25th June - Making Comfrey Tea

Today we made some Comfrey Tea, which is a natural fertiliser plant feed which we will use in the garden for the rest of the season.  Some of the Comfrey was carefully cut down, avoiding all the bees.

The leaves where put into a large barrel.

Water is added, and the mixture is left for a few weeks - the resulting mixture is good for the plants, but is very smelly!

Some of our onions drying off.

We spotted a water-lily just starting to come out in our pond.  We also gave the pond a bit of a clean today, some green stringy stuff was growing in among all the lilies and was starting to take over.  We scooped it out with a net and disposed of it.

The cucumber patch, which have grown so much in a week they are starting to cover up our sign.

A courgette plant in the poly-tunnel.

Butternut squash plants - we have never grown these before, so we are wondering what the flowers look like?

Our vine planted at the end of the poly-tunnel, it has been tied up to the supports so that it should start to climb up the roof?

Sunflowers growing up the fence - these are the special RHS anniversary Sunflowers.

Strawberries ripening in our strawberry crate - they were picked this morning and eaten by the students at lunchtime.

Radishes are now through the soil, and Celariac has been planted out.  We are really pleased that we got some to germinate this year - last year we planted some and nothing at all came?

Digging over the cauliflower bed as something has eaten all the young cauliflower plants, despite being covered by netting?  We will plant something else in this bed instead.

Our wildflower bed is just about to burst into flower, we have cornflowers, sweetpeas, marigolds, and lots of poppies so far.

13th June - Flowers and Fruit

Our poly-tunnel is now full of plants, we have been working hard over the last few weeks to get the seedlings planted in the new raised beds.  We have the paving still to finish and then some benches to construct in the middle.  We also have to work out some sort of watering system to make it easy to come into school and care for the garden over the summer holidays - any suggestions?

A young melon plant beginning to creep and send out flowers.

We found this lovely flower, in our summer bulb box - not sure what it is?

The sweet peas we planted around the willow dome have finally taken off and are growing up the side of the walls - hopefully we will see some flowers before we break up.

One of the bog plants we planted a few weeks ago.

A tiny courgette starting to grow in our raised beds outside.

We found a 'froglet'!

The bees are buzzing around our comfrey and the wildflower bed.  Hopefully next year we will have organised a bee-hive to be sited on the school grounds.

Another wildflower we found today.

Globe artichokes in the herb bed.

One of the poppies has just come out today.

Baby cucumbers in the poly-tunnel.

Some grapes starting on the vine.

Pepper flowers in the poly-tunnel.

12th June - Developments in the poly-tunnel and some Elderflower Cordial

Our peas are creeping up the netting and seem to need weaving in and out every few days.

It was a hot day today so we needed to move the sprinkler to give our trees and wildflowers a bit of a water.

Pumpkin patch - we knew that we would not be able to get everything done in the garden extension this year, so we decided to plant the excess pumpkins on a pile of soil that we have not yet managed to shift - hopefully they will take root and climb all over the soil?

Our vine has been moved inside the poly-tunnel, we still have to work out where we should plant it.

This is one of our Aubergine plants, we were pleased to notice some flowers appearing today.

Some of the chili plants are also beginning to flower.

This chili plant already has some chilies growing on it.

This is a melon plant which we planted last week, it has already started to creep along the soil and has sent out some flowers.

Bush tomato plants in hanging baskets - lots of flowers on there at the moment.

Broad beans growing outside in an old tire.

The first cornflower to come out in our raised bed.

Mizuna growing in the greenhouse.

We were able to sell a few things from the greenhouse today, a bit of a mixed salad bag with some Mizuna and spinach plus a bunch of chives and sage.  Our hens are laying quite well at the moment, although if the good weather continues we will have to look to putting some shade in the hen run.

Some lovely poppies growing around school.

Last year we made some Elderflower Cordial which has rather an unusual taste but the students liked it, so we decided to repeat the recipe this year.  This afternoon we went out and picked some Elderflower heads, we are lucky as our school field has lots of trees around the edge, including Elder.

We needed about 20 Elderflower heads for the recipe, which need to be left in a syrup of sugar and water, with some lemon rind and juice for 24 hours.

11th June - Flowers in the Garden and a few Strawberries

Today we have been planting out the last of our plug plants which we received from entering into Cultivation Street.

Here is a barrel which was planted up by the students a few weeks ago, the flowers are all starting to come out now and look very nice outside the EPICC unit.

One of our courgette plants is starting to produce some flowers - so maybe we will see some courgettes before we break up for the school holidays?

We were given some plants to add to our bog garden, some Hostas, and a variety of other plants which we can't remember the names of!

We did a bit of weeding in and around the orchard area and discovered some ripening strawberries.

A marigold inside one of our raised beds.

Some flowers inside our flower bed - we have planted a variety of different kinds of flower, so hopefully it will begin to look really colourful in the next few weeks.

We are not really sure what this purple flower is?

We received 12 small rosemary plants and have added them to our herb bed.

One of our window boxes, planted up with fuchsias, petunias and maybe some marigolds?

Some fantastic looking poppies waiting to flower.

We have also been very busy making sure that everything is watered - on a hot day like today, the poly-tunnel needs to be watered twice a day.