitors to enjoy last Friday.
There was also a cake-making competition, again encouraging pupils to think about food production.
The judges, retired baker John Smith, Carlie Falconer and Chris Saunderson, content editor with The Northern Scot, had a difficult job. Ultimately they plumped for a cheesecake made by Milly Hendry (10), with a strawberry cake made by twins Elisha and Lachlan Main, both 11, in second and a tasty cake decorated to look like a baked tattie with beans, made by Morwenna Heartford (9), in third.
Martin Collins, depute head, said: “Initially it was a harvest festival that the school had organised with the parent council and on the back of that there is a national project called the Dandelion project.
“It’s based around sustainability so that food is planted from seed, it grows and is then put on a plate. It was really nice to see people had harvested their potatoes.
“It’s something to get people and children to recognise that food is not just bought in the shops and we can grow it ourselves and enjoy eating it.”
Mr Collins said the festival was also a nod to the traditional theme of the ‘Tattie holidays’ when children would get two weeks off school to go into the fields to help bring in the potato harvest.
“After Covid it is nice to have these things happening again. We just missed out on the summer fair.”
The event included a range of stalls and a bouncy castle.
