Gardening club news

3.6.09

This morning Victoria and I had Class 2 in two halves – first Y1 and then Reception with Y2.  Y1 worked really hard watering.  We ran out of rain water and were forced to use the tap.  Reception/Y2 planted on about 15 tomato plants into large potatoes.  Ran out of compost so Henry’s mum kindly popped home and loaned us a bag.  Worked in wild area by compost bins because it was so hot outside.

Lunchtime had a training session with the children who are our volunteer shopkeepers – accounts, productions, pricing etc.  Then finished potting the tomatoes with some volunteers from the playing field.

1.6.09

Watered vegetable bags and potato bags with children at lunchtime.  Butts are getting very low.

28.5.09

I watered bags, trees and pots.  Malcolm and Louise arrived and we watered polytunnel and fitted net all over fruit frame.  Louise moved muck into new maize bed and weeded the cabbage bed. 

I put up two polycloche frames and netted cabbage bed as the rooks have been nippin away!  Buried the bottom of the new composter and planned new water butt.

26.5.09

Louise and Malcolm watered.

23..5.09

Bob and I went in and watered bags, pots and polytunnel – very hot weather.

21.5.09

Children made new bean frame and planted climbing beans.  Finished clearing flower bed ready for maize and pumpkin/butternut squash.  Watered everything ready for half term.

20.5.09

With Class 3 in two halves.  Potted on coriander, geranium and cucumber.  Sowed salad leaves and runner beans.

Outside sowed sunflowers in tops of bags – lettuces in spare slots in bags and loosened soil and manured trees in dustbins, watered and sowed nasturtiums.

Cleared dead stems from crab apple planter and started weeding bean bed.

14.5.09

Shop very busy again.  No duck eggs this week but Courtney’s Gran’s brother made bird feeders and a bird table for us.  Children worked hard lunchtime bringing pots to the shelves and pricing.  Louise and children dug trenches and lined with plastic to create reservoirs for grow bags.

Planted twelve toms into bags.  Have melons and cucumbers that will need planting soon.  Also sowed carrots and parsnips and planted pea seedling.

Climbing beans not quite ready to go out.  Need to get lettuce and runner beans sown this Wednesday with Class 3 and basil and nasturtiums for around the plum and apple in playground.  Need more salad leaves out in vegetable bags.  Sam’s fudge went very quickly – could have sold a lot more.

New banner for shop ready but paint still wet.  Will make list of frozen herbs and each week will offer fresh but freeze if not sold.  Gill will cross off if she uses with cooking and we will cross off if we sell.

13.5.09

Class 3 in two halves for half an hour each today.  We potted up tomato seedlings, parsley, brussel sprouts – large tomatos into 9″ pots, and cheeseplant cuttings.  Sam sowed radishes and fennel next to potato tub.  After school Eco dug hole to plant pear tree and new composter.

7.5.09

The Big Night!  Shop opening and we were inundated.  Heather Philp (Linkinhorne Horticultural Society) opened it with a lovely speech and we did over £50 of business.  Connor and Michael were brilliant keeping books and giving change.  Nicola and Jackie brought in duck and chicken eggs and Let’s Get Cooking made over £13 for their buns and flapjacks.

Louise took children off to try to clear long flower bed.  Malcolm cleared side bed with children and they sowed mangetout, sugar snaps and broad beans.  Bags of herbs went in freezer.

Mrs. Etherington is going to catch the blog up in the hope that club members will then take on the job.  We are very excited because this week on Thursday 7.5.09 we are opening our Garden Shop which will sell plants, seedlings, eggs, second hand gardening books, second hand equipment, jams and pickles and other donated items from our parents, pupils and clubs.  The art club are going to supply bookmarks and cards and the ‘Let’s Get Cooking Club’ are hoping to sell some of their baking.

We all work really hard and enjoy our gardening.  The whole school gardens in curriculum time once every half term and the club has about 8 or 9 children who come regularly every week from 3.15 – 5 p.m. on a Thursday.  When you look at everything we have planted, sown and propogated it looks like we could feed the world, but sadly we do have a lot of failures.  Still we keep trying and have wonderful support from our local horticultural society who half funded out polytunnel and who also send us money periodically after events to help us buy seeds etc.  We also collected loads of Morrison vouchers thanks to our local community who dropped them in to school even though they didn’t have children with us.

5.5.09

Lunchtime today two of my pupils helped me water our vegetable bags and our potato bags.  We then emptied out our flower pot store to stack them by size and throw away any cracked or damaged ones.  We have a large stack of seed trays which we put in a big box under the table in the polytunnel.

3.5.09

Went into school today and met Louise (Linkinhorne Horticultural Society and co club organizer) and her husband Malcolm.  We put together the new potting benches – some bits by hand and some with Malcolm’s power screw driver (hooray!).  We then sorted out the whole polytunnel, relocated the staging and put all the seed and plants onto the staging and the potting benches.  It looks fantastic.  Malcolm fitted new hinges on our little tool shed.  We then started to get the shop organized and plants moved onto the shelves on the deck outside.  We also sorted out all the tools in the tool shed.  Nearly five hours – but really worth it as everything looks great.

1.5.09

Louise on her own as I was out with the Tag Rugby team.  The club worked really hard.  They earthed up potatoes, planted radish seed outside, transplanted beetroot seedlings, potted on tomatoes and nigella.  They also sowed Busy lizzie, peppers, coriander, cucumber, sweet peas and geranium seeds.  They also tried to separate some large tufty grasses that fellow teacher Mrs. Wray had brought in.  The potting benches had arrived but we hadn’t realised.  Have to do those Saturday.

30.4.09

Lunchtime, a group of girls and myself sowed 20 more broadbeans and split some clumps of Star of Bethlehem (bulbs) and potted them up.

29.4.09

My Teaching Assistant Victoria and I went out with Reception and Year 2 children.  They sowed butternut squash, peas, melon (heritage seeds), courgette, pumpking and sweetcorn.  We don’t seem to have much luck with sweetcorn.  Perhaps the little children will have green fingers!

28.4.09

Louise from Linkinhorne Horticultural Society ran gardening club on her own tonight because I was off with the dance troupe.  She only had three children but they did a great job.  They moved a load of daffodil bulbs out of a bed that we need for crops and replanted them around the base of an apple tree in our field and along the fence.  They moved all our potato trial bags out of the polytunnel and they planted out broad bean seedlings.  They also manured our potato plants in the containers and bed.  They potted on some tomato seedlings and Louise was so pleased that the children have learnt to do these kinds of jobs really quickly without her help.

22.4.09

Victoria and I wnet out with Y1 and sowed Coleous, lobelia, nasturtium, geranium, busy lizzie and begonia seeds.  The children also sowed two rows of carrot seeds straight into our roots bed.  I thinned cabbages.

2.4.09

The children had to work really hard tonight.  We had loads of potato bags to plant up with seed potatos from the Potato Growing project.  Rockets and Emeralds – one potato per bag.  Louise put up another wigwam ready for beans and the children planted rhs trial seeds of sugarsnap peas and mangetout in the end of the legumes bed.  We were very excited because the cabbages are up and we think possibly a couple of carrots.  More broad beans had germinated (they’re like weeds really) and we sorted out the pots on the staging for watering over the Easter.  More seeds sown around the wigwam.  At lunchtime some children helped me plant spring onion seeds into the salad and onion bed.

26.3.09

Today was Super Learning Day.  It was about the Government’s Eight Doorways to Sustainable schools.  We planted about 20 bags of vegetables (like those used by people in developing countries where good soil and water are both at a premium).  They included rocket, lettuce, cauliflower, red cabbage, broad beans, onions, shallots, garlic, potatoes, strawberries, herbs, sugarsnap peas and mangetout from the RHS trial and nasturtium seeds.

In gardening club we prepared an area for the potato tub and planted 11 early seed potatoes (3 varieties).  We also planted out red cabbage and brussell sprout seedlings and sowed poppy, sunflower and datura seeds.  We planted out salad seedlings, tied up pears and beans and put out the veg bags round the playground.  It took ages to water.  We kept filling up the cans at the water buts and wheeling them around in the barrow – they were too heavy to keep carrying.

19.3.09

We put up one of our new mini greenhouse cloches that we got with Morrison vouchers over our external seeds.  We water, turned compost (smelly), assembled the new potato barrel (also Morrisons), planted potatoes (Ulster) and laid out potatoes from the project to chit in the tunnel.  We also sowed peas, courgettes, sweetcorn and tomatoes.

12.3.09

We removed out cloche tunnel that has been out all winter and packed it away.  We uncovered broad beans, dug out the compost heap and topped up the potato and brassica beds with our own wonderful compost.  We sowed 2 varieties of carrots, 1 of leeks, 1 of parsnips, all in three rows each straight into the bed.  We planted out our pea seedlings and tied them to the frame and sowed more broad beans.

5.3.09

We dug up strawberry runners that we had healed into the end of the bed for the winter and put them into planters.  Louise planted our blueberry and raspberry canes.  We dragged the plum tree in its dustbin round to the playground railings and planted James Grieve apple in the other dustbin in the playground.  We watered seeds and cuttings and putted up phormium sections.

26.2.09

Back fromour winter rest. lot to do.

• planted out broad beeans after digging in the green maiure
• Added twigs for broad beans to grow  
• covered them with polythene and bubble wrap
• moved pots into container
• sowed brussell sprouts, chilli, tomatoes and salad leaves
• collected logs to secure plastic and bubble wrap
• loaded trugs back into moved tool shed

 

 

7.1.09     spring term

whole class potted up stem cuttinps of qeranuims for selling in our shop when it opens.

 

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