Friday

Had a lovely little group of children this afternoon, and we went around the hyacinths, filling their trays up with water for the weekend.  I'm not in til Tuesday, so I had visions of wilting hyacinths and dying daffodils! Honestly, I will be dreaming of these flowers soon!

Once we had gone around all the trays - there's loads of them and I'm trying to remember where I've put them all, we headed up to the polytunnel where we planted some bulbs left from last year.  They aren't the best, but as my mother says "they've got two chances, up or down", so working on that philosophy, we planted up several large pots and hope that they bloom in spring.  The pots are destined for our front entrance, which looks rather bare after our splendid summer display.  There's really not a lot to do at the moment, but to keep things ship shape and organised for next year.

Our Hyacinths

Its my first day in the garden this week as there have been other distractions, but it was a busy afternoon. Firstly we had the lunchtime gardening club which had been postponed from yesterday, as I was asked to do another job.  Last week, I had one child turn up despite me reminding them that morning, but I think I've cracked it this week.  I made myself a large sign "Lunctime Gardening Club - Meet Here" and stuck it on the end of a stick, then I paraded around the dining hall and playground advertising that the club was on!  It looked like I was on a protest!  But it worked and all the children turned up (and a few others tried to join too).  Why hadn't I thought of that earlier - with time being of an essence (we get 20 mins up there usually), it saved me time chasing after the kids!

Once we were up there, it was a massive tidying job - the vine had dropped its leaves all over the polytunnel floor and there were weeds growing in the corners!  Also, there was a little bit of watering to do.  The kids made short work of it and it made a massive improvement!

In the afternoon, I had my usual gang of gardeners - our other main job was to bring in all the hyacinths and daffodils into the warmth and get them growing for Christmas.  So we put them into trays and carried them into school.  The hyacinths were not a problem as Classes 1, 2 and 3 were growing them for their Christmas project and so they went straight into the respective classes, but the daffodils were for general sale and needed to go somewhere.  Finally, we asked the Key Stage 2 classes if they would adopt a couple of trays on the promise that I still looked after them.  All the teachers were obliging (phew).

So we've got lots of 2cm budding bulbs all over the school and we will hopefully sell the daffodils at the Christmas Fayre on the 18th December.  I just hope that they will do as it says on the tin - and flower for Christmas!!!

Putting the daffodils into trays

Reece enjoying himself

Suwera working hard

Suwera's a little cottage industry here!

David and Reece getting the hyacinths ready!

Thursday

With a sharp overnight frost, the day has been glorious!  Clear blue skies all day and I took my chance to actually work outside the polytunnel!  The rockery had been neglected - my gang of girls from Class 7 had started to plant rockery plants, but with various activities elsewhere, they haven't been up and I haven't been there!  We still had plants in their pots, so I gathered a group of boys and we tackled the rockery.

Our main problem is the ground up there is basically rubble and hardcore.  When it was landscaped in the summer, a weed suppressant was put down and covered in top soil which has improved it immensely.  But the top soil only goes down a few centimetres and then we hit the suppressant.  It was time consuming as we needed to cut the suppressant and then dig into the horrible hardcore.  Finally we got all the rockery plants planted up and looking grand.  The boys got a treat of a personal tour of pond and picking out pieces of ice that had formed on the surface.  It was a lovely day and actually reasonably warm, especially when we were digging.

Another job to cross off the list!

Christmas Hyacinths

Yesterday, I took 2 children each from Classes 1, 2 and 3 who helped plant 85 hyacinth bulbs back in October.  Since then, the bulbs have been covered with plastic and hessian sack and kept in the polytunnel, developing their root system and waiting for Christmas.

So tentatively, we pulled back the coverings (I had been periodically checking them, but hadn't been up for over a week). To our delight, most of them had shoots of about 2 - 3 cm and looking healthy.  We also checked on my mini daffodils which I hope to sell in the last week of term.  They're looking good too!

As you can see, we had some slugs in with the hyacinths.  The kids collected them all and rehomed them elsewhere in the garden.  Thankfully, they hadn't eaten the tender shoots, so we took it that they were just hibernating in the damp dark conditions under the sacking and not doing anything else! Phew!

We re-covered the bulbs with just the hessian which lets in light, but not direct sunlight and will keep checking them until the end of the week.  Then, we'll bring them into the classrooms and hopefully, getting our timing right, they will bloom for Christmas. Fingers crossed!

We then did some watering of the geraniums which are wintering in the greenhouse, planted some salad leaves and checked on our broad beans.  There's not much to do at the moment and its quite a bitter wind. Luckily being on a hill, we haven't been affected by the bad flooding, but everything is saturated and very muddy.  So it was just some housekeeping really.

Da-dah! Hyacinths growing!

However, the slugs joined in too!

We found these eggs?  What are they?







The daffodils are looking healthy too



Jaidon re-covering them with hessian sack

In January, we start our new growing season and we have a large box brimming with seed packets.  It all starts after Christmas!

Sorry!

Apologies for not blogging this past week, but I haven't been around.

On Monday I went on a school residential with our Year 5's and did crazy things like hurtling down zip wires and ending up standing atop of 10 milk crates wondering how on earth I got up there!  Way out of my comfort zone - the highest I usually go is 2 rungs up a ladder. The kids just loved it!

So we got back on Wednesday and then I've helping out with our international visitors from Finland, Ireland and Slovakia.

Next week, I hope to get the hyacinths in and hopefully blooming for Christmas! Back next week!

This week so far

Yesterday, we started to count the Morrisons Let's Grow vouchers that we have been collecting for the last few weeks.  I had been peeking in the box, thinking we hadn't got many, until I started to pull them out and it seemed endless!  There were zillions!

So I went off and got some help.  Lucy and Noah spent the afternoon counting them into piles of 50 vouchers with me and the tally came to 2927! Wow!

The next job was to choose some gardening equipment from the catalogue, which seems easy enough.  Lucy and Noah made some executive decisions and I went off to work out how many vouchers it came too.  About an hour later, after a lot of crossings out, adding items, a couple of cups of tea and a two ginger biscuits and a calculator as my brain was fizzing, I finally had a shopping list which left us with 5 vouchers left!  I went on the computer to order and to my surprise, that all went smoothly!  I was quite chuffed with myself.  All sorted and I could cross that off my never ending list!

So when I arrived at school this morning, I found more Morrison vouchers!  Aaargh!  Very kindly, people were still offering me vouchers (the more the merrier), but I had it all sorted!!!  Thankfully, Morrisons give you 48 hours to amend your order, so I've got a definite deadline now and this time tomorrow, I can forget about it again!

Thank you to everyone who collected all those vouchers for us!  It all helps.

Today, my small band of merry men and ladies, helped us clear one of the school paths.  Our school is used as a polling station and the main pathway to the voting room, is adjacent to our garden. It's also where all our compost bins are and where a large heap of manure slowly rots.  Over the months, both compost bins and manure have been overflowing and encroaching the path, as well as several bags of earth left by contractors.  It had been on my list for weeks to tackle, but now we had purpose!  Armed with spades, the kids moved the offending soil back onto the heaps from whence it came, emptied the bags of earth and swept the pathway clear.  We unhooked the hose and put that away and cut back the lavender.  Edie decided to make a posy for her mum with the last of the lavender flower, but she was soon back with Mrs Green in tow to make another posy for Miss Golia for her birthday. What a lovely thought!

Just before half term!

On the Thursday before half term, we did a little bit of housekeeping in the garden before the holidays.  We checked our hyacinths and daffodils, did a little bit of tidying and finally pulled out of the polytunnel, the four huge Olympic puppets that were donated to us by Mrs Thorpe in the summer.

Created with bamboo sticks and covered in chicken wire, they looked perfect as climbing frames for our peas and beans next year. They had been lying in a mangled mess on the floor of the polytunnel (they are not the easiest things to manhandle) so I was determined to get them in situ in the actual garden. With help from a group of boys and Mrs Whitwam, we managed to prop them up with the aid of some old fence sticks and left them at jaunty angles.

Unfortunately, we have had some high winds recently and our temporary fixings have given way, leaving our puppets in their own mangled mess again.  Ooops. However, I have sort of delegated the job of getting the puppets back into an upright position to Mr Maldonado and Class 7, under the guise of Design and Technology and problem solving!  Mr M seemed to relish the challenge and so hopefully, they will appear tomorrow and figure out how to keep these huge, ungainly and unmanageable puppets permanently stood to attention!  When they were up (albeit briefly) they looked the ticket and were a quirky addition to the garden, so I am keen to see them fixed properly!  No pressure Class 7!

Bulb planting in Holt Park

It was a bit of a rush to organise, but Mrs Colefax, Mrs Whitwam and I managed to gather 11 children together and meet Alan and Cathy of the Holt Park Tenants Association for a spot of bulb planting.

We walked down to the Holt Park Entrance, where we worked with Groundworks this time last year to redevelop a area of overgrown wasteland into a wildlife area. Today, Alan and Cathy wanted us to plant more daffodils, specifically around the bench, along the pathways and next to a residents house who had lost a little bit of the grassy area to the new path.  As the adults dug the holes, we had our work cut out as the children raced us to plant and cover the bulbs!  I was soon discarding several layers of clothing!

Next, we walked through the estate to the other side, opposite Ralph Thoresby High School and planted the remainder of the bulbs on the grass verges there.  It was perfect timing for us to walk back to school and in time for home!

Working at the Holt Park Entrance

The Team

Alan and Taylor

Rebecca patting down the grass

Izzy with her bulbs

Outside Ralph Thoresby High School

Srosh and Mrs Colefax going for the same hole!

How many does it take to plant a bulb?

Wednesday

My second lunchtime garden club this week and it was great!

All the kids turned up and we went out into the murky fog again.  Being one of the highest points in Leeds (if not the highest), the fog can be quite thick and persistent.  It was also rather damp.  There's not much you can do in 20 minutes, but we watered and checked on the Christmas hyacinths and daffodils which seem to be doing the right thing!  The broad beans are sprouting too which was a lovely surprise as nothing was happening this time last week!

I cancelled my afternoon garden group for a variety of reasons - firstly because of the aforementioned murkiness and light drizzle so we couldn't work outside, there's nothing to do in the polytunnel, I'm full of cold and lost my voice (careless I know!) and also I've got a pile of paperwork and a display to plough through!

We have been invited on yet another bulb planting expedition in early November.  Alan Mann and the Holt park Tenants Association would like us to help plant bulbs in the Holt Park Entrance and also on Holtdale Approach opposite Ralph Thoresby.  If you would like to join us, let me know.

Hopefully I will get out tomorrow and do some gardening.  It's been very stop/start these last two weeks but after half term, we can start cracking on again!

Bulb Planting in the Community

We've just planted 500 daffodils bulbs!

Working with Groundworks Leeds and the local councillors, we took nine children into a neighbouring road and planted narcississ bulbs in the grass verge.

The weather was foggy and quite murky (a typical autumnal day), but it was reasonably warm.  Armed with spades, the adults dug the holes (though the children soon took over) and the kids put in about half a dozen bulbs in the hole and had the delight of jumping on the grass to cover them.  It took us no more than a hour to plant the lot!  The kids loved it and thought it was great - especially when they found worms!  A special thanks to Ellie and John from Groundworks, Councillors Judith Chapman and Sue Bentley, Sarah O'Driscoll Duke and Ann Colefax.



The Bulb Planting Crew




Great teamwork guys!




The Muddiest Face competition



Hi Ho, its off to work we go!






The team hard at work





Ellie explaining what to do




Molly and her 3 headed bulb!





Heading home for a cup of tea! Good job, guys!



Sorry, no blog this week!

Sorry folks, it's going to be a short blog, but it's been a crazy week this week.

I only managed to get out on Wednesday afternoon with Taylor who helped me check on the Christmas hyacinths and daffodils, giving them a quick water and gave the garden the once over. 

Since then, I've been in Ireland on a school trip, visiting Swinford Primary School in Swinford, County Mayo with Mrs Speak, Mr Gamble and 11 of our pupils! I happily chatted about our garden and our organic gardening, that we sold our produce and/or gave it to our kitchen staff.  I mentioned our 40 foot polytunnel, the Lunchtime Club and our afternoon gardening sessions and told them to check out our Gardening Blog! So hopefully, Swinford Primary School will start to follow us and our gardening exploits.

Hopefully next week, normal service will be resumed, though there's a Training Day next Friday and then half term, so it might go a bit quiet for a week or two.

We're in the local magazine!!!

Unbeknown to me, somebody has mentioned Cookridge Primary School's entry in the Cookridge Show.   My father who lives in Horsforth gave me a copy of the local "Covered" magazine which is distributed in the Leeds postal areas of LS16, 18 and 19, so our gardening adventures are being spread across North West Leeds! Who has written the article, I'm not sure as I had absolutely no idea about us being in print, but hey, I'm not complaining. Our little mention is the last paragraph under Cookridge Horticultural Society Flower Show (sorry for the small print, but even the employing my techno wizard of a daughter, failed to get it any bigger.)

Class One come to the garden

On Friday, Mrs McHugh's Class One came up to plant the last of the hyacinths.  With all hands on deck, I wasn't able to get many photos myself, but Ali managed to get a few - thanks!  Check Mrs McHugh's blog for more photos!

Lining up for their pots

Covering the hyacinths

The girls have a try too!

Amy and Josh  helping Class One!

Bulb planting and other jobs

85 hyacinth bulbs later and what a brilliant week.

By Thursday I was becoming an old hand at this bulb planting and recruited 4 helpers from Class 8, who were fantastic. The girls got the KS1 children in line and made sure that they all had gloves and a pot before shuffling them towards me.  I supervised the filling of the pot with compost, and ushered them to Jamie who made sure that they put a bulb into their pot.  Joshua helped the children add more compost around the bulb and Jade showed where to put them in the trays.  Then the children covered them with plastic and hessian sacks and then went off for a tour of the garden and a story under the tree.

Today, Ali took over from Jamie and had the added bonus of taking photos of the children and their bulb.  He did a sterling job for Mrs McHugh's Class One.  Amy joined us and did Jade's job. They all did an excellent job and all thoroughly enjoyed the responsibility of it all. I was able to just let them get on with it and was proud of how they worked as a team and made it all flow freely with no fuss.  Thank you, you guys - I know who to call if I need help again!

Jamie, Joshua and Jade also helped me plant crocuses and snowdrops in our wildlife area which was another job off the list, though we need to get a lot more.  It was a start.  We also put some old chairs that were lurking in the garden in our bird hide and agreed that we need to make it all a bit more bird friendly.  Taylor appeared in the garden and between them, they are going to design some bird feeding stations and sort out our existing feeders.

Benjamin watering the geraniums

Doing a grand job!

Benjamin and Reece digging our beds

Matthew sorting out the rhubarb patch

The Snowdrop Planting Gang

Josh working hard

Jade working on the snowdrops 

Jamie and Josh with our birdhide in the background

We had a few bulbs to plant!

Class 3 plant Christmas Hyacinths

On Tuesday, the whole of Class 3, one of our Year 2 classes came up to the garden to plant their hyacinth bulbs for Christmas.

They loved it. They filled up their pots with compost, went to Mrs Hallatt to get their bulb and their photo taken and then put more soil around their bulb before covering them all up.  Some children went into our wildlife garden to plant some crocuses and snowdrops and others just had a good look around. We managed to get 30 bulbs planted within the hour!

Mrs Hallatt's photos will be on Class 3 blog.  I had my hands quite full with keeping 30 children moving and couldn't take photos!

On Thursday and Friday, we repeat the process all over again with Class One and Two, so we'll end up with 85 hyacinth bulbs flowering for Christmas (fingers crossed). I have googled the subject several times to make sure that I am doing it right and not to disappoint anyone!  No pressure, then!

Within minutes of Class 3 going back in, Class 7 appeared and after a brief hello, just set off to their jobs. It was lovely.  The sun shone and it was quite warm. There were children all over the garden, working and helping each other.  Even the two special needs children who came up were part of the group and happily digging and looking for worms. We had a little difficulty encouraging the boys to put their worms back into the undergrowth!

I got quite cross when my camera decided to run out of battery - there's no warning at all - just a brief flickering message and then dead.  And it eats batteries!  So I missed some really great photo opportunities today which was quite frustrating, so I went to our office and took a pack of batteries for my garden box! Hopefully, I won't get caught out again!

Today, we were running a bit late, but Mrs Whitwam, Reece and Taylor appeared to help with some rather little jobs. First was to empty the staffroom teabag caddy - we are training the staff to put their teabags in a compost caddy rather than the bin - and it was getting rather full.  Then it was visiting the classrooms with trays of tomatoes on their windowsills to see if there were any red ones.  We collected quite a few and we created two boxes - red tomatoes and green tomatoes and set up our market stall on the playground.  The boys were a little reticent to start shouting "come and buy our lovely tomatoes" so ended up taking the box around to the parents and managed a couple of sales.  Well done, boys.

Today was my first lunchtime Garden Club. The staff have been asked to run a club either at lunchtime or after school.  I was tempted to run an after school club as we could do at least an hour after school, until I realised that we would be gardening in the dark by the end of October!  So over the winter months, we'll do the lunchtime which isn't easy as the children need to eat their lunch (and so do I) which gives us no more than half an hour.  Six children were due to come up, but only three made it for various reasons - we need to iron out a couple of teething problems. So we couldn't really start anything serious, so we cut some lavender and had a good look at the pond. Hopefully it will get better over the next couple of weeks and the children get used to meeting me on time.  But it was fun and more children are getting to the garden, which is the main thing!

Aaargh!

Last week, I thought I had posted lots of lovely photos and some witty dialogue to describe last week with Class 7 making their regular trip up. However, when I published, the words disappeared and the pictures stayed in draft.  It was a big "NOOOOO!" moment.

So back to Class 7's trips to our garden. Basically I just open up everything up and the kids get the tools and just get stuck in!  The boys are doing a great job weeding the beds, I've got dedicated band of girls planting up the rockery, another group planting up pansies in pots, Ben is pruning the herb garden and two boys have picked up every single fallen tomato off the polytunnel floor.  The teamwork is fantastic and they are so eager. It's really great to see and I love seeing the children making the most of it all.  They are quite reluctant to go back to class!

The classroom tomatoes have been turning red and last week, Billy, Thailan and Alex started to sell them to our parents (in between eating the profits!)  It's 50p here and 50p there, but it all helps.

Sorry for such a sorry blog, but I can't remember what I wrote last week, so just enjoy the photos!

Class 7 come to the garden

The Rockery Planting Crew

The Weeders

The Tomato Sellers

The Diggers

More Diggers

The gang in the garden

The Rockery Crew from a different angle!

The Polytunnel Cleaning Crew

The Weeders

A wide angled shot

Garden from the other end

Billy the tomato guy

The hard working Class 7

You need to put it over there!