Preparing for Winter

The nights are drawing in and winter is on its way.

This week in the vegetable garden, we have been clearing out the crops that have passed their best and weeding the beds in readiness for some winter sowing.

We still have some crops maturing including savoy cabbages, Brussels sprouts and leeks.

Khadijah has been busy potting up strawberry runners, whilst Maccorley has been cutting back the raspberry canes. Nazir harvested the last of the butternt squashes and turnips.

On our return to school after half term, we will be taking delivery of our Woodland Trust trees so there will be lots of planting to do. We also be totting up our Morrisons Let's Grow vouchers and thinking about how to put them to best use and planning our planting to celebrate Le Grand Depart coming to Yorkshire.

Sunshine, Showers and Super Crops

Our recent spell of wonderfully hot, dry weather followed by spectacular thunderstorms has given our vegetable garden a real boost. 

Just before the end of the summer term, our strawberry, redcurrant, blueberry and raspberry bushes were providing delicious and healthy break time snacks for the children. Now the salad and vegetable crops are coming into their own.

This year, we are growing; spinach, kale, broad beans, runner beans, kohl rabi, turnips, courgettes, butternut squash, cabbages, cauliflower, leeks, beetroot, carrots, tomatoes and a variety of lettuces. We have normally stuck to growing one or two crops in each raised bed, but this year we are trying something different. A year one and two child I have been working with decided that they wanted to take a bed each and grow a whole range of different crops side by side. So far, the experiment seems to be working very well, with all the crops growing away happily together. In fact historically, we have always struggled to grow decent carrots, but the ones in the mixed beds are doing brilliantly.

We will continue to weed, water, feed and harvest over the summer holiday and should still have plenty of crops to harvest when the children return in September.

Fagley Primary Presented with RHS Silver Gilt Award

Caleb and Luke on the 1940s Miracle-Gro Stand at Chelsea

Our school has been presented with a prestigious RHS Silver Gilt Award in recognition of our contribution to supplying plants for the Miracle-Gro 1940s garden at the Chelsea

Flower Show this year.

Caleb and Luke with John Clowes 

Fagley Primary School was one of 60 schools across England selected to provide plants including

broad beans and forget-me-nots for the show. They were also one of 44 schools invited to send

students to the Chelsea Flower Show to work on the Miracle-Gro stand greeting visitors and sharing

Courtney and Martine on the 1913 Miracle-Gro Stand

their experiences of gardening at school.

The four Miracle-Gro gardens charting key gardening trends since the inception of the Chelsea

Flower Show, attracted huge attention from visitors around the world and caught the eye of the

Miracle-Gro'wers

show judges receiving a Silver Gilt Award for each of the gardens.

Today, the Miracle-Gro gardens designer, John Clowes and Marketing Manager, Jane

Fagley Miracle Gro'wers receiving their RHS Silver Gilt Award

Hartley, travelled to Fagley Primary School to present us with our very own Silver Gilt Award in recognition of our growing efforts.

The staff and children are understandably very proud of their achievement and are already excitedly planning what to grow for next year’s show!

Weed, Water and Plant for the Sun is Shining

The tidy up continued in the vegetable garden today. The site manager has mown the grass so there was lots of raking to do. With the pathways looking tidy, attention turned to the borders of the veg garden. Weeds were pulled, broken pots and empty compost bags were collected. Re-useable pots were cleaned out and returned to the gardening container and slugs and snails were uncovered to the delight of an inquisitive mistle thrush who had been observing from the fruit orchard.

Forget-me-not planter

Next, the broad bean beds were weeded and waters and the bean plants thinned out to give them adequate growing space. The beans planted by the nursery children are growing splendidly.

Broad Beans

The kohl rabi and beetroot beds also needed thinning, weeding and watering. Some of the kohl rabi thinnings were transplanted into pots.

The carrot bed was raked over and new seeds sown, as the previous ones do not appear to have germinated.

Kohl Rabi

The strawberries are coming into flower now and looking rather lovely. More weeding was required  here (including a rather sneaky nettle which was hiding among the strawberry leaves, before making its presence decidedly known to my right arm!) 

Strawberries

Cabbage, cauliflower and swede seeds were sown in the remaining beds once they too had had a good weeding.

The butterfly border will need to be weeded in the next week or so as dandelions and docks have forced their way through the mulch. Frogwarts castle was looking the worse for wear so it was partly dismantled, leaving the four stone walls standing. I did consider relocating the castle 'ruin' it to the bog garden but it is rather heavy so will need another pair of hands to help shift it!

Kohl Rabi Surrounded by Pansies

The final task for today was to sort out the garden container. Things had become somewhat jumbled over the winter (hailstorms and driving rain are not conducive to the careful replacing of equipment used!)

Current Bush

The next few weeks will no doubt see a great deal more weeding and watering and hopefully the emergence of our new seedlings.

The Bog Garden

Half term tidy up

Well the weather has eventually turned a corner. A period of rain followed by glorious sunshine means weeds galore. I popped in to school today to see how everything was getting and carry out some much needed watering. The broad beans are growing well, but were being swamped by the number of weeds that had sprung up, so some hoeing was in order. The kohl rabi seedlings have germinated and required a little thinning out. The courgette seedlings however had disappeared without a trace! As the weather is due to stay warm and dry for the next week, I have sown some more seeds directly.

 

The strawberry and blueberry plants are starting to flower and fruits are beginning to form on our gooseberry bushes. 

In the butterfly border, the muscari and tulips have faded and made way for the first of our alium. 

The forget-me-nots, water mint and flag iris are growing well in the bog garden, but the grass has begun to take over. After pulling out the worst of the grass and weeds, I decided the best option was to dress the bog garden with a layer of bark mulch around the established plants. As well as suppressing the weeds, this will also help to prevent the water evaporating in the drier weather. 

The next jobs will be to continue weeding the veg beds, plant some more summer crops and give the fruit trees and hedging plants a good watering.

Chelsea Flower Show 2013 Animoto Presentation

Fagley Primary at the Chelsea Flower Show.

On May 24th, four of our keen gardeners headed down to London to represent our school on the Scotts Miracle Gro stand at the Chelsea Flower Show.

It was an early start, but the children were up for the challenge and raring to go. The children were very excited about travelling on the London Underground for the first time. 

Miracle Gro 1913 Garden

On arriving at the show, the children were briefed about their responsibilities whilst on the stand. They were required to hand out leaflets detailing Miracle Gro's 'Learning Journey' and invite visitors to record their comments about the stand. There were visitors from all over the world who were keen to hear about the children's gardening experiences. Despite it being very wet and chilly, the children did a fantastic job.

Miracle Gro 1940s Garden

Miracle Gro 1940s Garden

Miracle Gro-wers from around the country

Chelsea Pensioner visiting the stand

London Underground

Our Clucky Planter is off to Chelsea!

Last week, we received the fantastic news that our chicken feeder planter has been selected by Scotts Miracle-Gro to feature on their 1940s garden stand at the Chelsea Flower Show. The feeder, which has been planted with broad beans and forget-me-nots, was collected this week for transportation down to London. The show opens to the public on May 21st and runs through to May 25th.

Two children from our school have been invited to attend the show and help promote the Miracle-Gro garden in which our planter will feature. More details regarding the children selected for this amazing opportunity will follow shortly. For more details on the Chelsea Flower Show go to http://www.rhs.org.uk and to find out more about the Scotts Miracle-Gro Schools campaign visit http://www.lovethegarden.com/schools

Springing into life

Spring may have eventually arrived at Fagley Primary! The bulbs we planted in Autumn have begun to emerge. In entrance way planter, grape hyacinths now border the winter pansies. In the butterfly garden, daffodils in a variety of yellows and oranges bob merrily in the Spring breeze.

Now the latest phase of building work has been completed, we have been able to continue with our hedge laying on perimeter of the school field. We have been planting a combination of hawthorn, hazel and osier. We are also planting a small copse of downy birch and goat willow.

 These trees, donated by the Woodland Trust, should go some way to alleviating the issues we have with heavy, wet soil.

May will see the The Chelsea Flower Show celebrate its 100th year. As part of the celebrations, Miracle-Gro are creating a garden through the ages. They have asked for schools across the country  to grow flowers and vegetables to illustrate typical gardens from a number of eras over the last century. Fagley Primary have been growing plants for their 1940s garden. We have planted an old chicken feeder and tin bath with broad beans, forget-me-nots and poppies. We should find out this week whether or not our planters have been selected to exhibit at the show.

In other Chelsea Flower Show news, I have been selected to champion a plant (the Erysimum Bowles's Mauve) as part of the show's   'Plant of the Centenary' contest. More information on the Plant of the Centenary can be found on the Royal Horticultural Society website http://www.rhs.org.uk/chelsea/POTC

Mud, Mulch and Eyeball Cakes!

Some dry relatively mild and not ridiculously windy weather at last today. Our site has begun to resemble a quagmire in many places due to the constant rain and recent heavy snow. So the Year 3 Garden Team headed out with me this afternoon to carry out some maintenance work. The entrance to our vegetable garden has become extremely muddy and squelchy. Though wonderful fun to splosh about in (as the Year 3 Garden Team were happy to demonstrate) is making it rather difficult to safely move equipment in and out of the vegetable garden. We still have a good pile of bark chipping at the bottom of the driveway which the children enthusiastically wheel-barrowed up to the vegetable garden (Giving each other the odd lift along the way!).

They also decided it would be rather fun to 'plant' each other in the bark chippings so that when they grew big, they could be picked and turned into 'kid cakes' in the school kitchen complete with eyeball decorations on the top!!! Unfortunately it was time for the children to go back to class, so we didn't get to find out if they would make tasty cakes.

Next the Year 4 Team joined me outside to put up some of the bird boxes decorated by the Year 3 Forest School group last week. The children looked for places high enough to prevent cats from reaching them and out of direct sunlight so that the boxes would not become to hot (if we ever get any sun!)

We will be erecting the rest of the nesting boxes next week as part of National Nest Box Week.

To find out more go to: http://www.bto.org/nnbw/index.htm

Preparing for a New Year

We took advantage of the mild spell today in order to clear out our raised beds. The Year 6 Garden Team dug out and composted the lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower crops left over from the summer plantings. After removing any weeds, they dug in some soil improver and raked over the the surface ready for planting in the spring.

It is a bit early for us to sow many crops yet as we are expecting some frosty weather soon. Some crops such as garlic and broad beans actually benefit from a cold snap (known as a stratification period) so are fine to plant out in winter. Most other vegetable crops that we grow in our school beds like to have warmer soil to get them off to a good start.

There are still plenty of jobs to be getting on with at this time of year. We still have some hedgerow shrubs to plant before the the tree planting season comes to a close in March. We also plan to add some more willow to our willow bed.

Any pots that are to be reused need to be washed out and disinfected to prevent any lingering diseases being passed on to new plants.

Walkways can suffer in the wet winter weather, so it is a good idea to add some bark chippings or similar to prevent the paths from becoming too churned up. Cardboard can be placed under the bark chippings to stop them sinking into the soil. The cardboard will eventually decompose into the soil.

It is also a great time to look through seed catalogues a create a planting plan for the year. A good indoor activity is to create information signs to tell people information about what is planted in the gardens. We will be collecting some twigs around the school grounds to turn into plant markers. The children can try their hand at pyrography to write the names of the plants on the twig markers.

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.