Winter Planting

Our Olympic Rings put on a fabulously fragrant show over the summer, but it was finally time to clear the bed out ready for our winter planting.


Bradford Council Landscape Division kindly provided us with 500 winter pansies for us to use to make our winter display.

We have spelled out the word ‘Fagley’ in pale yellow pansies in the centre of the bed. Children from Year One and Year Six joined me to plant some gorgeous deep blue pansies to frame the edge of the bed.

The children had to work out how many flowers they would have each to plant. We had two trays of flowers each containing 28 plants. We wanted to share the two trays of flowers between the four corners of the flowerbed. Can you work out how many flowers we had to plant in each corner?

We also had huge fun racing to collect dozens of bags of leaves which will be turned into leaf mulch to feed our vegetable beds, fruit trees and flowering borders.

Make sure you take a look at our ‘Fagley’ flowerbed next time you are passing the school entrance and if you have any suggestions for future planting plans, we would love to hear them.

 

The Year 4 and 6 Garden Teams joined me outside on Friday to continue planting our Woodland Trust hedging shrubs. Chelsea and Abdullah worked together to plant some blackthorn (prunus spinosa) and elder (sambucus nigra) shrubs. These shrubs both produce wonderful dark berries which will provide a valuable food source for birds.

Marceli and Jack added some winter pansies and dog rose plants to our butterfly border, whilst Charlotte and Abby planted dogwood (cornus) down the edge of the entrance path. The new growth of the dogwood tree is a spectacularly rich red colour making it a valuable addition to a winter planting scheme. In the Springtime, the crimson stems can be pruned and used for weaving projects.

Building a Butterfly Border

The next phase of building work has begun at Fagley Primary. The latest phase will see the creation of new more spacious Year 5 and 6 classrooms and common room; a food technology room; new cloakrooms and lavatories; a first floor technology suite. There will also be a covered outdoor area to provide extra opportunities for outdoor learning.

The extension of the existing building necessitates the re-loaction of the multi-sports pitch.
The re-modelling has required the removal of several small trees and established shrubs. Ever aware of our environmental responsibility at Fagley Primary, we asked if the trees and shrubs could be salvaged so that we could plant them elsewhere in the school grounds.

We are currently working on creating a bee and butterfly garden opposite our kitchen garden. The woody perennial shrubs including lavender, rosemary and hebe will provide structure and maturity in our new butterfly border. Once these had been planted, we were be able to add spring flowering bulbs and a selection of perennials and annuals to provide year round interest. 

RHS Schools Regional Conference at Harlow Carr

The first Annual Schools Regional Conference took place at Harlow Carr on 17th October 2012. This was a fantastic opportunity for representatives from schools all over the North of England to meet and hear about all the fun and exciting ways in which growing can be weaving into the curriculum.
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/teachershome/news/schoolsregionalconference.aspa

At Fagley Primary we are particularly keen to explore ways in which we can link growing to enterprise activities.

On school which was done this to great effect is St John's of Beverly Catholic Primary. The former Deputy Head gave the keynote speech in which he highlighted how growing can lie at the heart of the curriculum and how running an enterprise project around gardening enables children to gain real life business skills.

During the day, we attended a number of workshops including 'Sneaky Ways to Teach Maths and Science Through Gardening' and 'How to Make Your School Garden Pay'. I picked up many useful ideas, some of which  have already implemented at school, such as potting up your strawberry runners to sell in spring.

I am also looking forward to making the giant vegetable rulers and willow plant pot stars with the Garden Team.

Meanwhile, back at school there is still plenty to be getting on with. We still have some more spring bulbs to plant and mulch to spread. We also have just taken delivery of our hedgerow plants from the Woodland Trust. These include, holly, dogwood, hazel and hawthorn.  As well as planting our hedgerow shrubs, we need to clear out the Olympic Flowerbed which put on such a fabulous show over the summer and replace the old bedding plants with winter flowering pansies (generously supplied by Bradford Council Landscape Division.

We are always keen to involve parents and grandparents, so if you have greenfingers and some spare time on your hands, please feel free to come along and lend a hand.

On Friday, seven children from Fagley Primary attended the annual Bradford Schools Flower & Vegetable Show, hosted this year by Cottingley Village Primary School. Many children throughout school helped to prepare the entries for the show. I am proud to announce that Fagley Primary came away with the top prize in the 'Best Group of Potatoes' category and came runner-up in the 'Best Vegetable in Show' category with our pointed red cabbage. A great day was had by all and we look forward to attending the show again next year, when it will be hosted by Hollingwood Primary.  

Making use of our produce

Whilst some of our crops have struggled with the cool wet summer, others have positively relished the soggy summer!
Turn your back on a courgette plant for a second and before you know it, you have massive marrows. After a week away, I popped in to school to check on the vegetable garden. I was greeted by some rather impressive courgettes/marrows. The more courgettes you pick, the more the plant will crop.

I headed home with a basketful of the big green beauties and set about looking for inspiration of what to make with them. Stuffed marrow is a traditional way of using up a glut of these veggies to create a cheap and filling family meal.

Below is my twist on the traditional recipe using one of my favourite ingredients, Hungarian paprika sausage (similar to cooking chorizo).

In a food processor combine:

1 Paprika sausage or cooking chorizo
3 minced cloves of garlic
1/2 a red sweet pepper
1 slice of bread (great way to use up the crust)
2 medium sized mushrooms
6 sunblush tomatoes
sea salt and freshly cracked pepper
1 red onion

Once the ingredients have been chopped together, stir in an egg.

Slice the marrow into thick rounds and scoop out the flesh. Place the rounds on an oiled baking tray

Stuff the marrow rounds with the mixture and top with dried breadcrumbs.

Bake in an oven preheated to 180c until the marrow has softened an the breadcrumb topping has crisped up.

Serve on a bed of sauteed vegetables. I used baby pak choi and fine asparagus.

RHS Campaign for School Gardening Photo of the Month

A picture of our Olympic flowerbed has been selected as the RHS Campaign for School Gardening website's 'Photo of the Month' for August.

You can view it here: http://apps.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/default.aspa

Summer Planting at Fagley Primary

Well, we may have broken up for the school holidays, but it is still all go in the school gardens.

On the last day of term, the Year Six leavers planted an apple tree together as a reminder of their time spent at Fagley Primary. Each child wrote a message on a scroll describing how they felt they had blossomed whilst at Fagley Primary. These were buried with the roots of the apple tree to signify that whilst they have roots at our school, they are growing up and moving on to pastures new.
The following poem accompanied their messages:

As we plant our apple tree,

We take a step on life’s journey.

For success and happiness we strive

Our apple tree will grow and thrive.

As we move on to pastures new,

May our tree grow tall and true.

And when its blossoms bloom in May,

Wish us luck along our way.

When fruit hangs heavy from its boughs,

We will make you proud, as we do now.

To help the tree along its way, the children placed some bone meal around the roots. Unfortunately, this nutritious plant feed seemed to have attracted an unwelcome visitor. On Tuesday, I called in to school to catch up on some weeding and discovered that our tree had been dug up! The hole had been completely emptied of soil and I can only assume that it was the work of a fox in search of the bone meal. I replanted the tree and added a layer of pebbles over the soil to hopefully deter any diggers. I checked on the tree today and there doesn't appear to have been any more attempts to dig it up, so hopefully, the tree will survive its ordeal.

Elsewhere in the school gardens, things are progressing well. The Olympic Rings are looking splendid and would be worthy of a place on the winning podium (after I gave the grass ring a bit of a haircut!).
In the kitchen garden, the lettuces and peas are doing very well, but the brassicas are suffering a bit. The changeable weather caused some bolting and splitting and the snails, slugs and caterpillars are making their presence known. A spot over-zealous carrot thinning by some of the children before the end of term has left some space in one of the vegetable beds, so I will be planting some quick growing salad crops in the space over the next few days.

The fruit border has already yield some tasty blueberries, raspberries and gooseberries, though the weeds are taking some controlling.

One other job to tackle over the holidays will be to add some bark chippings around the base of our fruit trees to prevent the grass from encroaching and starving the trees of nutrients.

Hopefully, we can rely on some more sunshine over the coming weeks to ensure we have a good selection of  ripe produce to chose from come the Bradford Schools Food and Flower Show in September.

Braving the Rain and Snail Racing

We have come to accept that sunny spells will be few and far between this summer, therefore we have chosen to embrace the rain.

Our Year 2 gardeners donned their new Garden Team waterproofs and headed out into the school garden. We are looking ahead for the Bradford Schools Flower and Vegetable Show by collecting flowers to dry over the summer. The children were set the task of identifying the lavender bushes around school and taking some cuttings to dry. They quickly realised that the easiest way to identify lavender was by its wonderfully soothing aroma. Before long, we had managed to collect an impressive bunch.

Next, we inspected the kitchen garden. We noticed that over the weekend, pea pods had begun to form on the pea plants. We also found that our courgette, carrot and lettuce plants seemed to have been enjoying the wet weather.

No visit to the kitchen garden is complete without a spot of strawberry picking. One of the children discovered a huge snail chomping on a strawberry and this set off a chain reaction of snail hunting.

The children found a whole host of snails of different colours and sizes hiding beneath the lid of the cold frame.

The obvious next step was to hold a snail race, so the children duly selected and named their competitors (snail Olympic hopefuls included Dave, Ellie and Tom) and placed them on the starting line on the playground. I am not sure who won and there was definitely more than a little enticement of snails by way of strawberries and carrot tops, but a great deal of fun was had by all.

After popping round to show the rest of the class their snaily sidekicks, the children returned the munching molluscs to the school field. There was just enough time for some obligatory puddle stomping, before returning to class (to wash off the snail poo!)

Bog Babies Spotted at Fagley Primary

As you may be aware, we have a wonderful bog garden at Fagley Primary. Recently, some children from Year 4 and 6 added some lovely new plants to our bog (hemerocallis, astilbe, primula candelabra and ferns). These new additions seem to have attracted a rare a beautiful form of wildlife – Bog Babies.

The children have been set the task of carefully seeking out these new additions to our local fauna and recording their sightings on our school blog: 

  http://bradfordschools.net/blog/fagleyblog/2012/06/28/bog-baby-spotter-record-test-page/

Our Bog Baby hunt has been inspired by the wonderful book written by Jeanne Willis
http://www.jeannewillis.com/BogText1.html

Listen to the first part of the Bog Baby story by clicking on the link: http://audioboo.fm/boos/865698-the-bog-baby

Interesting Solutions for Poorly Draining Sites.

Without wishing to sound like a broken record! Our site has been struggling to cope with the recent downpours. Due to continued urbanisation of many green areas, finding innovative solutions to drainage is becoming a hot topic of discussion.

One solution is to turn a negative into a positive by creative channeling of rainwater. We have all no doubt heard of the benefits of collecting rainwater via guttering and water butts, but what about the play opportunities associated with rainwater?

One of the leading voices in innovative play landscapes is Norweigan playground designer Frode Svane. His vision for rainwater play has been incorporated into a guide produced by Planet Earth Ltd. for London Play in association with Natural England.

http://www.londonplay.org.uk/file/1524.pdf

Below are a few extracts from the guide:

'New requirements to install sustainable drainage systems have been introduced following recent catastrophic flooding events in lower river valleys. We [London Play] want rainfall to stay in the local area and sink into the ground, not be whisked away to flood somewhere downstream, but we also want to make rainfall fun for children to play with.

The guidance has been produced with funding assistance from Natural England, and written by Planet Earth Landscape Architects, with advice from Bob Bray Associates and photos from both of them and from Norwegian playground designer Frode Svane.'
Case Studies


Fort Royal School, Worcester




This is a special school with many different needs. Runoff from the upper car park 
is cleaned through a permeable pavement and released through a rain chain. 
Open rills carry water through a small courtyard and sett channels take water to 
the school green space. A formal pond with a glass window allows pupils to look 
into the pond safely. A habitat pond will allow pond dipping and act as a home for 
wildlife with balance beams over water and access to moving water provide 
further understanding of what happens when it rains.



Planet Earth Ltd, St Mary’s Frobisher Park, Peckham, London

 

Planet Earth have been transforming this declining pocket park into a playful,

magical semi- wooded landscape. Lush woodland planting surrounds a colourful

river channel. The river source starts at the ‘rocky mountain area’ a high point at

the back of the site and flows down along the natural levels into a reedbed in the

river ‘delta’ area. In heavy rainfall children will be able to enjoy chasing rainwater

running along the river channel and through the site. The reedbed has been given

an extra safety precaution to satisfy the local council’s peace of mind using steel

mesh hidden beneath the reeds that is bolted to the surrounding concrete.

Planet Earth Ltd, Argyle School, Camden, London

At Argyle School, Planet Earth designed a ceramic surface water-system that
collected rain water from roofs. Using a hand pump, the children could pump
water into the channels and watch it collect in their very own pond with frogs and
water plants.

Unseasonably wet!

Well the rain just keeps on coming! Here is a snap I took of our bog garden today.
The marsh loving plants are quite happy to spend a day or too with their roots sloshing about in this muddy soup! However it is making it rather difficult to get on with any of our other gardening tasks.

Luckily, we had a break in the weather earlier in the week which gave us the chance to get a few jobs done. Farhan and Rehan helped me to add some coleus to our black Olympic ring and to clean the black grass with milk. We also managed to plant some ferns in the bog garden which had been donated by Mrs. Parfitt. The Year 4 gardeners weeded and watered the vegetable beds, mulched the fruit trees and added an astilbe, a hemerocallis 'corky' and a primula bullesiana to the bog garden.

In the next few weeks (weather permitting) we are hoping to have new wooden edging fitted to the butterfly garden borders and some new composting stations installed. We will also be rotovating and enriching all the planting areas to prepare the soil for the next phase of planting.

Bradford Schools Flower and Vegetable Show 2012

On Monday, an interesting looking parcel arrived for me at the school office. It was our welcome pack for the Bradford Schools Flower and Vegetable Show. Inside were a selection of Spear & Jackson hand tools, a planting calendar and some vegetable seeds. This is the third time the event has been held and the first time that Fagley Primary will exhibiting.

The show is due to be held on September 7th 2012 at Cottingley Village Primary School and schools from all over Bradford will be attending. We have been invited to take one child from each year group to represent our school. This will be a fantastic opportunity for our Garden Team to meet fellow growers and share our experiences.

The categories we can choose to enter our produce under are:

• Best basket of vegetables 
• Best group of potatoes 
• Best potted plant 
• Best flower arrangement 
• longest runner bean 
• Best garden in a seed tray 
• Best vegetable in show 
• Strangest and wackiest vegetable 
• Best fruit and vegetable collage/picture 

They are also running a competition to design a logo for the annual event.




The Garden Team will meet over the next few weeks to decide which categories we should enter.

Our School Grounds

Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

Funding for Garden Projects

We have recently applied for a grant from the Arla 'kids closer to nature' scheme, which if successful, will enable us to begin work on a wildflower garden.

Setting up and maintaining a school gardening programme can be a costly business, but the benefits to the children taking part are priceless. Over the years we have been able to build up a good bank of tools and equipment through Morrison's Let's Grow Scheme http://www.morrisons.co.uk/letsgrow/ . We have also benefited from the Woodland Trust's scheme to supply schools with saplings and hedgerow plants http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/jubilee-woods/what-you-can-do/schools/free-schools-packs/Pages/school-tree-packs.aspx#.T9jNX7XY_9A .

The RHS Campaign for School Gardening website has a comprehensive list of funding contacts to explore. http://apps.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening/teachershome/resources/findingfunding.aspa

Our priority at Fagley Primary over the next 12 months are to put systems in place to enable us to produce our own compost and to address the issue of the condition of our soil. This will mean taking steps to remove stubborn weeds and by rotovating and introducing soil improver into areas where we wish to plant to encourage healthy growth. Although this is not the most glamorous side of gardening, it is vital to ensure the long term success of planting projects.

Sensory Garden Training Course

Frog Pond

Bug Hotel

Today, I attended a sensory garden training day in the breathtaking gardens of Ellicar House owned and maintained by Sarah Murch. http://www.ngs.org.uk/gardens/gardenfinder/garden.aspx?id=22803

Spooky Garden

Natural Swimming Pool

Her garden is a veritable feast for the senses with botanical delights packed into every inch of the grounds. The natural swimming pool was absolutely astounding (though not something we could possibly hope to replicate in school!) There are many other aspects of the garden that we could adapt to areas of the grounds.

Sarah gave us a tour of the gardens and explained how the different plants stimulate the senses and how different plants can be grouped by colour, sound,smell and structure to create various atmospheres such as vibrant, ethereal, spooky or calming.

She explained how to group plants starting with a tree, then structural shrubs, evergreen shrubs, perennials and bulbs.

Euphorbia Underplanting 

One of the most important things I learnt was the importance of improving the soil structure before even considering planting anything. We face a number of challenges relating to this in our school grounds. Our soil is heavy clay over a sandstone bedrock which makes it quite heavy to work with and slow to drain. To make matters worse, much of the soil is seriously compacted due to the need for vehicular access during building works and general heavy use of the grounds. When the soil is compacted it lacks air meaning the water will not drain through it easily and plant roots struggle make their way through the dense matter.

Sarah suggested that attempting to improve the soil structure of entire areas would be costly and time consuming so to concentrate on improving the the soil structure of areas directly around planting sites. (by digging over thoroughly, breaking up the heavy clay and rock with a metal bar if necessary and mixing in plenty of soil improver).
She also emphasised the importance of choosing plants suitable to our soil type and lighting conditions.
She provided me with a list of plants suited to clay soil that would provide year round interest.
We learnt about the importance of having a long term plan for our site which incorporates a wish list of everything we would like to achieve in the grounds and what is required to achieve it. This will enable us to break jobs down into tasks that can be tackled as funding becomes available.
Myself and the gardening team will look at how we can implement these ideas.

Storage Disguised as Beehive

Bee Hotel

Geum Mrs. Bradshaw

Mini Pond

Spooky Garden Entrance

Herb Towers

In the Spooky Garden

Growing for Gold update

Our alyssum plants are finally flowering, so today it was time to add them to our fabulous Olympic bed.
It will take a few weeks for the alyssum to spread out and give the full effect but I think the Olympic Bed is already looking really good. What do you think?

Growing for Gold

Our Olympic flowerbed is gradually taking shape. Today, under a baking blue sky, we planted the five rings.The rings are made up of the following plants:

Blue - lobelia and ageratum

Black - black grass

Red - petunia

Yellow - marigold

Green - grass.

The background will be planted up with white alyssum in the next few weeks. In the meantime we need to nurture our rings by making sure they are kept well watered.

Bursting into life

Well after the recent cold and very wet weather, this sunny spell is more than welcome. In the space of a few days the school grounds have been transformed. There are new leaves bursting out all over the place. The fruit trees are looking very pretty adorned with their blossom flowers and the flag iris in the bog garden are just coming into flower too.

I managed to snap up a few root wrapped trees at Homebase yesterday for the princely sum of £2.66 each! So today, Declan helped me to plant them around the edge of the bog garden and give them a really good watering in.

I also managed to bag some bargain basement petunias which the year one gardeners potted up and placed near their classroom entrance. The bright red blousey flowers look terrific.

Sunshine at last!

We have had some glorious weather today and made the most of it by getting out in the garden. The year four gardening team joined me for a spot of weeding,watering and planting. We began by removing the grass and other weeds from the bog garden. The flag iris and watermint are growing well. The new addition  to the bog garden planted by the Early Years children last week looks right at home. Once the children had removed all the weeds, they gave they bog garden a thoroughly good soaking.

Next we moved on to the vegetable garden where there was yet more weeding to be done! We took time to pause by the herb bed and explore all the textures and smells. Ella-Mae loved the smell of the rosemary, whilst thought the thyme smelt the best. The chocolate mint was a winner with everyone.

Once the weeding was finished, we planted some peas and runner beans along with some colourful marigold plants.
The leeks that we had planted in the winter had grown to an impressive size, so the children harvested them and will deliver them to the school kitchen tomorrow.

The sunny weather is set to last a few more days, so hopefully we can take advantage of the sunny spell to plant some more delicious vegetables.

fagleygardeners' photostream

fagleygardeners' photostream on Flickr.