catherine June 26th, 2009
The holidays are nearly here! Our raised beds still haven’t arrived, and we are awaiting the results of a grant application which might enable us to buy compost and topsoil to put in them. The mushroom seats which we will be able to buy with the Rotary Club grant will go at the end of the wildlife border so this will stay as it is until these arrive as they will probably have to be concreted in - we can then plant things round them and get this end of the border looking really great. If we are successful with other grant applications we have made, we will be able to buy some ferns and other plants.
Although it sometimes doesn’t seem as if there’s been much progress as we wait for funds and materials, things are moving slowly on. Two Catherines dug out the old pond liner as it had been filled with rubble and pretty much collapsed. It was a very smelly job…. Now a new liner can go in, and then perhaps we will have frogs again. The pumpkin plants that Mrs William’s class grew are doing well, despite the best efforts of a fox to dig one of them up last night! The broken window on the greenhouse has been fixed with the help of a donation of perspex from freecycle, and the felt is going on shortly.
catherine June 20th, 2009
Although the school garden is quite small it is full of wildlife. We have visiting urban foxes at night who can sometimes also be seen in the neighbouring allotments, plenty of birds, and the wildlife border is crawling with bugs and beetles. At the moment it is especially full of seven-spotted ladybirds. These are the most common ladybird in Europe, and as well as being beautiful they are a really useful insect if you are growing vegetables because they eat aphids which are a garden pest.
catherine June 19th, 2009
The brilliant greenhouse is very nearly finished, (pic to be uploaded) but Mrs Buist needs more bottles for the roof. Please don’t forget to bring in your 2l bottles and help finish it off.
John Renwick Roofing have generously donated the roofing felt for the shed, so it shouldn’t be long before we can put all our Morrison’s voucher tools safely away.
The bark path is gradually creeping towards the end of the wildlife border. We will be able to spend the money we have received from Edinburgh Rotary Club on some lovely mushroom seats and as this money is going to stretch further than first anticipated Mrs MacManus’s P1 class have chosen a couple of other little surprises, to be revealed later in the summer…
catherine June 10th, 2009
 Tiny pumpkin plant - will it be ready for Halloween?! |
The pumpkin seeds that Mrs Williams’s class planted have sprouted and were big enough to plant, so one of them is now gracing one of the whisky barrels. |
catherine June 2nd, 2009
Today the shed went up. We have some tools which we got with Morrisons vouchers and from freecycle and now we have somewhere to put them! We just need some roofing felt…
There was more backbreaking work involved later on when Fiona Fitzgerald borrowed a post office van and came up to Hermitage of Braid with her colleague Brian Anderson to collect some more logs for edging the path. Jess the cat was hiding in the back, and frankly not much use.
 Fiona and Brian |
 Lots of logs |
catherine May 27th, 2009
P1A had fun in the garden this morning. We explored the wildlife garden and found some strawberry plants growing there!
We also planted seeds in one of our whisky barrels. We planted lettuce, radish, spring onion and carrot seeds, and saw that they were all different. We covered them over gently with a very small amount of compost and watered them in.
Whisky barrel planted!
We also planted two pumpkin seeds to grow on the classroom windowsill. When the seedlings are big enough we will be able to plant them in a barrel outside.
catherine May 26th, 2009
The wildlife garden has been over-run by horsetail (picture to be uploaded), which has grown on the earth since the time of the dinosaurs. It spreads really rampantly by the roots and can completely take over. It can be a real pest but there are some ways of dealing with it:
Dig everything up, remove all the horsetail roots and replant from scratch. Not an option here.
Spray with weedkiller. Not an option in a school garden. And it’s particularly tough and would need lots of applications.
Cover everything with black plastic, cardboard or old carpet and wait for at least six months until lack of light kills it all off. Not really practical here, except perhaps in parts of the garden.
Well, it’s a wild plant, and this is a wild garden, and some like the jungly effect so you have to be a bit relaxed about it! However you can make its life a misery by constantly pulling it up, wherever you see it, and though you won’t get rid of it all, you will eventually weaken it. Probably our best bet as we can live with some where it’s not crowding out other plants. So, if you feel like a bit of therapy, please go and take it out on the horsetail!
catherine May 25th, 2009
Edinburgh Rotary Club are very generously donating £350 to be spent on one of the mushroom seats, shown here which will probably go at the end of the wildlife garden.
catherine May 24th, 2009
Just to show, you don’t need fancy containers for your plants. Even old tins can look quite funky.
Cheap (free...) and cheerful
