Today, a group of Year 9 pupils from our local High School joined us in the garden all day as part of their Enrichment Day programme. The pupils go out into the community and do various activities. Ralph Thoresby joined us last year in the garden, so we decided to work together again.
The morning was spent with just their group, some of them being ex-Cookridge pupils and I had a list for them. Move two unsightly and totally defunct tanks from the front of the garden, where everybody can see them; to make pea frames from our Olympic puppets which have been languishing in the corner; turn our compost bins and to construct some shelving that we bought about 18 months ago and never quite got to opening the packaging.
The kids were brilliant. They set about the jobs with enthusiasm and the boys started by hoisting the horrible tanks to behind the greenhouse and out of sight. Then they turned their attention to a couple of beds, setting in a couple of sturdy wooden posts and dealing with the chicken wire puppets. The boys then moved onto the compost bins and got two turned. One lad decided that our scarecrows were looking a bit forlorn and set about giving them a make-over. One now even stands up!
All this hard work, allowed me to sort out the wood box which is full of bits of odds and ends (I could do a firewood sale here), the boys had stacked up the pallets from the tanks in a corner, so all the sticks, old bamboo canes and other debris I found, I stuffed into the pallets to make a bug hotel. I also made wigwams for our peas and beans and did all those jobs that you don't quite get round too.
Sam, their leader, opened up the shelving and was confronted with lots of nuts, bolts and no instructions! I left him and the kids to their lunches and a couple of screwdrivers, but when I returned the kids were starting to help him. The weather was starting to turn. It was forecast to be nice in the morning and turn wet and very windy by 1pm. For once, the prediction was practically spot on for as 1pm approached, we felt the first spots of rain. So we spent the afternoon in the polytunnel, building ths shelving for the seeds trays. I brought up a little team of Cookridge kids and they continued the seemingly endless task of sowing seeds and then Mr Gamble turned up with his Class 9! It got all very cosy in the greenhouse.
Class 9 did what they do best and started to weed (in the rain) until it got the better of them and they retreated back into school, but several of them helped with the sowing, watering and tidying up after a really enjoyable and productive day.
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