Gardening in February

A frosty start to February, but our primulas are beginning to flower in our raised bed in front of our building.

Adding some chippings to our paths.

The local council very kindly gave us a trailer load of wood chippings, they were spotted cutting down some bushes in front of our school and were happy to give us the wood chip.  We use a lot of wood chip at school in our hen run and on our paths in-between the veggie beds.

Our wine crate hedgehog house is now complete - we just need a hedgehog!

Thanks again to The Wine Chambers who gave us the wine crate.

We decided the hen run roof needed a bit of attention, we had tried to keep off the water with a tarpaulin, but it had got all torn in the high winds.  We bought some plastic sheeting and some roofing screws, the staff and students put together a frame to fasten the sheets to.

Here is the frame which has been fastened to our existing run.

Some of the fencing posts had to be trimmed so that the roofing sheets could be fastened all the way up to the sides of the run.

The first signs of our purple sprouting broccoli.

Salads growing in the poly-tunnel

Pepper plants growing in our heated propagators.

A path along the side of the poly-tunnel is started, weed barrier has been put down, chippings will eventually go on top.

During the half-term holidays some of the staff got together for a bit of planting.  We have plans to have a mini garden centre during our enterprise week this year, so we needed to get some of the plants started early.  

Some transplanted seedlings - I think these are pinks?

Some tomatoes - we have decided to grow a few different varieties this year.  The little yellow tomatoes were really tasty last year, so we have put some more of those in, also some stripy ones too.

We are having a go at forcing rhubarb this year, it is starting to sprout - we have covered it with a spare compost bin to keep out the light.  Apparently it is very tender and sweet if you do this?

We had a delivery of compost to top dress the new raised beds in the scholarship garden.  The students moved the soil in wheel-barrows and carefully raked the soil until it was nice and smooth.

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.