Wednesday 25th May 2016

What a busy gardening day we have had today! We started the morning with a competition to design a company logo and slogan for our ‘food for thought business’, Vegetables R us! The winning designs from Marly and Barnaby are very colourful and thoughtful! Jessica also came up with a superb slogan for our company using her knowledge of rhyme….

 

 

 

 

 

But the learning didn’t stop there! Before we could plant our lettuces today we needed to count them! As they were in trays 3x9, we had to use our knowledge of multiplication and arrays to work out how many lettuces we SHOULD have! Unfortunately several had been eaten so we then had to subtract a few.

Our next job was to estimate the spacing between our lettuces. The class decided to do this by drawing a circle to represent a fully grow lettuce. We then had to measure the circles diameter. Some of the year 4 pupils suggested we should then draw a square around our circle; we could then work out our spacing. Some of the class also worked out the perimeter of the square around each lettuce.

Still there was more maths! By measuring the beds, some of the year 4’s were able to work out how many lettuces we could grow by working out the area of the beds and dividing it by the area of each ‘lettuce square’.

I think you will agree, the whole class worked hard in their maths session today, yet everybody gave it 100% and were clearly enjoying the challenge of 'practical maths' using all the skills we have been learning in lessons.

                                            

Finally we set about planting our lettuces! Finally we stood back to admire our efforts. What a wonderful way to put: area, perimeter, multiplication, division and diameter all into a clear and meaningful context! By the end of the session there were even murmurs of; ‘that lesson was awesome’….the power of Veg!

We did find a few problems in the garden today! Firstly our courgettes looked very poorly compared with the second batch we set as seeds. We decided to replace the old courgettes with the new. This did give us a chance to did up the plants and try and work out what went wrong! We think that maybe they didn't get enough water. What do you think?

 

We had hoped to plant beetroot in one of the side beds today. When we started to dig, we noticed that the soil was VERY hard to turn over. That's when one of the children spotted the roots! They had 'taken over' the bed from a nearby tree. Can you see the dark blob on the photo on the left? This is a blob of fresh compost. The rest of the soil in the bed is so sandy and sticky, we don't think there will be any nutrients for our plants left in it! I think we are going to need some volunteers to dig it out and add fresh compost.





Finally we have a completed set of raised beds!!!

 

Tuesday 24th May 2016

Our contract for the allotment arrived today! We now have a big, open space to grow lots of good, wholesome food for our school. As you can see, we are going to have to put on our long trousers and take a scythe with us to chop down the jungle that has grown. Hopefully there are no elephants hiding in the long grass! However ..........

....there ARE lots of wildflowers growing there. As a part of our science we have been investigating the structure of plants so when we do have to dig over our plot, there will be a wonderful opportunity to study the growth of plants beneath the soil! We are also investigating pollination so maybe we can just sit quietly and watch which insects visit our wild flowers before removing them! Weeds are plants too, just growing in the wrong place!

 

The allotments at Wenhaston are SO well cared for. Look at all the lovely rows of plants in the plots beyond ours. No pressure class 3 but I think we need to get cracking before we unintentionally create a 'Wenhaston Rainforest'!

 

Wednesday 4^th May 2016

Finally the big day had arrived! Another milestone in our garden project as some of our seedlings had grown large enough to plant out into our new, raised beds. Here are our tomatoes! We wanted to plant a mixture of different colours. Our first job was to identify which tomatoes were which. The outdoor ‘bush’ tomatoes have large, solid pointy leaves, a bit like those on a potato. The ‘sungold’ tomatoes have ‘feathery’ leaves. Have a look at our picture, could you classify them and work out which are which?! Look closely!!

In science we had been investigating different root structures. Today we had to use our knowledge of roots to decide whether to pull up our weeds with our hands or whether we would need to dig down to remove the ‘tap roots’ to stop them from growing back. Aren't weeds clever?! What do you think we did with the weeds in the pictures? Of course weeds are plants too, just growing in the wrong place for us at the wrong time!

 

Once all of the stones were removed we set about adding compost. This would be the food that our plants feed on to grow strong and healthy along with plenty of sunshine and water. This was a great chance for us to talk about ‘microbes’ in science and how they help to break down ‘organic’ mater. Imagine a world with no microbes? We also had the chance to practise our measures in maths. Can you see how much soil there was in each bag? We had to do some estimating to work out how much soil we would need for all of the raised beds!

 

 The maths didn’t stop there. Next we needed to count our seedlings (in 4’s, so a great chance to practise the 4 times table!) We then had to measure and mark out our bed to ensure that each plant had enough space to grow. In science we learned why this is important. Why do you think plants need lots of space to grow? We could fit more plants in if we squished them all together! Good idea or bad?

 

Once we had set all of our seedlings we had to water them in well. We saw what happened to weeds in science if you don’t water them properly! Like us…too much or too little is not a good idea for the long term health of a plant!
 

 

Hopefully this week we will be able to finish planting our crops…we still have chard and courgettes to set in the rear beds. Next stop...the allotment! Watch this space!!