We have come a long way since first entering this competition and still have a long way to go, being in a urban area with no access to funds.  The community and staff have worked together to develop what we have so far.  We have enjoyed the diary entries and reading what other schools are doing.  We are still looking to develop our growing challenge and hope to be growing more next year, as alot of our crops this year have not developed or we missed the start of the growing season.

A group from each class goes out each day and they water everything if needed.  So we all contribute to helping each other.  Over the holidays our Eco-Coordinator and the Site Manager water our vegetables and flowers.  We are currently working out a route for the school holidays to include the community and any volunteers.

We now have a huge compost bin, as well as 2 green containers and a wormery.

Compost Bin

We have

Sowing the seeds

We have accepted the challenge from ‘Let’s Grow’ to grow the biggest pumpkin.  The children began to sow the seeds this week.

Y3 with the help of the Lads Group or making a Faith Garden.  They have been busy designing and planning.  This week it started to take shape, with the cutting out of the ‘fish’ shape.

Fish

We have had a number of donations this term.  From seeds, to different size pots, watering cans, compost bin and even a rhubarb crown.  A big THANK YOU!  Due to these donations each class has it’s own hanging basket of flowers and either a tomato or strawberry hanging basket.

Children from each class have been busy updating the hanging baskets around school, over 16.  They will look beautiful, we are going to try and grow the flowers from seed for the Winter display, let’s hope they look as good.

Garden Club

We have a gardening club after school for the KS2 children each week.  When we started we thought we would struggle with activities for the children to do each week.  Although we have found out, that at the moment the activities are mounting up and the time we have is not enough.  The rain doesn’t bother us, we put on protective clothing and continue, we were surprised that the children like being in the rain.  We are learning as we go along and will continue to improve.

We publish an Eco-Newsletter every half-term which at the moment is bursting with gardening activiities and news.  We have also had alot of pots donated to us from parents and the local community, which has helped alot.  We do still have along way to do, but are enjoying growing and gardening, our successes and failures.  We keep trying.

We have had 3 pages dedicated to the Growing Garden in the church magazine, keeping the local community up-to-date and inviting them to be involved.

We are very proud of our Eco-Code which is on display in the school corridor for everyone to see and hopefully inspire.

Re-planting

Each class takes 8 children out each week to garden, to sow seeds and usually weed.  We still have alot of weeds and have left many to late and they are quite huge.  We are having difficulties getting them out.  We have moved some of the plants, as the weeds took over.

We have planted out our potatoes, which we have been chitting.  These have been placed in plastic bags.  These didn’t do very well last year due to the rain.  We hope this year is much better. 

We still have quite alot chitting and will try and plant these straight into the raised beds.  Will this give us a better crop?

The children have built a Bug Hotel, using wire wrapped into a cylinder shape, filled with dry leaves, with a piece of wood on the top to help protect from rain.  The children have been looking at which bugs help in a Growing Garden and developing our Wildlife Area.

Looking at bugs

We have been looking at bugs, looking at the similarities and differences.  We sketched different ones.  Then made a 3d model, they look amazing!  Well done to the children who put so much time and effort into making 3d models.

We have produced issue 11 of our Eco Newsletter, which keeps all parents informed of our progress in the garden, this goes out every half-term.  We have also this month have had 3 full pages dedicated to the growing garden in the Church Magazine to keep the community up-to-date with activities.

Year 2 have started chitting their potatoes, to get them ready for planting.  They have placed them on the window ledge and are monitoring any changes.

We have a display board in school, were we keep eveyone informed of Eco-issues, including what is happening in the growing garden.

The RHS held a twilight session at St Marks.  We invited other schools and members of the community to attend.  We covered a number of items including Risk Assessments, Crop Rotation and Planning.  We also had the chance to sow our own vegetables, which we all enjoyed.

Year 4 children have been working with the horticulturalist Andrew Cannell from the RHS.  They have planted 3 gooseberry bushes:  Woodpecker, Leveller and Lancashire Lad.  We are now competing against our 10 partner schools in the RHS and we need to have the biggest and heaviest crop in 18 months time.  Wish us Luck!