Bog Gardening Planting

The wonderful weather continued into the afternoon and our gardening team were back out along with the Forest School group to plant up the new bog garden.
Kate from BCEP, was on hand again to tell the children all about the new additions to the bog garden. We have planted an array of marsh loving plants including purple loostrife, yellow flag iris, horse tail and water mint. So next year, we can look forward to a riot of colour in our bog garden which will hopefully attract some new wildlife to our school grounds.

Here is what some of our bog plants will look like when in flower next year:

Marsh Horsetail



Purple Loosestrife



Water Mint



Yellow Flag Iris





Glorious Gardening Weather

Our gardening team was greeted with positively glorious weather today for our walk down to Fagley Youth Centre. Pete Tatham has been overseeing the development of the Youth Centre vegetable garden and was delighted to welcome our team and share his experience of vegetable growing in Fagley. Since March this year, Pete has been kept busy filling the two poly tunnels and multitude of raised beds (many of which he has constructed himself) with a wide range of vegetables, some familiar to our children and some new and exciting varieties.

The children took great pleasure in hunting among the nasturtiums for ripe green french and runner beans. And who could resist having a little taste? Two children were even persuaded to try their very first tomato.

There was just time for a spot of watering (with Pete's homemade nettle liquid fertilizer) before heading back to school, spotting some signs of autumn along the way.

Can we dig it? Yes, we can!

The day finally arrived for the great bog garden dig and the recent wet weather has certainly helped the boggy conditions!
The top soil had been delivered the previous day and was steaming rather impressively in the corner of the playground.
Despite the persistent rain, we were blessed to have a group of willing volunteers from staff to mums and dads, big sisters and cousins.
The day began with an introduction to what we hoped to achieve through the day and a brief health and safety talk.
Kate from BCEP, had already marked out the site of the bog garden and so our first task was to remove the turf from the area. This was piled up ready for use later to edge the bog garden.

Next job was to dig down roughly 30cm and remove the soil, discarding any large stones along the way.
By mid morning and with a steady stream of new helpers lending a hand, the bog area was dug out.
We gathered quite an audience during break time as the children were fascinated to watch the development of another exciting focal point in the playground.

We then moved on to constructing a trench around the perimeter of the bog garden in which the edge of the weed proof membrane and pond liner would be buried.
After laying the weed proof membrane came the highly enjoyable task of smoothing down the pond liner. It was at this point, the temptation to build a nice relaxing jacuzzi rather than a bog garden, was almost overwhelming!
By lunchtime we had filled in the trench around the bog garden and started to put a layer of topsoil over the pond liner.
At this point, we bid farewell to some of our super morning helpers, whilst the rest of us took a well earned break.
Our afternoon team was somewhat smaller, but thankfully we had made good progress across the morning and were still on schedule.
The main jobs for the afternoon were to back fill the hole with the original soil and topsoil and build up the lower edge of the bog garden to help retain the water.
Our trusty team soldiered on through the rain showers and by the end of the school day we were about done.
The bog garden will need a few weeks to settle and become boggy (which shouldn't be a problem if the rain continues!) before we can begin planting up with the children. Kate had some great suggestions for bog loving plants including water mint, flag irises and snake head fritillary.

New Year for the Fagley Gardening Team

We may not have had the greatest summer, but the veg plot certainly hasn't objected to all the rain!

We return to fine some truly mammoth courgettes and runner beans and even the sweetcorn plants have come on great. The tomato plants are weighed down with fruits though a little more sunshine is in order before they ripen.

 

The strawberries haven't fared so well due to the constant attention of the ever present gulls and pigeons and we seriously need to consider ways of discouraging the local feline population.

Over the next few weeks, the garden team will meet to harvest the produce and tidy up the veg beds. We also need to think about the winter crops we we like to grow.