Tidying, Planting and Sunflowers Shooting up!

 Our competition Sunflower Seedlings are shooting up - they have now been potted up and are out in the Betty MacKenzie greenhouse.

 This week, we've been tidying the old pots away in the OJ greenhouse.

 Our Cercidiphylum japonicum tree has started to come into leaf.

 On Wednesday we planted more summer flowers into the barrels to welcome visitors into the garden: foxgloves, lupins and poppies.

 It has been sunny most of the week, though still bitterly cold!  Thanks also to Alastair for dropping off three bags of compost for us!  Rhiannon and Vicki brought them up to the garden in the wheelbarrow.

We have also put out the seed potatoes to "chit" - this means they will grow green shoots ready to get a head start when the soil warms up enough to plant them out.

Preparing for Spring

Lots happened in the garden this week behind the scenes!

Last week, we had a delivery from the Woodland Trust - two boxes containing hedge plant saplings.  The elective classes started planting them out straight away.  There are 105 however, so this will take some time!

On Wednesday, we put them into pots loosely packed with soil to keep them healthy until they get planted.

On Thursday, two volunteers came in and worked tirelessly to rescue our forlorn tool store!  It had been blown over in a freak gust last Friday.

They managed to "right" it and then finished building it - felting the roof and fixing doors onto it.

This will really help to keep our tools organised and free up our "social space" in the shed!

At lunchtime on Thursday, Sara and Danielle tidied the Betty MacKenzie greenhouse by emptying out all the pots and dead plants.

(That's after they'd had a "sword fight" whilst putting two canes away!)

We want to get things ready to start sowing seeds and planting now the days are getting longer and the weather is getting warmer.

Meanwhile, spring is getting on with "springing!"  We have self-seeded snowdrops and crocus and our daffodil bulbs are showing through the ground.

Our Euonymus alatus bush is also coming into bud - we look forward to green shoots, and some artwork portraying this plant from our new resident "botanic artist" - an S6 student studying Advanced Higher Art.

Potato Day a great success and our hedge plants arrive

On Saturday 1st March, the Black Isle Transition Group held their Potato Day.  Connorhan and Mr Macfarlane were there to help out.

Setting up all the boxes...

 ...then the customers arrived

There was a good turn-out 

 Connorhan helping out on the Seed-Swap table.

 There were two sessions, with time for "re-stocking" in between.

 There were 75 different varieties available with a mix of First Early, Second Early, Maincrop and Late Maincrop!  Names ranged from Accord and Apache, to Valor and Vivaldi.

 The seed potatoes were 15p each.  Connorhan here helps to take the payments.

 Black Isle Transition Group also had their own information table set up.

Our two DiGGers enjoy a lunch break!  Keep up the good work you two!

At the end, we were kindly given 14 different varieties to sell to parents and staff for raising club funds as well as keeping some to plant ourselves in the garden.  Thank you very much to the TBI group.

Also this week, we took delivery of 105 hedge plants - a native mix to encourage birds and wildlife.  They came from the Woodland Trust - more about what species they are later when we start planting them out so watch this space!

Sunflower Competition Launched

On Thursday 27th February, we launched our Sunflower Competition in aid of Sense Scotland who help deaf-blind children.  Ten people paid £1 to adopt a sunflower.  They sowed the seeds into our paper pots which are now well watered and standing on Miss Swallow's computer room window cill.  Already, numbers 1 to 4 have started pushing up through the soil!

 On Friday 28th, Connorhan pruned the fruit bushes.  Above and below you can see a before and after of one of the red-currents bushes.  They now need weeding and mulching next.