A delivery of plants

We orders some Asparagus plants a few weeks ago, I think there are 20 plants.  We have been researching how to grow Asparagus and have decided which raised bed to plant it in.  We were surprised to discover that it will be a few years before we will be harvesting our own home-grown Asparagus.

Having entered a competition created by David Domoney we were delighted to receive 200 free plug plants just for entering.  There are a variety of different plants, Rosemary, Fushias, Petunias, Daisy's and a few more.

http://www.daviddomoney.com/cultivation-street/

The instructions said that we had to remove them from the packaging and give them a good water and leave them for at least a day before planting them.  They should add a bit of colour and interest to our garden.

RHS School Gardening Awards Level 5!

We were all very proud to receive the news that we have achieved Level 5: Celebrating in the Wider Community.  We received two plaques one to put up in the school foyer and the other in our garden a certificate and garden centre vouchers which we are planning on spending on a watering system for the new garden and poly-tunnel.

We also received a 'Highly Commended' certificate for our entry into the RHS School Gardening Team of the Year competition.

Our poly-tunnel had its first use as our outdoor classroom this morning as the weather was very wet,  The students were potting on tomato plants.

The cable reels we rescued from the skip during the alterations to the school last summer have come in really handy as potting tables.

Young purple and green basil coming up in our hanging baskets.

21st of May - Poly-tunnel doors and planting out.

Our friends from the Shiremoor Allotments Association came to work on our poly-tunnel today, this time to put in the ends of the tunnel.

They had come up with some excellent ideas about how we can ventilate the poly-tunnel in the summer by putting in netting in a couple of the panels, this will allow the air to circulate, but will not let the bugs in.  They also created some removable perspex panels which we can add in the colder months of the year.  We happily were able to use some perspex that we salvaged from some old display boards in school which were cut down and shaped to fit.

This is the inside of the poly-tunnel today - some hanging baskets have been put up, and some tomatoes are ready for potting on tomorrow.

It was a lovely day here - temperatures reached 30 degrees in the poly-tunnel today!

Our tadpoles are changing shape and are slowly getting the beginnings of legs. 

Today some of our Yr 9 students were helping in the garden with planting some flowers in old tires.

Kale planted in one of our new raised beds.  

Pumpkin plants planted in some of the tires which were decorated by our Yr 8 Art class.

Sweetcorn planted in another raised bed - there are some outdoor tomatoes planted in there too,

More veggies planted out.

Sweetcorn and our fantastic new RHS plaque for our Level 5 garden.

Marigolds being planted at the end of one of the bed.  We have tried to grow a lot of marigolds as they are good at keeping some garden pests away from the plants.

Filling up some large planters for flowers.

We have had to move our fennel plants to a sunnier spot in the garden - they didn't seem to be very happy growing in our shady herb bed.

We filled a large planter with a mixture of manure and soil and planted our rhubarb plant inside.

Our Yr 9 students learnt about how to transplant seedlings today.

Our garden is starting to fill up as we transplant seedlings into our new raised beds.

Watering the seedlings with the hosepipe is quite a popular job with the students.

We spotted some yellow irises in the pond just starting to bloom.  Over the weekend our pond as totally cleared, all the material which gathered in the water when the surrounding buildings were demolished has now settled to the bottom of the pond.  We were delighted to spot a tadpole hiding on the bottom and even a couple of pond-skaters on the surface.

We also spotted some cherries growing in our little orchard.

16th May - Putting the plastic on the Poly-tunnel

Today our friends from the Shiremoor Allotment Association arrived to fit the plastic cover to our poly-tunnel.  It has been fantastic having such great help from people who really know what they are doing.  Our students have enjoyed having visitors to our garden and have learnt a lot from them.

Here is our roll of plastic to cover the poly-tunnel.  We were advised to put it somewhere nice and warm so that it was ready for fitting.  Thanks to the person who has had it on their office windowsill for the past couple of days!

The roll of plastic was put on top of the frame - someone came up with the great idea of putting a brush handle inside the roll to make it easier to unroll across the roof.

Rolling the plastic film out down the length of the frame.

Deciding which side to unroll first.

We had plenty of helpers in the garden today.

Unrolling the plastic film down to the ground.

Unrolling the cover on the other side - we were a bit apprehensive that the cover was not big enough - but we had nothing to worry about the cover was huge and needed a bit of trimming.

Stretching the plastic over the ends.

Stretching the sides and attaching them to the base.

The weather today was perfect for putting the cover on, lovely and warm with little wind - although the odd gust of wind required the students to help weighting the cover down with their feet.

Here is the poly-tunnel as we left it for the weekend.

15th May - Moving manure and soil.

We were given a generous donation of plants, some herbs, spring bulbs and other perennials to plant around our garden.  We have been finding homes for them this afternoon.

The students got started on moving the mountain of manure and top-soil over to our raised beds.  The manure went in first and was spread around the bottom of each bed, this was then covered with the top-soil.

 

Loading up the wheelbarrows to move the manure and soil over to the raised beds.

One of our pumpkin plants planted up in a tire.

We spotted a water lily beginning to grow up from the bottom of the pond, its quite hard to see, but it is kind of a red colour.

Some rockery plants have been planted in the hibernaculum.