The 2012 Season has started

With a hint of spring and much needed warmth, we've headed back out into the garden this week and have started planting - at long last!  While some children filled pots up with compost, others were busy seeding. Our first seeds are a selection of flowers and vegetables including cauliflower, peas, beans, French Marigolds, sunflowers, lobelia, lavender and lemongrass.  The children were really excited to get back into actually planting rather than hard physical work, though Gavin still wants to wheelbarrow tons of gravel!

The Heap in the Car Park.....

A few weeks ago, armed with my little trailer, we went to collect manure for our garden beds.  We went to the local Crag House Farm in Cookridge with the intent of making several trips.  Once there, we were kindly offered the use of a much larger trailer and tractor.  Trying to estimate how much manure we would need, we agreed on half a trailer load, but when it arrived and slithered onto the school car park, I knew I had misjudged it badly.  With a team of volunteers that day, we covered the majority of the beds, but there remained a huge steaming pile that looked untouched! Ooops.

And so it has sat, taking up its own car park spot since, until Interserve came to our rescue.  Interserve are the contractors working on the new Well-Being Centre at Holt Park and being cheeky as we are, we asked if they could help out on several heavy manual jobs, one of them being the relocation of our manure. Yesterday and today, two delightful men armed with spades and wheelbarrows have diligently moved it into the garden area and relieved our car park of its presence.  We can't say thank you enough to Interserve and hope to be able to work together in the near future.

Logs

Interserve also arrived with half a dozen large logs which we hope to position under the trees in a semi circle and create a story-telling/art area for the children and staff.  They need to be bedded down, but hope that it will be used regularly once the warmer months arrive.

Bird Feeders

Mrs Whitley has been her usual bargain hunting self and has acquired several bird feeders, which we have attached to our bird hide.  We are hoping to do a BBC Springwatch and cut the back out of a nesting box and attach it to one of the bird hide windows, so the children can see inside the nest box and watch any chicks growing.  Fingers crossed that the local bird population considers our residences desirable and set up home!  We'll have to wait and see!

Garden Half Term Update

With the school on half term holidays, there has been no work at all in the garden this week and so this post will be a very short one!

Wheelbarrows
We still have two wheelbarrows with very flat tyres.  We're not sure if the tyres need pumping up or there's actually a puncture.  With both of them out of action, there's usually a race between the children to get to the third remaining wheelbarrow and be in control of it!  We thought we had cracked it when we found a foot pump in the shed, but alas that was broken and our problem continued.  If you can help us in any way, please let us know.  Thanks

Hopefully, next week, we can start planting the first of our seeds which the children love. We just hope that the weather will be kind to us and we'll be able to work in the polytunnel.  It's that time of year when we take a big breath and plunge into the planting, sowing, watering and all the hard work for the next six months or so. The children certainly can't wait and are eager to start!

Watch this space!

The Garden this week ..........

With the snow and ice, our garden is both rock hard and freezing cold!  It's really too early for planting, and with the gravel finished, there's no wheelbarrowing and other jobs that will keep us warm while we work! We think we'll shatter a spade if we tried to dig! So we've stayed indoors and created garden art instead!  The children have made Boggarts, little folklore creatures out of modelling clay.  Boggarts are guardians of gardens and the children thought it would be a lovely idea to make our own and put them in our flower beds (when it's warmer!) to guard our veggies!  We have a wide selection of creatures including a dinosaur, a lion, a snake and a penguin!  Here they are sitting on top of the library shelves!

Our clay Boggarts!

....but we had a great time making them!

As you can see, they are a motley bunch.........

More Olympian Donations!

We have been given a lovely blue swimsuit and a pair of bright pink goggles for our Garden Scarecrows, but we still need a lot more!  Keep it coming!

Garden Sales

Thank you for supporting us with our garden sales. It makes quite a difference and allows us to purchase small items for the garden and your children.  The sales won't happen every week at this time of year, but later on, we hope to be out quite frequently with the children, selling our very own produce!

More Boggarts!

In the garden this week.....

We have had another busy week in the garden, with the children finishing the gravel in the polytunnel and sorting out all the pots and trays ready for next week's planting. The children thoroughly enjoy coming out with us and really work hard.  They always want to stay outside and help!

Garden Sales
The children have been helping selling our little daffodils and crocuses, spares seeds and daffodils bulbs in the school playground this week.  This seems another activity they love and there's usually a large group of children wanting join in and help which is wonderful.  

Olympic Donations

Thank you to Mrs Scholes who has kindly donated a full horse riding set of clothes for our Olympian scarecrows!  We have a riding hat, jodhpurs, jacket and boots!  It will look fantastic!  Please keep your donations coming!

Daffodils on Hillcrest Rise 

Last October, the children helped Councillor Ben Chastney and Groundworks plant hundreds of daffodils bulbs in the grass verge on Hillcrest Rise, opposite our school playground. I am very pleased to report that the daffodils are starting to appear in the grass and  will be a lovely sight in the spring for everybody to see!

Volunteers

If you would like to help us in the garden, we would love to hear from you. We are trying to form a group of people to help maintain the garden, especially the very busy summer months!  You don't have to be an expert or have any gardening knowledge and if you can spare an hour or more, that would be great. It will be totally flexible - we just need to people to weed, water, dig as well as plant and other gardening duties. Please feel welcome to come and chat to either Mrs Hawkins or Mrs Whitley at any time.

Ciaran with his bird feeder and ladybird house hanging proudly in one of our garden trees

Birdfeeders

We ran a little competition in January for designs for bird feeders and to camouflage our bird hide.  About four children went even further and actually built the birdfeeders!  The children have now hung their feeders in the garden trees and hope to attract various birds.  Elliott and Ciaran have also built two ladybird homes for the garden and yesterday, they came up to hang them in the trees too!  If you want to build any boxes or homes for the wildlife, please do and bring them to the garden!  Bat boxes, hedgehogs boxes and bird houses are all very welcome!