Produce going down well!

This week we dug up lots more potatoes. The staff who bought last weeks organic boxes have commented on how tasty our produce is! Mr Simpson even asked for more carrots (and parsnips) if we had any as they "tasted like carrots used to!" He is even thinking of buying some raised beds for himself to grow some veg. at home which is great!

You can see Charlotte, Catriona and Danielle weighing out potatoes - Golden Wonder, Blue Belle, Peach Bloom and Smile. We must remember to keep some for ourselves to taste!

Danielle put her usual artistic touch to the labels.

We enjoyed the unseasonally warm weather. Getting stuck in...

...we found lots of worms in the soil too which is a good sign.

On Wednesday, Danielle collected lots of poppy seeds to dry and sow next Spring.

Our newest member Grigor spotting potatoes.

Caroline, Kerri and Connorhan with a box of Golden Wonder and Blue Belle variety.

Grigor did a good job last week picking lettuce.

Potatoes Galore

Wednesday this week was just too wet and windy to do anything outside! We made a quick dash for the shed and ate our lunch before deciding to retreat back into school! It had been bright and pleasant earlier, but a real storm just picked up as lunch time came.
Thursday was much better so we got stuck in emptying the bags of potatoes - a mixture of Pink Fir Apple, Maris Piper and King Edwards.

Meanwhile Danielle and our new member Grigor collected onions and pulled up the remainder of the lettuce. We may plant some more lettuce next week just to see if we can get one more crop before autumn sets in.

Here you can see our first "organic produce" box (in a bag!) We have a dozen staff hoping to buy one. This one contains 1 kg of Maris Piper potatoes, 1 kg of Pink Fir Apple potatoes, 2 onions, a small carrot, a bulb of garlic, some lettuce and curly kale. We hope you enjoy it Mr Simpson - you are our first customer!

Lewis has been off ill this week and we have missed him! Conorhan helped with the potatoes along with two more new members - Kerridwen and Joanne who we are happy to welcome to the club.

Rob was here again too and built us a notice board so that we can put a "welcome" sign for people to see as they enter the garden. He also fixed some of the raised beds, improved the tool store and started a "stone pile" to help clear the site and encourage wildlife to hide there. A great help! More photos to follow soon.

Garlic Bread feast in the shed!

This week, we got to enjoy some of our produce!

On Wednesday we stank out the shed making garlic bread baquettes and wrapped them in foil. Here, you can see them in the staff room oven the next day Miss swallow set the table in the shed for lunch and we had lentil and vegetable soup with the garlic bread.

Connorhan and Mr MacFarlane arrived just in time to join us!

Just like last year, there was nothing left once we had finished. We also sprinkled some poppy seeds on the bread - straight from the flower border.

Rob arrived after lunch to do some more jobs in the garden. Here you can see the willow seat that is now finished. This year's growth has been woven into the structure to thicken it and we have put weed barrier on the soil and lengths of timber to sit on.

Meanwhile, we have a busy few weeks ahead of us as lots of staff are wanting to buy our produce!

(We sold the lettuce and carrots left over from last week)

Roots and Shoots - crops above and below the ground!

This week we continued to harvest crops from the garden. Here we are digging up parsnips and carrots from the buckets.

As you can see, they have grown into a variety of interesting shapes!
We also welcomed Conorhan, our new member this week who immediately got stuck into the hard work.

This is how they looked after washing - we decided the parsnips look like aliens and the carrots like cartoon characters! Miss Swallow has par-boiled some and put them in the freezer for our Christmas dinner. Hopefully we can sell some more to the school staff.

There was too much lettuce for us to eat, so we'll try selling that too. Everyone has taken some home and there's still more left.

Meanwhile, Rob has been busy. Here you can the "wash station"...

...and this week, he built this "cardboard storage point" so that we can encourage people in school to collect old cardboard boxes. They can sit here in the rain so they get soft before putting them into the compost.

Here you can see one of the compost bins and the blue one behind is for "stewing" weeds that we don't want to put in the compost - it has a tap on it so we can drain off the water once the weeds have soaked in it. That way, we get the nutrients out of them without getting pernicious weeds in the compost.

We also dug up all our garlic and weeded the raised bed - photos to follow so watch this space! The shed now reeks of tasty garlic! Next week we plan to make garlic bread and soup to enjoy the fruits of our labour.

Also, the path was looking rather messy, so we have raked it - just need to continue down to the railings now ready for the new gate which hopefully will be installed in a couple of weeks.

Carbon for the compost, potatoes for our plates!

This week, Miss Swallow had a big box to dispose of - our Tesco Vouchers order arrived in it - tools, seeds and resources for the classes to use in the garden. We removed any sellotape or plastic before tearing it up and adding some to each compost heap.

Of course, Danielle couldn't resist trying it out for size! The others also tested the big strips on the grassy slope, but they didn't make very good "sledges"!! Eventually, it all ended up in the compost - food for the worms and slugs!

Even in a neglected part of the garden, the tomato plants have been doing their best over the summer break!

Pea pods left to dry. We picked them this week, to keep for sowing next spring.

More courgettes keep growing. Miss Swallow has sliced and lightly fried one, then put it in the freezer - another ingredient for our Christmas dinner!
The curly Kale is doing well. We also collected potatoes from several bags - all Fir Apple variety so far. We hope to store them in the PE store for a while where it is cool. When we have several varieties collected, we plan to have a "tasting" session to see if we can tell the difference between them.

Willow Seat gets a makeover

This week, we rescued the willow seat from being overtaken by nature!! Below you can see the "before picture" and above the "after". We cut the willow shoots from the front and wove others into the back of the structure. We also topped it up with more soil so now just need the wood lengths to sit on - watch this space!

"There's a seat in here somewhere!" Also, we had a bit of a disaster during the week, as two classes are now using the garden. One group of pupils got a bit keen with weeding and pulled up our squash plants by mistake! You can see the leaves on top of this pile waiting to go on the compost! Oh dear! The staff are now making sure that any weeding is on the paths, as the classes will look after their own raised beds, and we'll keep maintaining ours!

At least one squash plant is left!

Weeds, Peas and Lots to do!

This week, we returned to school after a rather wet summer holiday! Some things have grown like mad (including weeds as you can see amongst the onions above!) and others not at all (we don't have a single runner bean or brussel sprout as yet this year!)The rhubarb has recovered from whatever was munching it in June and looks quite healthy now. We picked a large courgette, and there's another few coming on the plant.

There are lots of peas - we are going to leave some to mature for planting next year, and we have enjoyed eating lots of juicy tasty ones! There's more left for next week too. We may even pick and freeze some to keep for our Christmas dinner in December.

A large pile of dark soil had appeared in the garden! The caretaker asked some contractors on the playing field to drop it for us - thanks Mr MacKenzie! We can use it for topping up the willow seat, and classes can use it for filling their new raised beds.

We have lots of carrots and parsnips still growing - this one was a really funny shape! Miss Swallow boiled and ate it for tea - lovely!

Our flower border is looking good - we got stuck in with weeding it straight away.

Meanwhile at Frank Nicol's garden centre, the Walking Stick cabbages are growing well and people have been guessing which will be the tallest. Number two is in the lead so far (back left of this photo)!

Also, we have a new member - welcome Jennifer - we hope you enjoy working in the garden with us! We also have now passed Level 2 of the Royal Horticultural Society Benchmark Scheme. As a result, we have been sent the book "Grow your own Veg" by Carol Kline, and £30 worth of tools are winging their way to us! I wonder what they will be!