Veggie Beds Gallery - July 2011

     

Peace Garden Update

We have been doing our project on the peace garden and we are nearly there we have now got 2 shelters & 2 meadows. In the meadows are wildflowers and now poppies are popping up here and there. We have a log table which took a majority of the six weeks that Liz was here for. It is made of different sized logs and thick branches.

The Great British Elm Project

Our Elm is doing great it is one of the tallest in the area and we are regularly updating our profile on, the girth, the height, the number of leaves and if there is any disease at all. We have had the elm for around 2 years it has developed so much since then so we are very pleased that it has not got the deadly disease!

                                                                                           

Our Elm’s Record

Automatic Watering System

The Noyse Family fitted our new watering system for the polytunnel which Mr Chatwin’s sister donated. Mrs & Mr Noyes bought us a timer and a 4 tap water system they then also fitted all of this for us. We have also fitted 4 small sprinklers and lots of drippers so that each individual plant gets the same amount of water. This brings our polytunnel great benefits as we don’t have to water it every day it comes on automatically at 4:30 in the morning as it’s the ideal time as the sun doesn’t evaporate the water. 

Wood Work Artist Liz Dorton

Liz has been working with ten families on Wednesdays from 3:30 until 5:00 for 6 weeks to produce a sculpture trail, pottery, and little animals made of wood. We managed to get Liz with the money from our Big Lottery Fund for the Peace Garden as this came out as one of the most popular things to do with part of the money. We felt that this linked all of our grounds and gardens together.

Working with Mr Hickling (RHS)

Mr Hickling came in to our school to help us prepare for our open days. We planted up basil, salad leaves and rocket, we covered them in vermiculite which keeps the moisture in and the weeds out. He gave us some great art ideas including wands out of willow and patterned leaves. These ideas should help in our school seen as we are a creative school.

Cosmos Apprentice Challenge

Class 6 have been running ‘The Apprentice’ in their class for the past 5 months. Our task was to grow cosmos flowers and take it right the way through to selling. We also had other tasks to do which were to produce a Business Plan (Task 1), Write A Letter To Local Business People (Task 2), Working As A Team (Task 3), Market Our Products (Task 4), Write Instructions (Task 5), The Health Of The Plants (Task 6), Making Money (Task 7). This task has been fun, exciting and we are all desperate to win!

Working on the Peace Garden

On Saturdays children and parents have been coming to school to help build the peace garden. On Saturdays they did jobs such as planting, digging, watering and building. They all worked very hard knowing that in the end it would be something special. Some Saturdays it was adults only because on dangerous equipment but children have also done a lot of the work.

The Moving Of The Ash Tree

In the wildlife area we recently had to cut down a Ash tree for several reasons. So there would be more light in the wildlife area, so we could use it in her sculpture work and so the wildlife area would be less crowded. Class 6 managed to shift the tree in just over 45 minutes. We used lots of string and lots of people to move the big trunk.

News Reports

The RHS sent out an article to all the local news programmes, magazines and newspapers. We had visits from the Yorkshire Post, The Journal and Calendar News. Calendar News came and interviewed three of the school pupils, Ryhannan, Alice and Peter. They also interviewed Mr Roe. They videoed us doing little jobs round the garden like weeding, digging, and raking. We hope this will give us a real boost on our open garden days.

Our Yorkshire Post Article

"The Apprentice" Growing Cosmos Competition

Class 6 are taking part in a business enterprise project based one the TV show "The Apprentice". There task is to grow cosmos, along the way there are a number of challenges to face before the sale we have to market the brand, grow the cosmos, learn to work as a team. The aim of the game is to earn as much profit as possible and get the most parents/carers to buy your product. Who will win, you decide!

Planting Trees

Last week Eco/Gardening club planted 30 trees at the end of the field we hope they will grow to create a woodland. We moved the trees that we got last year from the Woodland Trust they were a mixture of Silver Birch, Cherry and Rowan trees. The Woodland Trust have just sent us the new ones for this year so we will be planting them soon and hopefully we will be able to make an even bigger woodland next year.

Sustainable gardening ... with strawberries!

Today we dug up all our strawberry plants and potted on all the new plants we could find ... 126 in all.

The plan is to grow these on in the polytunnel on the work benches that Mr Chatwin has made for us.

Eventually we will sell these plants and try to make sure that we can fund all of our gardening from our gardening.

Cycling to school

After the Christmas break and the terrible weather cycling seems to be making a comeback as a way of getting to school.

Peace Garden ... First Saturday Workday

On Saturday 29th January we had our first Saturday workday in the new Peace Garden.

The temperature never really got much above zero and so we needed to keep busy.

We dug trenches for hedge planting, moved the Home Front Recall Memorial, began to create gravel paths with log-roll edging, pruned hedging, prepared the ground for paving and even managed to re-turf the Anderson Shelter.

Many thanks to all those that came to help out, your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Heeling In

Last year parent helpers took cuttings from the wildlife area and we used them to plant a hedge.  We now had to move the hedge to fit in with plans for the new Peace Garden.

We dug up all the plants (dogwood, hazel and dog-rose) and have heeled them in to a raised beg.  This means the plants have been laid flat and had their roots covered over.  When we create a new hedge in the peace garden we will re-plant these plants in it.  For now the plants don't mind being moved because they are dormant (asleep for the winter).

Peace Garden Gets Going

Today we the Gardening/Eco Club began to make the peace garden.  We got stuck into uprooting a hedge that was made with cuttings from the wildlife area and then Mr Chatwin and Mr Roe marked out all the different areas of the garden with spray paint.  The semi-circle in the picture will become the paved entrance to the garden.

On Saturday parents, teachers and children will be working hard to make pathways in the new garden.

Class 6 Getting Mucky

Yesterday Class 6 went into the garden and tidied it up. Some of us went around the school grounds litter picking. A couple of us went and refilled our pond (we discovered that there was a leak in the pond). Meanwhile some of us tidied up the veggie beds that had a lot of weeds in. After some of us dug up the veggie beds to soften them up from the cold winter. Mr Roe and some others tidied up the shed. Some of us made a sign for the fruit waste bin, stuck it on and emptied it in the compost bin.  We also took the seed heads from the artichoke plant and hug them up for the birds in the wildlife area.

We Welcome Mr Adey from Eco Schools

Wednesday 12th January we are welcoming Mr Tony Adey from Eco Schools who will be with us to see how we are doing with our action plan and teaching about Green issues.

These are recent pictures of work done in school to help remind us about our eco-code.

Class 1. PLANET Protect our natural Environment

Class 2. PLANET Lights out when not in use

Class 3. PLANET Always recycle waste

Class 4. PLANET Nurture your love of nature

Class 5. PLANET Eat all your dinner

Class 6. PLANET Taps off when not in use

Parsnips on Parade

Today we pulled up our Parsnips. These are the ones that we planted last March for around this January time. There are lots of different sizes big ones, small ones, skinny ones, and big fat juicy ones!  We are going to ask Mrs Peacock to pull out her best roast parsnip recipe.

We've had enough of the snow!

The snowy weather gave us 3 days off school, but it may have caused major damage to plants in the garden.  We have also burned an enormous 1000 liters of heating oil.

Banana Pups Update

Before Christmas it looked as if all of our banana pups were dead.  All their leaves had turned brown and crispy.  But when Mr Roe took them to the compost heap and tipped them on he could see that two of the three plants had begun to send out new roots.  He quickly potted them up again.

Banana and it's Pups

This week we will be separating the baby banana plants (called 'pups'!) from their mum!  We have spent some time researching how to do this.  See these these links.
How to 1 How to 2

The transplanting went reasonably well.  Two pups had roots and one didn't.  We are praying and hoping and hoping and praying that they will all survive.

Mum looks healthy and beautiful if a little lonely.  There is another pup coming already.

Next Year's Beans

We harvested some beans and left them to dry out on a windowsill.  Next we opened the bean pods. Then we got some envelopes and we put the beans inside for next year.

The tiny hedgehog

This is a picture of a tiny hedgehog I found in my back garden. My mum, dad and brother suggested that I should put it on the Autumn Watch web site, so I did. Me and my mum put it onto Flickr and then onto the Autumn Watch web site so the world can see it.
Julia

Pumpkin Carvings

Halloween meant that the Noyes family (pumpkin experts) had the opportunity to carve the pumpkins from the school garden into some amazing patterns.  Which is your favourite?

Sunflowers for the birds

Last week in gardening club we put the old sunflower heads out for the birds to eat in he winter food when there are no creepy crawlies ... apart from the children!

This week we tied the larger sunflower heads up in the wildlife area for the birds to eat.  The seeds from the smaller flowers we put into bird feeders.

Shedsters!

This lunchtime Lily , Gina and Alice tided the shed and it is now looking spotless! We came across plant pots, tools, gloves, wellies and lots more stuff that has been accidentally hidden away! We now know where more stuff is so we can use it an awful lot more!

Fungus

Today we found a blue mushroom, in our wildlife area, and Mr. Chatwin has been bringing in Giant Puffballs to spread there spores in the wildlife area. We are planning  to grow our own mushrooms next year from the spores.

Grapes from home

Amazingly the Renwick family have managed to grow beautiful, juicy, sweet, delicious grapes at home.

Mr Roe gets to enjoy them frequently.

Paper Recycling

This is our paper recycling from 2 weeks! We recycle in class 2,3,4,5,6, the office and staffroom.We empty it every 2 weeks so we don't end up with too much of an overflow.

Choosing what to grow

Last week at gardening club we looked at the catalogues for veg and decided that we were going to grow weird and wonderful veg theme in our garden. the types of fruit and veg were e.g. black potatoes, purple carrots, pink beans and cream betroots and many more.