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!