Gardening at Woodheys

Gardening Activities on Tuesday 28^th April 2009

Today was our first gardening day of the season and the team had a wonderful time tidying and organising ourselves for the weeks to come! Mrs Eyden, Mr Flynn and Mrs Holland were joined today by some very willing helpers from Y5F – Alex, Chloe, Jessica, Jada and Charlotte.

We divided into three groups: Mrs Holland, Chloe and Jada helped to prepare our vegetable patch; Mr Flynn and Alex tidied up the area near the ‘Peggy and Patch’ bay and Mrs Eyden, Jessica and Charlotte thoroughly cleared out the gardening shed.

Here are some pictures of them all in action!

First of all, Mrs Holland and Chloe got the spade and hoe out to attack the veg plot...

The challenge! The ladies hard at work... The finished result!

We discovered that the strawberries were doing well, but there was nothing else to save from last year. We have plans to plant some onions, radishes, lettuces and tomatoes this term. We are already growing some potatoes in tubs on the other side of the playground.

Meanwhile, Mr Flynn and Alex got the big black bin out and set to work on the area behind the ‘Peggy and Patch’ cloakroom bay... We were horrified at the mess!

Oh dear – so much rubbish! That bin was soon full! Much better now...

Finally, just look at the state of the shed... And so many big, juicy spiders (don’t tell Jessica, because she hates spiders!). By the time they had finished, Mrs Eyden, Jessica and Charlotte had easily thrown half of this away.

What a horrible mess! Jessica worked really hard Now, that’s more like it!

We found lots of useful things that had somehow become lost – tools, gloves and canes, for example. Mrs Eyden will buy more so that we have plenty of equipment for everyone to use. She will also send off for some new worms for the wormeries so that we can get some great free compost and plant food for our garden. We really want to be organic and to work with nature, without using chemicals if we can.

Charlotte with a nesting box Jada and Chloe with our tools

We found some useful things for the wild area like nesting boxes, bird feeders and even a special bumble bee box! This will be particularly good as we have just been learning about bees being in short supply this year. We need to do everything we can to encourage them.

What a lovely productive time we had. See you next time!

FE 28.04.09

Gardening Activities on Tuesday 5^th May 2009

Well, it absolutely poured for most of today, so we were very limited in what we could do. Thankfully, there was a very small break in the clouds around 3.00 p.m., so Mrs Eyden and Mr Flynn decided to help Eve, Lois-Amy, Adam and Jordan from Y4A to sow some seeds in the raised bed which had been so expertly cleared last week!

There were still some very healthy strawberry plants from last year, so they have been left in place. They are already producing lots of flowers which can mean only one thing – juicy strawberries for us to eat! Yum!

Mrs Eyden had bought some seeds for us to try. First of all, Eve sowed some carrot seeds. The variety is ‘Autumn King 2’, but we hope we won’t have to wait that long to see some results… We marked out two lines about 30 cm apart and scattered the seeds into them. When they begin to sprout, we will thin them out to give each carrot a chance to grow big.

Then Jordan planted some onion sets. These look like tiny onions, each about the size of a small grape. You just need to press them into the soil about 10 cm apart and then they slowly grow to the size of normal onions. Very tasty!

Lois-Amy sowed some lettuce seeds called ‘Organic Cut and Come Again’. They were very small and fine and it was quite difficult to see them against the soil! They should grow quite quickly and we certainly mean to taste them to see if they are better than the ones we buy from the shops. The only trouble with lettuces is that slugs and snails love them too, so we will have to keep an eye on them.

Adam sowed some beetroot seeds called ‘Boltardy’. They looked most peculiar – small and knobbly – but at least it was much easier to see where we had put them. They, too, should grow quickly and we will let you know as soon as they appear.

Finally, Mr Flynn put down rows of little stones which are supposed to stop the slugs. We had just finished when the rain started again, but at least the seeds all got watered in well! All we need now is some nice warm sunshine and everything will begin to flourish.

Fingers crossed and see you next time!

FE 5.5.09

Gardening Activities on Tuesday 12^th May 2009

The weather was much better this week, so Kaci-Anne, Hifza, Iffah, Harry, Saul, Juliet and Leon from Y3 joined our adult helpers, Mrs Mitchell, Mr Flynn, Mrs Eyden and Mrs Jones. This time we concentrated on some of the flowerbeds at the back of the school.

First of all, Saul and Mrs Mitchell cleared out some of the tubs and planters along the back wall of the school. They made some great discoveries! For example, Mrs Mitchell found a lovely camellia which would look much better in the middle of a flowerbed and Harry found some very interesting bulbs which we can replant somewhere else.

Meanwhile Leon, Harry and Kaci-Anne helped Mrs Eyden to clear up the herb garden which was covered in dead leaves and even some litter! They were thrilled to see that the lavender, oregano and chives were still going strong, as was a ‘curry’ plant in the corner.

On the left, you can see what it looked like before all their hard work.

Just look at it now, though. No wonder they look so proud! We will buy some more herbs soon to fill in all the empty spaces. Perhaps Mrs Thanner, our school cook, would be interested in having some herbs to add to our school lunches?

Mr Flynn’s group sorted out the ‘Butterfly’ bed in the middle of the grass. There were still some lovely pinks in bloom, but the Spring bulbs had all finished and the weeds were beginning to take over. Hifza did a great job of sorting it all out. Here she is (back right) with a gardening fork in her hand, showing the rest of the team how hard she has worked!

Now the Butterfly bed is ready for some new bedding plants for summer. We will ask the Year 6 pupils to bring some in for the special ‘Leavers’ Garden’ that they plant up every year after the Whit holidays.

When all the groups had finished for the afternoon, they put all the green waste into the wheelbarrow. Then we emptied it into our compost bin.

Finally, we decided to make good use of one of the planters on the back wall. It’s in a very sunny spot, so we thought it might be a good place to put two tomato plants which Mrs Eyden had bought for us. Mrs Keeley had brought in some rocket plants – nothing to do with space travel, by the way! – which you can put into salads. We thought this would be a good combination. Juliet and Iffah planted them for us.

Here is Iffah, planting her cherry tomato plant. We will need to keep it well watered and make sure that the slugs don’t eat it all up!

We are trying out two varieties of cherry tomato this year. One is called ‘Supersweet 100’ and the other is called ‘Gardeners’ Delight’. It’s going to be interesting to see which one has the best fruit in the summer.

Juliet ‘firms in’ her tomato plant. Later on, we put two cut off plastic lemonade bottles next to each plant so that we can water them easily. By using the bottles as funnels, you can make sure that the water goes straight to the roots, where it is needed most.

We had a lot of fun this week! See you next time!

FE 13.05.09

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