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!