Bulbs

The last two meetings have been cancelled due to heavy rain, but last Friday we were back and thank goodness the weather was lovely and sunny!

A few weeks ago we had some very important people from Capital Growth come and inspect our garden.  We made some special signs to impress them and it worked!  Now we have a certificate and special plaque for the garden telling us we are space number 0122.  Hopefully they will try and find us a shed so that we can keep our tools somewhere safe and we can hide inside if it starts to rain!

On Friday we decided to do some planting for the spring.  But first we had a look at our broad beans - Look at how they've grown!

After we'd admired our broad beans we started planting some flower bulbs in clumps around the vegetable beds so that they will look pretty in spring and attract insects.

We didn't know what sort of bulbs they were as they were all muddled up but we tried our hardest to put them into groups.  

It was quite hard getting them in, but mummy helped using a special hole maker to cut holes in the ground.

We can't wait until spring to find out what we've planted!

After that we did a bit of weeding.  We'll be back again next week unless it rains ... or snows!

More Planting!

Today the first thing we did was look at how well the spring cabbage were going.  They have been growing bigger than ever ...

After that, weeded the old pumpkin bed and planted some more onions and garlic in there.  Our last crop of garlic seems to have been eaten by something - birds or squirrels?

After planting our alium bed, we added compost onto one of the new beds that my dad put in two weeks ago.

Then Gabriella and I planted some broad beans in it ....

Before we planted the beans, Gabriella ran string in two lines to show us where the beans are growing in their rows.

Well done to all the gardeners for their hard work planting new crops.

Introducing the Secret Gardeners

Today I have decide to let you meet some of the Secret Gardeners, but first I will tell you what we did today.

Firstly, we cleared the strawberry patch of any grass that was lingering around.

Then we raked one of the new beds ready for planting.

After that we had a look at our spring cabbages - look how they've grown!

Our onions have done well too ... and we cleared the weeds from around them

And now ... I have great pleasure in introducing you to some of the Secret Gardeners ...

Harvest

Today we dug up the pumpkins and weeded the bed so that we could plant some garlic in there. 

Look at our onions!  They've sprouted already ...

and here are our pumpkins on display for the Harvest Festival at school.  After the festival they will be given to Janine the cook and hopefully she will make them into soup or roast them for our weekly roast.  Yum yum!

The Planting Day

Today we did our first planting of the year, but before that we had to tidy up the strawberries.  We took all the straw off the bed and put it in a bag for later.  Then we cut off all the brown and old leaves so that the new ones could grow. 

These seeds are spinach seeds that we planted into the bed where the potatoes had been.  It's Giant Spinach.

Here we are planting the spinach into a row scattering very thinly and being careful to keep it in a straight line.

The we put some string over the row so that we could see where the spinach was before it grows.

After that, we filled some peat pots with compost and put some spring cabbage in them and then popped them into the greenhouse to grow.  After they have sprouted, we will move them into the bed with the spinach.

Meanwhile, my daddy was putting in the last two raised beds that we had emptied out last week.

Well done Daddy.

A Sunny Day in the Secret Garden

Today was our second meeting as year sixes in the Secret Gardening Club.  It was very sunny weather, perfect for gardening and the soil was nice and damp after the rainy day we had a couple of days before.  

First thing we saw was how well the pumpkins were doing ...

Then we finished off taking the soil out of the beds.  Our caretaker, Steve kindly lent us a wheelbarrow to make the job easier.  We made the soil into a huge pile in almost no time at all. Hopefully daddy can now dig the new beds in properly.  

After we had finished that dirty job we planted some onions that my mummy had given to us.  They looked exactly like normal onions just much smaller and mummy said they were called onion sets.  She told us to plant them with the pointy side up and only deep enough so that the tip of the pointy side was above the ground.

And look what we found whilst we were preparing the bed for the onions!  Doesn't it look like an animal?

I would like to say well done to all the Secret Gardeners for all their hard work in moving that soil. 

Our first meeting after the holidays.

Today was our first meeting after the holidays; it was very busy!

First we had to weed some beds ...

BEFORE (pumpkins in the background)

AFTER

                        

Then we had to dig all the soil out of some upturned beds so that they can be put into the ground properly.  It was very hard work and very dusty!

Gabriella found a radish in the soil and tried it.  

It was very hot and spicy as it had been in the ground too long

We had some lovely tomatoes.  We picked them all and tried them.  Lily said "they're much nicer than tomatoes from the supermarket.  Much sweeter"  We put them into a bucket and gave them all to our school cook Janine.  I wonder what she'll  make with them.

Today was so much fun that even some Reception children joined in - Fred and Lauren.

Well done to all the Secret Gardeners.

Our Last Meeting before the Holidays

On the last day of term we did a bit of final weeding and tidying before gathering up the lettuces and new potatoes to share for lunch.  The tomatoes weren't quite ripe, so we had to leave them until September.

We then took the new potatoes and lettuces to our lovely school cook, Janine and she cooked the potatoes and popped them with the leaves to make a lovely salad for the Secret Gardeners.

Growing our own lunch was not bad work considering the Secret Gardening club has only been going a few weeks!  Potatoes taste much nicer when you've grown them yourself ...

A BUSY DAY!

 
Today in the secret gardening club we had a very busy day.We...

weeded

watered

and planted pumpkins!!!

A special well done to the secret gardening club members for all their hard work.  Thanks!  

(And good luck to our pumpkins too)

New beds

We now have two new beds in The Secret Garden and we have finished filling one with soil.  

We also did tomato watering, 

normal watering, radish thinning - with one finger between each plant 

and we pinched out the little shoots on the tomatoes.  

It was a very busy day.

Thank you to my dad for helping make the beds!