Tuesday 14th March 2017

All hands to the allotment!

 

Well what a big day today! All our wood had arrived and we had the tools to start constructing our raised beds!

Organisation was a key to the day. The children organised themselves into teams. We had to visualise the 3D shapes in order to get the lengths, widths and pegs in the right position.

There was a good deal of maths on offer here…measurements, angles, parallel lines, perpendicular pieces of wood and multiplication to sort out how many screws and wood lengths we would need to complete each bed.

There was also plenty of science and DT. At one point we realised that our screws would not bite all the way into the wood. The material was too hard so our solution? We had to drill deeper. We also looked at friction and how warm the drill piece was after drilling the wood.

The class were brilliant at finding right angles and with a little perseverance and kind help for other allotment owners, we were able to fix four out of our six beds into place! Next week we should be able to complete the beds, lay the mulch and maybe even fill them with compost ready for the planting season to begin!

Meanwhile…..the beetroot, courgette and tomato seedlings begin to pop their heads above the soil……

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 28th February 2017

A surprise Fruit Garden!

 

Today felt a little bit like Christmas when a giant, mystery brown box arrived on our doorstep!

For the past year we have been working to gain our RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) award. Our eventual aim is to make level 5 status which is only awarded to schools who set up their own school gardens, use the produce and continually develop them by making sure horticulture and home grown food are on the school curriculum.

As a part of completing our level 4 award we were given a voucher to spend at ‘Rocket gardens’. Basically they are a company who grow seedlings to supply to gardens, ready to be set. Our mystery box contained a whole range of fruits from strawberries to red currants, with everything in between!!

Today we managed to set them all in a new ‘fruit garden’ and rhubarb patch that we created!

What do you think to the rhubarb? The larger plants were kindly donated by Mrs Bowles and her father. By researching we discovered that we could split the plants in half to gain a bigger crop!

Class 4 were great at identifying the rest of the fruit plants. It wasn’t easy as the leaves hadn’t grown back after the autumn and some of the labels had fallen off! But after careful reasoning, all were identified. Our next learning was a little more scientific as we had to read the planting guide to work out where it would be best to plant each bush in our beds. A complex task as by watching the beds throughout the day we learned that some parts of the beds have sun in the morning, some in the afternoon and some not at all! A great starting point to discuss the Earth, sun and changing seasons!

So much learning in a realistic context!

Tuesday 21^st February 2017

Our very own orchard!

 

Today saw the arrival of several fruit trees!

We were lucky enough to be able to apply for free apple, pear, plum and cherry trees for our school grounds. Over the years, many orchards have been lost to developments so Suffolk Wildlife Trust have made many ‘old English’ varieties available to grow in school grounds.

Firstly we needed to work out which trees were which! The cherry trees had very different bark to the apple and pear trees so were easy to spot. We noticed different buds on the plum tree. The branches were thinner too. The apple and pear trees were harder to tell apart, but using magnifiers we could tell that the buds were different!

Finally we needed to find a sunny but sheltered spot to grow our fruit trees. We settled for a space near to the story telling chair.

Before we could plant our trees we needed to take a good look around our plot. Last year we discovered that tree roots can grow almost as long as the tree they are attached to is tall! We also learned through experimenting in science that plants grown closely together grow poorly as there is too much competition for nutrients, light and water. So we went to work measuring and researching the height of the surrounding trees to discover the best place to put each of our own plants.

What do you think? One day it will be a superb, quiet place to grow. Did you know that Sir Isaac Newton made one of his greatest discoveries under an apple tree?!