Planting out

Planting out the runner beans

Rowan hard at work

Robyn and Caitlin weeding and planting

Stanley, Kyle and Joshua planting peas

Good job there, Kyle!

We are having funny weather at the moment - cloudy and overcast, there's a chill in the morning (I had 4 layers on when I walked the dog at 6am), but during the day, it warms up considerably, though its that sticky humid heat that Britain seems to specialise in. But it's still cloudy, broody and overcast.

Mind you, the plants aren't complaining and seem to be in a rush to catch up. (Weeds included especially dandelions!).  Today, Joshua brought in a big bag of peas and asked if he could plant them in the garden which he did with Stanley and Kyle's help.  Robyn, Caitlin and Rowan planted the tiny bean plants we had grown in the polytunnel around the wigwams.

Later I had Sophie, Charlie, David and Antonio up who moved the flower planters up to the main entrance and planted another couple of big pots.  Hopefully, the front entrance will look pretty good, come high summer.  They then finished off the bean planting and tidied up.  Think we're on a level keel with the garden and I don't feel so frantic.  Think we need to go with the flow as we're in the hands of our unpredictable weather.  As long as I've got a few carrots and a bean to show in the Cookridge Show in September, I will be happy.

The garden blog will go quiet over the next couple of weeks.  Tomorrow I'm off to Birmingham for 5 days for the final Comenius project meeting (read all about it on the International Blog) and then it's Whitsun half term (already???).  Mrs Colefax has very kindly offered to water the greenhouse while I'm away and I'll be making little forays up too to keep everything ticking over.  I really must invest in a water system......

More pictures

The planters outisde Class 1

The entrance outisde the school

Katie and Libby



Weeding the berry patch



Class One planters

Outside our front door

Thank you, Mr Bird!

A huge thank you to Mr Paul Bird, who called in to look at our broken gate and dodgy polytunnel doors.  He just didn't look at them - before I knew it, he had his electric screwdriver in his hands and was quickly rehinging the door.  He had it done within 10 minutes!

So I can't thank him enough for making our garden neat and tidy and safe!  And all in his own time too. I can't imagine anybody else doing such a good job so quickly.  I'm very happy.

A lovely afternoon

Last night I went to my local Morrisons and bought lots of geraniums, marigolds and petunias - 2 boxes for £3.00 was a steal.

So this afternoon, I had a little gang armed with trowels and they set about planting the flowers in the planters in and around school.  To our delight, one of our mums, Mrs Johnson turned up to help too.

Later, we weeded the beds on the other side of the polytunnel.  This area tends to get rather neglected as it was set up as a blackberry/strawberry/blueberry and any type of berry area.  I really want to do some more with it, but just quite don't get there!

The children took great delight in scaring Mrs Johnson with worms and slimy snails.  There was a lot of laughter and squeals of delight.  I just hope Mrs Johnson comes back next week!

Thanks Mrs Johnson - the beds look fantastic!

Little Green Fingers After School Garden Club - photos

Planting carrots

The Club in full swing

The lettuce planting crew

The Weeding Crew

Champion planters

Tackling huge weeds

All hands on deck

Great teamwork, guys

Isn't it great?

Rain rain go away!

The British summer is NOT happening!

We've got gas fires on at night (I'm seriously thinking full central heating) and it doesn't stop raining!!!!

This morning, it rained most of the time and I was really starting to panic with what to do.  I don't want to go too mad as I've got After School Club (Little Greenfingers - yes, very original I know) to do this afternoon too.

The little tomato plants that our neighbour gave us were getting a bit too big for their pots, so we transplanted them into bigger pots.  Had two lads seiving the compost from the bins and the others filling the pots and planting the tomatoes.  My OCD came out as I had a tidy up and shifted things around - again.  Actually put the seed trays on the shelving that Ralph Thoresby put up last week!  Topped the water tank up with water - oh for a proper water system up there.  Any suggestions please, let me know!

Well, the Little Greenfingers Club is due to start so I'll sign off and see you soon.

The Weeds

Had a disgruntled lot today.

They saw the unglamourous side of gardening - weeding and they were not impressed.  We've got quite a few plant boxes around school that were happily cultivating weeds and looking quite grim.  After dragging several bags of rubbish to the school rubbish bin, we set about the plant boxes and despite my encouraging words of how much better it looked, the boys remained unsold on weeding.

So I made them do some hard labour instead, by taking some flower pots with Mrs Wright's daisies in them up to the front entrance.  I'm trying my best to reach Mrs Whitely's dizzying display last summer, but it's not going to be the same.  Of course, the wheelbarrow came out and their faces lit up and the enthusiasm returned. Phew!

The next group grabbed spades and trowels and we headed into the Reception class.  They have a small bit of ground that was equally neglected as our planters, but the kids dug it over and tidied it all up.  Later we gave the teachers some seeds to plant too.

A good afternoon with a lot done!