This Friday was the last time we will meet after school due to trips and the school Fun Day. We tied up the tomatoes and harvested some courgettes (loads more to come). The lettuce is growing faster than we can eat it. The kids had a great time digging for our first potatoes which went home with them along with the courgettes. We hope that throughout the next few weeks the kids can take home some more vegetables and that the rest is ready for them in September.

This post is a collection of several days. Once we had the plants in the raised beds we were struck with several days of strong wind and some of them looked poorly. R.I.P. melons.

As time went by most of the plants survived the weather and the half-term. R.I.P. chives. The tomatos are looking great. The onions, beetroot, carrots, potatoes and courgettes are all doing well. The basil and sage (not pictured) are also slowly getting into shape.

We don’t forget to have a bit of fun. That can mean having a laugh about a failed sunflower competition, water fights in the rain or just plain silliness.

And finally the garden has paid off and we have had our first harvest of lettuce.

We have also started the great plant hunt to create a Downsell Plant Encyclopedia. We are collecting and pressing all available plants and flowers to combine them into a book that children can use to identify plants around the school.

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Back to working on the raised beds. We finished the second raised bed with the rest of our soil and planted tomatoes, courgettes, mustard, and melons. The foxes have so far stayed off our raised beds but we put some netting over them just in case.

Big day today. This week we received 1000 kg of soil for the raised beds and today we filled the larger one. Unfortunately only two members of the club came along. We were however lucky to find some enthusiastic volunteers. All the children helping moved at least their weight in soil today. We began by putting down several layers of cardboard and newspapers at the bottom of the raised beds as a water store. Then came the job of filling the bed with about 800 kg of soil and mixing in some compost. Finally we sowed some broccoli, carrot, beetroot, leeks, and planted some onions.

No club that Friday because we broke up early for the Easter Holiday. Yeeeeaaahh! Just some pictures of what our plants are doing. The cress-heads went home with their creators.

Sorry for the irregular updates… therefore three posts in short succession. The week after our weekend raised bed building effort we inspected the raised bed frames with the rest of the club. We also finished the plastic lining of the smaller bed.

Once that was done we looked at how our vegetables, herbs, and flowers were doing. Not much to see yet so we made some cress-heads.

Once again the weather was great to work in the garden. Our wood had arrived for the raised beds so we wanted to get those built as soon as possible. The timber was kindly donated by T. Brewer & Co Ltd and we also received a generous donation from the Timber Trade Federation (London & South East) which allowed us to buy topsoil and seeds for our raised beds. A big thanks to them for giving us the chance to have some raised beds. The three weekend warriors were very helpful and thanks to the expertise of our chief gardening engineer Ben, all went well. Thanks to him for bringing his tools and organizing the wood. We now have two raised bed frames that need to be filled with compost. Can’t wait to plant them.

On Day 2 we were unlucky because our compost that was meant to be used for some planting had gone missing. We therefore spent the time talking about the future projects in the garden and designing some features of it. On Day 3 we were able to plant lots of seeds including chives, courgettes, melons, tomatoes, mustard, sage, dill, sunflower, and basil. The children each have their own sunflower and we are having a competition to see which one will grow to be the tallest.

Today was the first day of this year’s Gardening Club. We were on a special mission to replant all the large flowerpots outside the school building. Our new gardeners were up to the challenge and did a great job. The weather could not have been better and it was hard getting the kids to stop at 4:30. Mrs. Sahgal came out to help us as well. We also had some good news. The timber for the raised beds has arrived. Finally we would like to thank Mr. Jones for his car, money, advice and help.

This week will see the beginning of this year’s Gardening Club. Children in Year 3 and Year 5 will begin to work on the garden where we left off the year before. Hopefully this year we will be able to complete the pond and build the raised beds for vegetables.