A busy week as summer holidays approach

This was the last week of term - and a busy one too! On Monday, we picked some radish.

There are two varieties - "French Breakfast" and "Cherry Belle"

We also emptied out some potatoe bags - here Charlotte picks out the "Rocket" variety...

...and here you can see why these red ones are called "Smile"!

Tuesday was an activity day, so everyone was off doing adventurous things. Miss Swallow made the most of the emptyness by arranging for David Locket to come with his tractor to move a bench from behind the canteen.

It's a concrete and wood bench - really heavy!

With skilled manoevering, he lifted it and put it onto a trailer to drive right out and around the school grounds...

...and into the garden.

Here you can see it fits very well on our flat patch. This means we can sit for lunch in good weather, and there's room for classes to sit around it when the new course starts next August.

Wednesday was an activity in the garden. Charlotte and two others worked really hard all day! We moved pansies from the barrels at the front of the school and planted them in our flower "wildlife" bed. We then planted the barrels up with geraniums and lupins for summer colour. More photos to come when consent forms have been signed!

In the afternoon, Catriona (back from Paris) came in to join Charlotte to paint the shed. Here, Danielle is back from the wildlife park too and is helping to treat the tool box. Other jobs we did included lots of weeding, and cutting the old carpets to cover the raised beds and keep out weeds. We also enjoyed a healthy lunch of cold boiled "smile" potatoes, hummus, our own lettuce and radish and other salad (all sitting around the new bench).

On Thursday we potted the walking stick cabbages into big pots ready to go on display at Frank Nicols on Friday. I wonder how tall they will grow.

See our first cauliflower appearing - we are very excited!! lol

Potting up wall flowers so they don't die over the summer break.

Eight raised beds protected and ready for a delivery of soil (hopefully in August). Rob will be in the garden over the summer break to finish the tool box and dig in eight more raised beds as now there will be two classes using the garden for the new course in August.

So, we are now on holiday for six weeks. Let's hope there's a reasonable amount of rain to keep things watered, and some warmth the help things grow! We shall be busy weeding and cropping the potatoes on our return - 'til then, we say "Au Revoir"!

Soil Testing and a Local Plant Walk

This week, we tested out a "soil tesing meter" to measure the pH of our soil. Happily it was mostly around 7 which according to the chart virtually all the vegetables like. We noticed that potatoes tent to err towards 5 and leeks prefer nearer to 8 which is interesting.

"Mmm, how doe's it turn on?!" Lewis digs a hole to clear the top soil to a depth of 10cm. Charlotte is ready to take down the measurements.

Meanwhile the water butt was overflowing again so Danielle decanted some "highland spring" into bottles in the greenhouse. We really need to get the butt on the other side of the shed connected too!

On Thursday, Rob returned to the garden. Here you can see him continuing to build the tool storage box ready for classes in August. Keep up the good work Rob (and watch your thumb!!)

That afternoon, we all took a walk over to the "Greenhouse" - not our own, but the community shop with the same name in the High Street!

We ate our packed lunch there...

...checked out their produce which was growing in the raised beds and pots...and after a slide show about the River Peffery and non-native invasive plants in the area...

...we headed off with a guided walk to see some of them.

Grasses and reeds growing on the banks of the Peffery. On the right hand side, the bank is where the river has silted up - the remains of a harbour wall runs near the top right of the picture. Small ships used to come up this far from the sea!

Nettles and rosebay willowherb (yet to come into flower) These are native of course, we just enjoyed noticing all the different plants on our route.

Meryl tells us about Japanses knotweed - on the opposite bank. Other invasive species include Himalayan balsam and Giant Hogweed.

The Japanse knotweed plants are all female - they reproduce "vegetatively" - that means they spread by putting out rhysomes under the ground. The worse thing to do is strim them or try to cut them as this just helps them spread! They are being treated with chemical spray to reduce dominance and give other native species a fighting chance.

Up by the estuary, there were fabulous orchids...

...lots of them!

Catriona really liked the elderflower trees which are in full blossom just now.

Miss Swallow and Mr MacFarlane...this is what happens when Danielle gets hold of the camera!

There were some big rain drops in the air when we started, but the weather was actually lovely for us.

Meanwhile, back in the garden our own "wild flowers" are happily growing. We need to learn to identify them so we can decide which ones to weed! Certainly not this cheerful poppy!

Another poppy ready to flower soon - I wonder what colour it will be.

There are several courgettes now.

A few strawberries,

and the pansies are still flowering wonderfully!

Another party and thinning out the lettuce!

This Tuesday was Lewis's birthday, so we had to have a cake in the shed! Miss Swallow thought that we should also have something healthy to eat with it so she bought some hummus with celery, cucumber and carrot strips.

Lewis blows out his candle after we sang Happy Birthday!

Everyone was unsure of the hummus dip at first, but once they tried it the carrot, celery and cucmber was gone in minutes! So much so, that we decided to thin out the lettuce. The leaves were tiny but we gave them a wash and dipped them in the hummus too - yum!

Also that morning, members took our cabbage seedlings round classes for pupils to guess which they thought would grow the tallest. We raised £10.40 - not bad at just 20p a guess. Hopefully the public will visit Frank Nicol's garden centre throughout the summer and continue to make guesses to raise more money for children of Malawi.

Miss Swallow was out on Wednesday and Lewis was busy. The girls got to the garden a bit late, but did lots of watering - the waterbutt had started overflowing!

The water butt had a slight leak so Danielle left the watering can under it. It was full by Thursday ready to water the cabbage seedlings again.

On Thursday we also topped up the potato bags - the plants have grown tall but they didn't have much soil in them. Hopefully now they will grow more potatoes.

Rob continued to work in the garden on Thursday too - here you can see he started building a tool store out of pallets ready for classes using the garden next year.

Cabbage Competition Launched, DiGGers go MAD and Sponsored Walk sends us potty!

An action packed week!
These are the "Walking Stick Cabbage" seedlings that we launched our competition with.

On Friday, there was a "Malawi Awareness Day" (MAD) in school. S1 pupils have been learning about the country and collecting back-packs to send out to children there. They contain basic equipment like pens and pencils, some clothes, and a spoon. The awareness day was to raise money for the charity that send the back-packs out - it is called Mary's Meals. It costs them £6 to feed a child for a month and through fun lunchtime activities, classes collecting "loose change" in bottles over several weeks and a non-uniform day today, we have raised over £1600!!

One of our first cabbage sponsors arrives. Pupils paid £1 to adopt a cabbage which we will look after and take to the garden centre (Frank Nicols) in Dingwall to be on display over the summer holidays. Anyone can visit to see them growing and guess which will be the tallest. The pupil (or teacher for that matter!) who adopted the tallest plant will win £10, and the person who guesses the nearest height of the tallest one will win a £20 voucher to spend at the garden centre.

Earlier in the week, Danielle strained the "comfry potion" after it has been stewing for three weeks. It was pretty pongy!! Great plant feed for the cabbage as they get bigger.

They don't look much yet, but here you can see we planted out several types of squash plant. They got watered in well by rain on Thursday evening.

Another big event of the week was a sponsored walk. The whole school were involved and we all walked 11 miles! There were marshalls along the way and the weather stayed reasonably dry for us. All money raised will go to the school fund (which has been very generous in helping us get the garden started).

A great spin off from the walk was that the council were busy planting out hundreds of geraniums on the first corner. Miss Swallow enquired as to what would happen to all the pots and guess what? They gave them to us! A huge pile was dropped off near the garden later that day! This is great, as we have decided to grow seedlings and plants (both flowers and vegetables) to sell next year to help us be self sufficient in our funding.

After the sponsored walk, Catriona and Charlotte finished potting up the cabbage seedlings for the competition - and tidied the shed too! Well done girls.

On Monday this week, pupils were on holiday - staff had an in-service day. Miss Swallow put out some of our excess plants - carrots, parsnips, onions, garlic - and some lupins and geraniums for the staff to buy.
Meanwhile in the garden, the lettuce are showing through.
The radish are getting bigger...
...as are the courgettes! Notice the willow seat looking bushy in the background!