Happy Christmas to Everyone!

This week was our Christmas dinner!  It's been a busy week but we still managed to cook our produce and enjoy a full sit-down dinner with pumpkin cake take to take away at the end!  We also welcomed Mr Macfarlane (always relied upon to turn up when food is on offer lol!)

 On Wednesday, we sang Happy Birthday to Sophia - who brought in lovely little chocolate and banana mini macaroons made by her mother - our message to go back home is "Thank you for your wonderful cooking!"

 We then decorated the shed for our Christmas dinner on Thursday...

 ...and set the table.

Notice Sophia sweeping the floor whilst Sara and Danielle put up baubles!

Meanwhile, Connorhan and Kyle finished the job they started last week...

 ...and planted up the flowers into our trough.  This should make a welcoming sight for visitors at the entrance to the garden in spring.

 On Thursday unfortunately, Sara and Carrie were off - we missed you guys!!   That meant just Danielle and Miss Swallow were there to cook the Christmas Dinner during period 5!  Here, Danielle chops some sprouts...

 ...and then crushes the cashews and walnuts.  We had our now "traditional" dinner of mash (containing parsnips and carrots too) along with a dish of onions, garlic, bacon and sprouts with nuts all fried in a giant pan.

 We all gathered in the shed and enjoyed Christmas crackers too.  Joke: What do you call an elephant that flies?  A Jumbo Jet of course!!!  Another one: What's Andy Murray's favourite dish?  Bangers and smash of course!!  (Bet he'd like our smash though!!)

Can't resist one more: What's E.T short for?...

...Because he's only got little legs!!!!!  LOL get it?

We also had a special guest this year...Mrs Cormack, our Head Teacher.  She wanted to see what our Christmas Dinner was all about and enjoyed the hospitality.  She pulled a cracker with Danielle and Sophia made sure she got a plateful of food too.  She was surprised how tasty it was! 

The time flew and before we knew it, the bell went for school to start again.  Here you can see the "after" picture of our table!  Lots to clear up, with empty pans, plates and cups!  We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  We hope you all stay safe and healthy and have a happy time over the holidays.  We will be back in the New Year, and may well have some new first year members, so "watch this space!"

Cantray bridge College and Christmas preparations

This week, Danielle enjoyed a "taster day" at Cantray bridge College on the outskirts of Inverness.

 She joined the Horticultural department and helped them with jobs in the greenhouse.  Here, sowing sweet pea seeds...

 ...and here she potted on some californian poppies.  She also had the chance to illustrate her art skills by writing plant labels for the group and decorating them with mini pictures!  The instructor Gillian was friendly and welcoming; we hope to build stronger ties in future with already a planned "plant swap" and garden visits.

Meanwhile in the garden this week, we had to cancel our activities on Wednesday as the wind was howling!!  Tree branches above our shed can present a risk in gale force winds so we erred on the side of caution.  On Thursday, we welcomed a new member - Kyle who has been checking out the blog and is keen to join us.  He and Connorhan filled this trough with soil and planted bulbs...

...it is now waiting for the flowers at the top of the picture to be planted.

 Also, we started a major "shed clean-up".  We postponed our Christmas dinner until next week as Danielle and Sara were keen to join in with the canteen Christmas dinner this week!  The shed still looks messy, but it is a "work in progress".  Watch this space...this time next week the table will be laid for dinner and our decorations will be up!

Building our Compost Bays and Holding a Bake Sale

On Friday this week, we held a bake sale at break and lunch time.

Lots of people enjoyed the cakes...

...we had a selection including a variety of cup cakes, shortbread, lemon & orange slices, our own home-grown pumpkin cake, chocolate cake, giant chocolate buttons and even sticky toffee pudding plus chocolate mouse so lots to choose from!

We raised £27.61 which we will add to our Sense Scotland Fund for deaf-blind children.  That means we now have a grand total of £65 so well done DiGGers and thank you to all those that contributed!

Earlier in the week, we also made real progress with our new composting area.

We starting cladding the sides of the first bay with timber that the Forest School group had cut for us up at Evanton Woods. 

Sara holds the wood whilst Connorhan fixes it. 

Carrie nails the other end. 

 We all took turns with the hammering (the little hammer was quite difficult to use compared to the full-sized claw hammer!)

Ayisha has a good eye! 

Danielle concentrating on the nail! 

Meanwhile, Connorhan sharpened some lengths of 2 by 1 timber that we will use to re-fix the OJ Greenhouse to the ground. 

The wall gets higher! 

Then we start the back. 

Using the larger hammer... 

...and a spirit level to make sure the panels are level! 

 Watch this space to see the three bays emerge!

 We hope to be able to get all our compost into it so the garden will look much tidier because at the moment, we have more compost, weeds, trimmings and general garden waste than we can handle!

Meanwhile, there are still seeds in the garden - including these Honesty seeds in their delicate papery seed case. 

Also, a new leaf-mould pile is in the process of being constructed - using chicken wire and smaller lengths of wood.  We will place it near the garden entrance so that the Janitors can add leaves to it when they sweep the bus bay area in future.

Sunflower Competition Winner plus: Cake, Compost and Clearing Pumpkin Plants!

This week, Danielle did a school announcement on the tanoy system - well done for keeping your nerve!!  She was announcing the winner of the Sunflower competition we held throughout the summer.  The winning plant was adopted by a member of the public: Miss Harwood.  She has kindly donated the prize to our fund!  The tallest sunflower was number 2 and grew to a height of 2 metres and 17 cm.  Twelve people guessed the correct plant, so we put their names in a hat and drew out the winner.  This was Miss Tullis who teaches geography and rural studies in school!  She wins a £20 Frank Nicol's voucher to spend.  We'd like to thank Frank Nicol's for hosting the competition and taking care of the plants all summer - we couldn't do it without your support!

So far, we have raised just under £40 for Sense Scotland who help deaf-blind children.  We plan to boost this amount with a bake sale next Friday - so please bring some money and enjoy some of our baking at break or lunch time!

Talking of baking, on Wednesday this week we enjoyed a cake...

...baked from our very own pumpkins...

...soft and delicious!  Everyone enjoyed a piece.

We burnt off the calories by banging three more posts into the ground for our new compost area.

We were careful to measure the diagonals first, to ensure they were equal in order to get the compost square!  We used Pythagoras's theorem to work out what the length of the diagonals should be as each side is 1.2 metres long.

Meanwhile Danielle, Sara, Ayisha and Sophia got busy clearing away the old pumpkin plants.

The three Musketeers?

On Thursday we continued with the compost bay posts - we now have 6 in ready - watch this space for the cross-planks going on!

We also spent time emptying a trailer load of bark onto the paths to keep it fresh and deep.

We extended the path a bit more...

...next we'll need edging on the left to keep the bark in place.

Also this week, IDL classes (that's Interdisciplinary learning - second year pupils) worked really well weeding, mulching and generally tidying the raised beds in the garden so things are starting to look a lot better for the winter.  They cleared the runner bean plants, old pumpkin plants and lots of weeds!

Pumpkin Competition Winner and a RoWAN Waste Audit

This week, we are pleased to announce the winner of the Lewis MacKenzie Trophy.  Our primary school cluster were invited to grow pumpkins this year and Strathpeffer Primary School came out top with the largest, measuring in at...wait for it...18 cm circumference (!)  Admittedly not the largest pumpkin ever, but it has been a challenging season for growing them with a wet spring and dry summer!  So well done to pupils at Strathpeffer.  We hope all our primary schools have enjoyed planting the seeds and growing the pumpkins and that you will look forward to next year's competition (whatever that will be!)

 Meanwhile back in our garden it was time to harvest our own pumpkins.  The plants have been frosted now and died back so we needed to collect the fruits...

 ...no enormous ones either, but enough to chop up and turn into pumpkin pie for our Christmas dinner (I'm sure it will keep in the freezer for a few weeks).

 Also this week, Toni and Norman from Rosshire Waste Action Network came in to run a Waste Audit.  They collected all food waste and rubbish from the canteen bins at lunch time for three days and weighed it.  DiGGers were there to help.  You can see the RIDAN above - a bit smelly with the lid off, but it's lovely and hot in there and making good compost from...

 ...food waste and...

sawdust.

Helping to weigh all the bags.  Thanks to Danielle, Connorhan and Carrie for coming along.  These results will be compared with a previous audit to see if we are now wasting less - let's hope there has been progress!

 Also this week, we made slight progress with our new compost bay by ensuring the first post was secured in an upright position.  Here we are using a spirit level to check it is not sloping as Carrie knocks it in.

 Other news: the IDL (Interdisciplinary Learning) class cut back the runner bean plants and we have started to collect the seeds to store for sowing next year.  (Notice also the beans are sitting on a list - al the jobs we want to get done before the winter sets in!)

 We also have a lovely seed head from the garlic - we could collect the seeds, but thought we might dry it out and use it for a centrepiece on our Christmas Dinner table!

 The fruit garden has now had all trees pruned.  Here you can see before...

...and after.  Some of the pruning seemed quite drastic but it will allow the branches to thicken up next year as they grow again.  Next we need to feed and mulch them ready for the winter ahead.