26th September - clearing the wildflowers and the start of the scholarship garden.

Sadly we decided it was time to clear the wildflowers from underneath our little orchard.  We have been amazed by the lovely flowers which have attracted all sorts of different insects to our garden this year.  They have started to die off so we pulled them up this morning.

And created a massive pile of plant material in our garden.  Our ducks soon came over to the newly cleared area to have a look for slugs and other insects to eat.

We have piled all the wildflowers next to our composting area as we will need to chop the material up before composting it

We discovered a few frogs in the wildflower area - this one was really big, the students managed to catch it and had a good look before putting it into our pond.  

This week we have been getting ready for the arrival of our new chicks.  Our broody hen has been sitting on 4 eggs for 19 days now.  Usually hatching begins after 21 days.  A space has been cleared inside the hen house, the nesting box has been put inside with food and water.

We have put up some netting to keep the other hens out of the area as they try to get inside the nesting box with the broody hen and she is not too happy about this at all.  With the help of our Technology Teacher a heat lamp has been fitted inside the hen house to keep the new baby chicks warm, we also bought some chick crumb as baby chicks are too small to eat normal hen pellets and corn.

We started to lay a path next to our poly-tunnel, which will make getting to our composting area a bit easier.  We will put chippings on top of the weed barrier.

The poly-tunnel has had a tidy, the tables and benches have been put back ready for some bulb planting and some seed sowing next week.

Our latest plans are now underway.  We are just about to start work on developing a new area of the school garden.  This will be our scholarship garden where 6 year 11 students will embark on a Horticulture course for a year - they will all hopefully gain a Horticulture qualification from the RHS.  So far the school fence has been moved, top-soil has been spread over the site and we have received a delivery of wood from Potts in North Shields.

 

Next week we will continue to construct raised beds to put onto the site.  The students will learn a variety of skills over the next academic year from our New Regional Adviser from the RHS. 

One of the melons we managed to grow this year in the poly-tunnel.

19th September - The Runner Ducks Arrive

Sadly one of our ducks disappeared on Monday evening, we are not really sure what happened to it, but there were a few feathers around - so we think maybe it was taken by a fox?

We were very kindly offered four Indian Runner Ducks by someone from Ashington and went to collect them on Friday.  We let them out into our duck run and watched to see how they would get on with our remaining duck, which we now know is a Male, and has been swiftly re-named Derek!  

Here is our small flock of ducks exploring the garden.

They seem to have established a hierarchy already, and our original male Derek, has been demoted to being at the bottom of the pecking order.  We were amused to watch the ducks wandering around the garden in a line, one behind the other. 

Our first duck egg - it looks white, but is kind of a blue/green colour.

The ducks exploring the pond.

Our composting station is already getting some use with all the plant material which has been pulled out of the poly-tunnel.

Globe artichokes appearing on the plants we planted in the herb bed in the spring.

The students were busy this week making another Asparagus bed as we have more plants to find a home for.

The finished bed, which just needs to be sited.  The students were also practicing their skills at making raised beds, as once the scholarship site is clear they will be constructing their own raised beds and filling them with soil.

Using some of our chilies to make chili oil.

Making Chili jam, we were proud to be able to use our own tomatoes, chilies, peppers, garlic and onions.

The finished product before being put into sterilised jars.

Yuck - we found some leopard slugs in the garden.

We collected all the blue eggs from the columbine hens this week so we could sell a half dozen, they are pretty tiny, but people are really interested in their colour.

12th September - Some help from the Virgin Money Volunteers

On Friday we were lucky enough to have a team of 13 volunteers in to work in our garden for the day.  It was a lovely day and they all worked incredibly hard and really helped us out with some big jobs we had on our list.

One group transformed the weed and grass covered paths between our raised beds.  They worked hard to remove the grass and weeds.

Then put weed barrier down between the raised beds, securing it with pegs.

And then covering the weed barrier with chippings which we were given by our friends at Tynemouth Tree Surgeons.  Looks fantastic, makes our raised beds look really neat and tidy and will make the garden much easier to negotiate for our students.

 In the spring we just didn't have time to finish the floor before planting and the summer holidays.  So we have managed with a rather uneven floor for the summer.  A group of students worked hard on Thursday to clear tomato plants and cucumber plants from the poly-tunnel, harvesting the produce and clearing it ready for work to begin the next day.

It was hot, hard work in the poly-tunnel, we tried to keep the volunteers well fed and watered!

And here is the end result, two paths up the side next to the raised beds, weed barrier and gravel down the middle.  Again, it looks fantastic and will make a huge difference to the students who will be using this as their outdoor classroom.

The final group tackled a rather neglected and over-grown area behind our poly-tunnel.  We had ear-marked this area for a composting station.  The concrete slab had to be smashed up and put in the skip.

The soil was all leveled out - already the space looks so much better than it did before.

The team then had to decide how to construct the composting system.  We have been saving pallets to use for this.  8 pallets were fastened together with screws and pieces of old decking were used to brace it and make it strong and secure,  Our  Design Technology teacher had made some pegs to fasten the composter into the ground.

The finished composter.  The space looks great, totally different.  The team created something that can be easily used by the students.  The four separate areas will make it simple for the students to remember which section garden waste does into, and they will be able to see how garden waste can, over time be make into compost we can use of the garden.

A huge thanks to Virgin Money - we really enjoyed having your team in our school for the day, they have made a huge difference to our garden project.

Thank You!

11th September - Picking tomatoes

This is our broody hen, here she is in our hen house sitting on four eggs.  She has been incubating them for a week now, another two to go before we should see any sign of baby chicks.

This is one of our new Columbine hens, they look quite different to the ones we have had before.  The blue/green eggs they lay are proving rather popular.

We decided it was time to pick the outdoor tomatoes, there are loads on the plants, but we have had some quite cold nights recently so the plants are starting to die off.

We picked some sweetcorn which was ready too.

One of the students wanted to see if the hens would eat the tops of the sweetcorn as they looked like ears of corn.  The hens liked pecking at the seeds so we collected at the sweetcorn tops to keep for feeding the hens.

More cucumbers in the poly-tunnel.

I'm really not sure what one of the students was thinking here - a few people did comment that if we planted the eggs we might grow eggplant?

Removing the green tomatoes from the plants.  We will compost all the plant stems and leaves.

This is only part of the tomato harvest - we will try and ripen the tomatoes by putting them in the dark in a warm place.  We will also try and make some preserves with some of the green tomatoes too.

A few more of the things we harvested from the garden today - lots of chilies, different tomatoes and some peppers.

A trip to Durham Hens

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Today we visited Durham Hens.  We have been getting a few hens each year from Durham hens, since our project began.  It is always a popular visit for our students who enjoy going out to County Durham, visiting the fantastic set up they have at Durham Hens and selecting new hens for our little flock.

Its a great place to go, the staff are always really helpful, offering advice over which breeds to buy and how to integrate them with the rest of our flock.  We decided to separate the new ones in a section of our run - however, they broke in with the rest before school the next day - so far they seem to be mixing well.

Two columbines, one speckledy, one white leghorn, one amber and a rhode rock were picked to come back to North Tyneside.

As well as buying 6 new hens, one of our original flock has 'gone broody' and has been sitting on a nesting box pretty much constantly for the past week or so.  We decided to see if she can hatch a few eggs, so we bought some fertilised eggs, four different types, handily numbered so the students do not collect them by accident.  This is quite unlikely as our broody hen is rather protective and territorial.

The eggs were placed in the broody hens nesting box - she has claimed one and will not let any of the others near.

The two new Columbine hens lay rather distinctive eggs, one laid one inside the box we used to transport the hens back to school - you can see its a bit smaller than the rest and a blue/green colour.