Easter Egg Tombola a great success!

On Friday this week, DiGGers helped out with an "Easter Egg Tombola" that the Parent Council had organised for us.  

A fabulous range of Easter Eggs had been donated by parents and displayed in the foyer with a raffle tickets on each one.  Pupils paid 50 pence a go and if the ticket they drew out of the bucket ended in a zero they won an egg.

Amazingly, in one lunchtime, it raised £175!!  This money will go towards building seating and planters in the new garden that DiGGers and tutor group 1W2 will be creating.  Along with our seed potato sales, this means we now have £235 of the £600 we aim to raise.

Mrs Cormack was one of the lucky winners!
We would like to thank the Parent Committee for organising this event, all the parents who donated eggs and Lynne, Alison and Heather who helped us on the day.  We also have some eggs left, so hope to raffle them off next week as well!

Earlier in the week, despite the cold, we made some pots out of newspaper ready to start planting when the spring finally arrives.  Connorhan and Miss Swallow also dug a flat area for a new compost bin to be started off as our others are now full.

Danielle and Rhiannon help carry the spare seed potatoes up to the shed for storing.  

We also tidied the shed a little - a constant job!

Parents night a great success!

On Thursday night this week, some DiGGers members (Connorhan, Danielle, Rhiannon and Simona) volunteered to stay in school and sell seed potatoes to parents and staff. 

We set up tables in the main corridor and lots of people were very interested.

The girls are putting pre-ordered potatoes together for staff. 

They were kept pretty busy!

                                         We'd like to thank everyone who bought potatoes!

It was a great success - we raised £60 and 10p.  This money is the beginning of a fund for a whole new garden that we are planning to create.  It will have fruit trees, hedge plants, seating and a path in it.

Earlier in the week, we "heeled in" the hedge plants, as they arrived before we are ready to plant into the new area.  Above you can see us digging a trench to put them in...

...and here you can see some of the covered over with soil.  This will keep them alive until we are ready to transplant them.

Simona and Ashton - both new DiGGers members.

Potty for Potatoes!

On Saturday afternoon this week, DiGGers helped out at the "Transition Black Isle" Potato Day in the North Kessock village hall.

It was a chance for people to be able to buy many varieties of seed potato (over 60 available) at just 10 pence each.  It was very busy - great to see so many people wanting to "grow their own".

Connorhan and Miss Swallow taking money at the payment table.  You can also see a jar of seeds on the table...this was a "guess the seeds in the jar" competition to help us raise club funds (we are still saving to buy new felt for the shed roof).  The competition raised a fabulous £31 and the winner was Mr D McLennan who also kindly donated his £5 prize!  He was closest to the 2659 seeds with a guess of 2680.  A huge thank you to all those who took part.

Danielle meanwhile was on duty at the plant and seed-swap table.  We donated spider plants and a variety of seeds.

There was a good crowd round the table the whole time!

 Danielle also helped taking money on the main door, and at the payment table.  Sterling work!

All in all, a great occasion.  We'd like to thank TBI - the Transition Black Isle Group (see transitionblackisle.org for more about them) for organising the event and letting us help out.

At the end of the day, they donated 6 boxes of potatoes that were left for us to be able to sell at school.  Two boxes of First Earlies, two of Second Earlies and two Main Crop.  If anyone is interested to buy some, please call the school and ask for Miss Swallow.

The Ground Thaws at Last!

DiGGers gained 6 new members this week!  All first year girls.  Here you can see Danielle keeping them on track with weeding the neglected raised beds!

This one still had potatoes deep in the soil...

...a good little crop of "Charlotte" I think!

The rhubarb in these tyres was swamped with weeds...

...so pupils in the ID class (that's short for "Inter Disciplinary") weeded them and covered them with straw.

                                             Meanwhile Munros Sawmill gave us some more pine bark chippings...

 and the class spread it among the tree saplings after more weeding.

 The Olympic Jubilee Greenhouse is also looking tidier...

 ...and we have planted our first seeds of the year.  Three varieties of Squash (thanks Wandersman!)

New Fruit Trees and some New Faces in the Garden

 We had some new faces in the garden this week.  First years in 1W2 Tutor Group.  We have designed a new garden near the school building, but are not quite ready to start building it yet.  We applied for free fruit trees from the "Grounds for Learning" charity and they arrived this week - along with harsh frosty weather!

 On Tuesday, they weeded the ground...

 ...the trees arrived on Wednesday...

 ...two plum trees and six apple trees to create an orchard...

...so on Thursday, we "heeled them in" which means we dug a trench and covered the roots with soil to protect them from drying out or getting frosted until we are ready to plant them properly.

 We thought a layer of straw would help to keep them warm too!

Meanwhile, the DiGGers were busy cutting back the wild flowers and weeding the ground in readiness for re-sowing in Spring.  Danielle also collected some seed that was still in the pods and Callum cut back the willow seat some more.  We will keep the cuttings either to re-plant as trees or use to weave mini raised beds.

Yet more wind! Cutting back Cabbages

 Spot the compost bin!  Again this week, high winds have taken their toll on our garden.  After collecting various items strewn around (including more panels from the OJ Greenhouse), we realised that the window panel had broken.  It's definitely a week spot - the aluminium frame has sheered off in one corner so we'll have to see if we can fix it.

Our temporary fix of canes helped some panes to stay in place - just!

 On Thursday, we made a start cutting back the walking stick cabbages.  We hope to dry the larger stems to see if they will actually make walking sticks!

Our next job will be weeding, to prepare for this year's planting.  It seems a slow process this winter as the ground has been frozen for most of the time since the New Year!  In fact, we still have hedge plants to get into the ground as well - all good fun!

A Quiet Week

 This week, the wintry weather continued.  On Wednesday, we met indoors to talk about the upcoming potato day.  We started to count seeds into a jar for a competition on the seed swap table.  On Thursday, we pulled last week's fat ball out of the tub and put it on the bird table.

We also needed to replace 3 panels again in the greenhouse.  When the weather is warmer and drier, we will put sealant round each pane to help keep it secure.  In the meantime, we'll just keep our fingers crossed that we don't have such severe winds again - as this time, there were 80 mph gusts!