The EPICC Garden Project in the News

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/gardening-helping-improve-lives-vulnerable-7904783

Great article on the project in The Evening Chronicle today.

http://www.northtyneside.gov.uk/browse-display.shtml?p_ID=555834&p_subjectCategory=23

Also this article on North Tyneside Councils website.

A selection of vegetables that we harvested from the garden today - we made a bit of a display for the launch.

Our stall at the Launch - we managed to take over 70 pounds, which was fantastic.

One of the students removing the husks from the outside of our sweetcorn, which will not ripen anymore - the hens are in for a treat!

Our hens really enjoy sweetcorn, whenever we put it into the run the squabble over it.

Our friends from Shiremoor Allotment Association brought a more powerful strimmer to school today, so the orchard area looks a bit tidier now.

 Some of the seeds the scholarship students planted last week have now germinated.

The students have been working removing all the rest of the chili plants from the poly-tunnel.

Removing the chili plants which were growing in pots - everything was put into our composting station.

Planting some violas.

Preparing the soil inside the poly-tunnel.  We removed the soaker hose and any weeds and the soil has been turned and dug to prepare for cabbages.

Watering the violas.

Our globe artichokes are getting bigger - when to pick them I wonder?

The Launch of the Adamson Scholarship

Today we were celebrating the opening of The Adamson Scholarship garden at Southlands School.

Dorothy Oglethorpe and Margaret Sharp came into school today to officially open the Scholarship Garden.  They were joined my students from Southlands School and John Spence who will be our first students to go through the RHS pre-level 1 qualification.

This has been made possible by a generous donation from the John and Florence Adamson Trust, and will eventually see 30 young people through the course over the course of 5 years.

Here one of our Yr 11 students is harvesting some of the last of our chili peppers in our poly-tunnel.

Two of our students are preparing the ground inside our new raised beds.

Digging over the raised beds in our garden.

1st October - working on the Scholarship Garden

Today the students worked hard on the Scholarship garden, we have the official launch of the project next week, so the time is ticking to get the raised beds made and sited on the new part of the garden.

Siting one of the beds, the students made sure the beds were level before starting to fill them with soil.

Moving one of the beds the students built onto the Scholarship site - this required a great deal of communication and team work to make sure the beds were moved safely and were sited in the right place.

The students also were busy sieving some soil which they used later to plant some seeds. 

Spring Onions, Rainbow chard and a few other bits and pieces.  The students covered the seed trays with cling film to encourage germination.

Cabbages and rosemary seedlings which were planted earlier on in the year.

We still have a lot of tomatoes which we have been slowly ripening in a dark place in trays.  We decided to slow dry some in the oven on low for about 8 hours.

We packed the dried tomatoes in clean sterilised jars and covered them with olive oil.

We also had a go at making some tomato ketchup.  We used our own tomatoes, a stick of celery a carrot, some spices and one of our chilies to give it a bit of a kick.

We were pleased with the results - looks like ketchup! The students tried it with some home grown potatoes which we made into wedges.