We spotted the first pumpkins starting to grow!

Today we spotted the first baby pumpkin just starting to grow.

Here are our outdoor tomatoes, think they may be cherry tomatoes?

Our sweetcorn is flourishing in the hot, humid weather, it is growing so quickly.

Our beans are quickly growing up the canes, and our plant label too.

Our peas are doing well and will be ready for picking very soon.

Our beautiful wildflower bed is currently blooming - here are some new flowers we spotted today.

 More of our lovely wildflowers.

We also picked more of our blackcurrants today, from our fruit bushes we have picked 2lbs of fruit so far.

More fruit and wildflowers

Our garden seems to have survived last nights storm, today we have bee gathering more raspberries and blackcurrants to go in the freezer for jam when the school term starts in September.

Our sweetcorn is benefiting from the hot sunny weather and is really starting to grow.

 Our wildflower bed is looking fantastic with loads of different varieties, the bees are buzzing around and seem to be enjoying the wildflowers almost as much as we are.

Our courgettes are starting to flower and there are the first sign of baby courgettes too.

First eggs from our new hens

Four very tiny eggs from our new hens

     For comparison - on the left is a regular sized egg from one of the hens we have had for a while.

New Hens!

Today we went to buy four new hens, we went to Durham Hens near Tow Law in County Durham.  The students (and staff) were amazed by the huge numbers of hens and the different breeds that they had to choose from.

After a lot of deliberation we chose four 20 week old hens to take back to school.

Loading our new hens into the mini bus to take them back to school.  We hope that they will all settle in okay.

Tasting the first of our beetroot at our beach BBQ

Today we took our students to Seahouses, we went fishing for Mackerel which we cooked at Beadnell Beach afterwards.

Here is the first of our beetroot which we wrapped in foil and cooked on the BBQ coals - delicious!

Look what's growing in our garden.

 Blackcurrants and Redcurrants

The first of our garlic and peas

 Some of our outdoor tomatoes and our lavender

 Chilli peppers growing in the greenhouse and raspberries

 Wild strawberries and our first bowl of raspberries

More wildflowers

Our wildflower bed is blooming and buzzing with bees, here are a few more of our lovely wildflowers.

Creating some shade for our hens

Our hens have been suffering a bit in the heat, so today we tried to make them a bit more comfortable by making a few shady spots in their run.

                                            Two of our hens basking in the sunshine.

We used some conifer branches to make a lean-to shelter and a tarp to block out a bit of the sun - last year we had to use the tarp as a rain-shelter for the hens!

Our hens even get their own parasol!

Hero the hen getting some shade in the shelter.

Today we pulled the first of our garlic which was planted in the Autumn, we will use it along with some of our fresh herbs to make flavoured olive oil.  We also planted out some pumpkins, our butternut squash plants are looking good too!

10th July - Wildflowers

Today we have been looking at the wildflowers growing in our garden, we decided to sow a whole bed with wildflower seeds (which were sent to us by The RHS Campaign for School Gardening), in the spring to try to attract lots of bees to our garden.