14th September

 The Sweetcorn is ripening and should be ready to pick quite
soon?  Some of our Beetroot is enormous, we should be picking it this week.

The pumpkins are still growing, we found a new one hidden behind the veggie box.

Our wildflower bed is starting to die back a bit now, but there are still poppies and our Cosmos looks lovely and is still attracting the bees.  We started collecting a few seed pods which we are going to keep in a jar so that we can hopefully have another wildflower bed as beautiful as this one next year.

We love the colour of this Rainbow Chard - and the seed heads that we have collected so far.  We liked looking at all the different shapes of seeds.

Red Tomato Chutney and A hen in the classroom!

We picked more of our greenhouse and outdoor tomatoes this morning and after searching around for a recipe we decided to make Autumn Tomato Chutney.

Our chutney starting to simmer on the stove.

The finished product!

The recipe was adapted from a Good Food recipe - 

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2644/autumn-tomato-chutney

1kg Ripe tomatoes - peeled and diced.

750g of apples and pears, peeled, cored and diced.

375g brown sugar

1 pepper - de-seeded and diced

2 chilies - de-seeded and finely chopped

250g onions - peeled and diced

250g raisins

350ml vinegar - cider or white.

1/2 tsp salt

We peeled, chopped and diced everything and put it into a large pan and simmered it for about 45 -55 minutes.  We sterilised some jars and carefully put the hot chutney into clean, hot jars.

We tasted the little bit that was left in the pan with some crackers - it was sweet, quite spicy with the chilies, but the overall verdict was good! 

Spot - our Light Sussex hen had a visit to one of our Yr 8 Science lessons today - hopefully she behaved herself and let the students attempt to draw her.

11th of September - First day with the RHS - a productive day in the garden!

The students planted a few potatoes on one of the old compost heaps - look how many they managed to harvest!

Some were used to make some mash for lunch.

We also have a go at making some more courgette chutney, these are some of our own onions and garlic.

Some of our chilies which we blended with the onions, garlic and some root ginger to make a very strong smelling paste.

Spices were heated with some oil in a big pan, then we added the chili paste, courgettes and kohlrabi were added with vinegar and brown sugar. 

This is what the chutney looked like before we put it into clean sterilised jars.  Full recipe is on the post from the 18th of August.










Another group of students were very busy this morning emptying our pond.  Today was the first day working with the RHS, the groups got loads done - more photos to follow.

The Yr 11's removing the plants from the pond.

We are going to be storing the plants in buckets so that we can re-use them in the new pond.

Our older students then started to scoop out the pond water, carefully looking to see if there were any fish or other animals of insects inside the pond.

They found three of the frogs which were put in the pond in late spring - they had grown a lot.

I'm not sure what has been found at the bottom of the pond here?

Removing the last of the plants which have firmly rooted themselves to the bottom.

The pond is empty, the pump is in the red bucket.  Next week construction begins!

Eating what we have grown!

Potatoes that we picked yesterday were peeled and sliced ready to make wedges - one of my students proved to be a super-fast veggie peeler.  We put a couple of tablespoons of oil on the wedges and gave them a bit of a stir.

Our potato wedges cooking in the oven - 200 degrees, for about 35-40 minutes, we turned them a few times during cooking.

We chopped up one of our onions - which was very strong and made us both cry.  We tried to chop it as finely as we could, but it was difficult with all the tears.

We picked about six of the ripest, reddest tomatoes that we picked yesterday and chopped them up into little pieces.  We put plastic gloves on to chop the chilies as the 'hottness' from the chilies can stay on your hands for ages afterwards.

We made two different salsa's, one tomato made with our own chilies and onions, with a bit of lime juice, and the other one is a pineapple salsa - sadly not our own pineapple, but again with our own onion and chili.

Then we sat down around the table and everyone had a taste.

The verdict was that the pineapple salsa was not very spicy - next time we will use the hotter chilies!

5th September - Chilies and Potatoes

Picking the first of our potatoes.

More of our tomatoes and a random chili.

The smallest of our marrows.

The caterpillars have been taken off the nasturtiums for the Year 7's to look at in their Science lessons.

Potting up the strawberry runners - more strawberries next year maybe?

The first of our chili harvest - apparently there are some hot ones there according to our Yr 11's who were daring each other to eat one!

4th September - picking some tomatoes

We picked a few of the tomatoes today, they are going in the freezer to make chili jam later on in September.

Turnips growing in our veggie beds

Cosmos growing in our wildflower bed.

The bees are still buzzing around our comfrey bed.

Look at all the eggs we found today - think someone forgot to collect them yesterday.

Marius and Ritchie our newest additions to the flock, they are growing fast but have not started to crow yet.

Red onions, white onions and shallots from the veggie beds.