12th February planting a new flower bed

We started work on our new flower bed today.  First the grass was removed and the soil dug over.

Here are some of the plants we bought last week.

A wheelbarrow full of Primulas to add a bit of colour to our raised bed of spring bulbs.

We decided where to put the flowers, and used the hand tools to dig a hole for each plant.  We put a small amount of manure in each hole before putting the plant in.

Planting some lavender in the new flower bed.

Planting a few flowering bedding plants to add a bit more colour.

We also acquired some more raspberry canes which will be planted with the rest of our fruit bushes in the new garden.

Watering in all of our new plants.

Our Yr 8 Art classes are going to be using this pile of tyres to add a bit of art to our garden.  They are going to decorate the tyres and then we will use them to create planters for more flowers and plants.

As it was such a lovely day today, we managed to get lots of jobs done outside - here our group are digging over one of our raised beds where we grew kale and chard.

A new Hellebore, which has been planted in our spring bulbs bed, its quite shaded here so this plant should be very happy. 

Some more of our spring bulbs are creeping threw the soil, yellow, purple and blue crocuses.

Some of our herbs are starting to grow back, this looks like Italian Parsley?

Some of the seeds we planted a couple of weeks ago have started to germinate and sprout through the soil.

We spotted some signs of life in the Comfrey bed too.

And a few seeds have started to sprout in our wild flower bed too - hopefully it will be as beautiful as last year.

6th March - More signs of Spring

 Our Crocus's are coming up through the soil is our new raised bed.

Signs of life in the pond too - some of the aquatic plants are starting to grow.

Some more spring flowers around school.

Our strawberry plants are showing some signs of life again.

We received some trees from the woodland trust today, Cherry, Rowan and Alder.

We just need to decide where to plant our new trees.  We had a visit to Plantsworld in Gosforth today to buy some flowers for a new bed we hope to be planting next week.

Our onions are sprouting.

Some of the seeds we planted with Sarah are beginning to come through - the Calendula is looking good.

Some more of our seeds are starting to germinated and push through the soil.

Here are a few more of the plants that we bought from Plantsworld.

Hyacinths starting to flower

Primulas

We also had a good look at our fruit trees which are just starting to bud.  We had hoped to get them into the ground before they start to leaf - we are counting the days till the demolition............

February 26th, planting seeds and trees, garden tour and outreach.

Planting peas into old tyres.

We also transplanted some spinach too.

Preparing some seed trays, filling them with compost and writing out labels so that we know what we have grown.

Some beetroot has been planted in this tray - its rather unusual, yellow, stripy and white!

We rescued a holly tree from the building site and have moved it into a space next to our building, we dug a big hole, carefully put the tree into it and packed soil around the roots.  We watered it to try to encourage it to grow in its new home.

We also planted some seeds using a seed tape.  We found that the seed is hidden inside some white biodegradable tape which will rot into the soil as the seeds grow.  

We held our first RHS Spring Twilight Training at Southlands on the 16th of February.

We showed staff from other local schools around our garden and explained our plans for the future.

Sarah Carrie explained about the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and demonstrated some excellent activities which staff could take back to their schools to do with their students.

We are also going to be hosting a seed swap at Southlands on the 12th of March. where seeds and ideas can be swapped and exchanged.

20th February - Some signs of Spring

We noticed some signs of spring when we visited the garden today

I think these are onion sets which were planted a few weeks ago.

Petunias are showing some signs of life too.

Our tray of mixed carnations are beginning to sprout.

Our daffodil bulbs are coming through - these are sheltered in the greenhouse at the moment so are protected from all the bad weather we have been having recently.

We had a look at our fruit trees to see if we could see any buds forming.

Hopefully not long now till we can plant our young trees in the soil in our garden extension - just a bit of building work to finish at school and then the demolition begins.

Some of the bulbs we planted in our new bed back in November are starting to make an appearance.

12th February - planting seeds with The RHS

We found a use for our off-cuts of logs which we put around our new pond!

Sarah made a different type of bird-feeder today - you put a piece of bread in the top and hang it up in the garden for the birds to eat.  We will be making a few more of these in the next few weeks.

Our RHS group made some pots from old newspapers, and planted a variety of different flower seeds.

Nigella, callendula

Some summer bulbs - making good use of some old recycling boxes.

More flower seeds - we have big plans to have more flowers this year.

Oh and we also made a pizza using some of the chilies we harvested at the end of the summer and then dried to keep for the winter.