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Post by derekbrooks on Mar 17, 2011 20:37:58 GMT
The school had been sent 30 small sapling trees from Woodland Trust .There were about 6 different kinds and the "life skills"children planted them along a border at the front of the school. We are going in for a potato competition again as we did last year and the garden club children planted them.There were 2 kinds-Vales emerald and Rocket.They had been chitting for a few weeks.The bags that they had to be grown in had been sent with the potatoes.On a given date the bags have to be emptied and the potatoes weighed. We then sowed some sunflowers in drinking cups and some other flower seeds in trays. One boy in garden club's parents have bought him a greenhouse and he has got tomatoes growing on the kitchen windowsill to plant in his greenhouse and he told me other things he was going to grow.This is very encouraging and it shows that what we are trying to do at school with the children is bearing fruit ,with one child at least. Each child today was given a pot of shamrock to take home because it is St Patricks day.These had been grown at school. I can,t go to school next Thursday because we are going on a trip to Grange from Blackleach.We had our honeymoon there 52 years ago and have never been back since. I have made up a new sowing and planting plan for the veg plots starting the week after when I will be there again.The plan had to be changed from last year because the school holidays are different.
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Post by derekbrooks on Mar 17, 2011 20:43:11 GMT
This is the bug hotel we finished last week
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Post by derekbrooks on Mar 17, 2011 20:46:41 GMT
A pot of shamrock for each child
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Post by derekbrooks on Mar 31, 2011 21:00:27 GMT
Today there was no life skills class but in the garden club we started the sowing and planting plan that I had worked out.If you remember from what I said before I have to plan the cropping so that nothing is ready for harvesting in August when the school is closed.They either have to be ready by July or not till September.Today we have sown peas and cabbage in drinking cups and 3 varieties of lettuce in cell trays.These should all be ready by July.I couldn,t go last Thursday but they planted onion sets in drinking cups.These can be harvested in July if they are big enough but if not they will keep till September.
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Post by derekbrooks on Apr 2, 2011 22:23:46 GMT
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Post by derekbrooks on Apr 2, 2011 22:31:59 GMT
Forgot to mention on Thursday that we had got some new chickens at school and I forgot to take my camera.So I called yesterday and took a picture then I could show you.
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Post by derekbrooks on May 6, 2011 21:14:21 GMT
There has been no life skills or garden club since March 31st.The school has been closed most of April.I told you that I had made a sowing and planting plan starting on April 28th when it was due to start again.However they decided to have a party for the Royal wedding then so we didn,t start again till yesterday.Of course I thought that we would be a week behind but Gina had done all the jobs I had planned for last week which were planting potatoes,and sowing calabrese,chard ,leeks and lettuce. Yesterday the life skills class weeded the butterfly and sensory gardens.The garden club children sowed French beans in drinking cups and sowed carrots,turnips and beetroot outside.They also planted out lettuce and onion sets which were sowed and planted in pots a few weeks ago.
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Post by derekbrooks on May 6, 2011 21:18:57 GMT
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Post by derekbrooks on May 6, 2011 21:21:37 GMT
I showed you a picture of the chickens on April 2nd.The school is just keeping these five.The rest have gone to someone on the allotments.
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Post by derekbrooks on May 12, 2011 22:23:18 GMT
Some of the "life skills"children worked with Gina weeding one of the gardens.Two boys worked with me planting tomatoes.I have grown the plants myself at home.last year we grew them in grow bags but this year we are using 9 inch square pots.We have been given a lot of these pots.We are using Sinclair potting compost which I brought from our society supply hut.We also sell multipurpose compost at £4.20 which I bring to use for most jobs but I decided that for tomatoes the potting compost would be better .It is dearer(£5.50) but it works out cheaper than using growbags.We planted 12 today ,4 each of Shirley,Gardeners delight and Golden sunrise..I took 3 bags of compost and there is nearly half a bag left so I thing I will take some more plants next week and use it up. In garden club we sowed cauliflowers in drinking cups ,more lettuce in cell trays and swedes and radishes direct in the beds. We have some plastic tubes about 6 inch diameter fixed to a fence in which we grow long carrots.We left the same old compost in them from last year but made bore holes in them and filled them with sieved compost.Last year we put 3 bore holes in each tube but today we just made one because we are using the same packet of seeds and there aren,t enough seeds left for 3 holes.
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Post by derekbrooks on May 19, 2011 21:54:33 GMT
In "Life skills" today two of the children at a time worked with me .We planted 4 more tomato plants which I had taken,in large pots.6 sweet peppers and 5 chillies which I had ordered from Dobies came yesterday and I decided that we grow these in growbags,3 in each.I cut holes in the bags and the children planted them.The rest of the children were doing pond dipping. In garden club some children worked with me and the rest did some weeding on their plots.We planted out some peas that they sowed in drinking cups a few weeks ago and also some cabbages.We also sowed broad beans direct in the bed and some in pots to fill gaps in case any don,t germinate.
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Post by derekbrooks on May 19, 2011 22:15:00 GMT
Tomatoes planted in pots in polytunnel
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Post by derekbrooks on May 19, 2011 22:20:27 GMT
Sweet peppers and chillies planted in grow bags
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Post by derekbrooks on Jun 16, 2011 22:31:33 GMT
The "life skills"class and garden club started again today after half term.The life skills were all different children who had not done gardening before so as usual they had to have a health and safety lesson first.By the time they had done this there was just time to plant some cucumbers in 9 inch pots.These came from Dobies a few weeks ago but they were rather small so had kept them in my greenhouse till today when I thought they were ready for planting. I told you before that we had entered a potato growing competition.There were two varieties-Vales Emerald and Rocket Some of the garden club children worked with Gina harvesting them from the bags and then they had to weigh them.The Vales Emerald weighed 1.9 kilos and the Rocket 1.24.These are not as good as I had hoped so I don,t think we will win but it is a job the children like doing. The other children worked with me on the veg beds.There were several things that had been sown before that were ready for planting but we didn,t have time to do them all.We did plant sweet corn,celery,French beans,courgetes and cauliflowers.We didn,t get time to plant the chard and broccoli
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Post by derekbrooks on Jun 23, 2011 22:24:06 GMT
Today the "life skills"children and the garden club did the same jobs.Some of them worked with Gina giving "Fred the head"a haircut.If you don,t know what this is it is a large pile of soil covered with grass with a nose ,mouth and ears to make it look like a head.It has montbretia growing on the top for his hair.The grass had got too long and looked untidy and they were trimming it. The rest of the children worked with me and we planted things out that were sown earlier as we did last week.We put in calabrese,chard and onions.The lettuces we planted before were ready for harvesting and the children all took one home and some radishes.We then planted some more lettuces where these others had been.
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