A generous donation from Dobbies garden centre

More ice on the pond - one of the students enjoyed breaking the ice this morning by stamping on the surface.

We pulled a bit of ice out of the pond to see how thick it was.

We spotted a few bulbs starting to poke their way through the soil.

Dobbies garden centre  donated plants and some potting compost to our project.

http://www.dobbies.com/find-a-garden-centre/ponteland/

The student really enjoyed visiting the garden centre and choosing plants for our new sensory garden.

The sensory garden will be used by our students when they need somewhere quiet to sit and think, particularly if there has been a problem.  Our students will really benefit by having somewhere quiet and relaxing, to calm down, think and come up with a way of putting things right.

The students picked a couple of climbing roses to plant to grow up an archway which is being created over our garden gate.

The students picked lots of wavy grasses which will blow in the breeze.

There are a couple of lovely plants with bright red stems, which will look great even in the winter when there are no leaves.

We also had a trip to our local B&Q to buy some materials to build a roof on our hen run.  The tarpaulins are not substantial enough to withstand the gales we have been experiencing in the North east.  We have decided to put a permanent roof to stop the run becoming very boggy and unpleasant for the hens. Our Technology teacher has been helping out with lots of advice and a design.

The days are starting to get a little bit longer - the hens must have noticed this as they have started to lay more eggs.  Our Columbine hens, which lay the green/blue eggs stopped laying completely in December.

Signs of spring - some snowdrops starting to flower in a pot near our pond.

This is a bit of an experiment - we bought a rhubarb plant last year which we planted in a tub.  We thought that we would have a go at forced rhubarb and have put a bin over the top to see what happens?

Early January 2015

More ice on the pond - the ducks have learnt to wander around the pond and quack until someone smashes the ice for them - they are not put off by the chilly water and can be seen splashing around several times a day.

Bit of damage to the pond liner - we are a bit puzzled about how this has happened.  Maybe a foxÉ

The ducks having a few Kale leaves to eat.

Garlic coming up in one of our raised beds

A delivery for the Scholarship Group from B&Q

Today we took delivery of equipment for the Scholarship group.  

We now have enough gardening equipment for the 6 scholarship students to work in their raised beds.

Here are our shiny new wheelbarrows, hand tools and a soil sieve.

One of the scholarship students came up with a plan to keep all of the tools tidy in our tool shed.

The tool shed looks great, neat and tidy with all the new tools in the right place.

The Scholarship students salad leaves are slowly growing in the poly-tunnel.

The bulbs that the year 7 students planted while learning about coordinates are now coming up.

December in the Garden

This year we had another go at making some Christmas Wreaths using Ivy and Holly and a few off cuts from the Christmas trees.

It's quite tricky to get a good shape, but we wrapped flexible wire around the greenery to try to bend the wreath into a circular shape.

Some of the students were able to advise how to decorate the wreaths.

We had dried some apple and orange slices to add to the wreaths, we also bought some star anise and some cinnamon sticks too.

A frozen pond

The ducks were very confused by the ice on the pond, they walked around and around quacking until the ice had been broken for them.

The hens were treated this morning to some warm porridge.

The hens really enjoyed a warm breakfast on these cold December mornings.