Thursday 19^th April 2018

Setting our first crops

 

Well the cold weather came and went and on Monday, the sun came out! The temperatures are certainly warm enough to plant our first seedlings of the season.

Unfortunately we still don’t have our greenhouse on site yet so the seedlings have been ‘grown on’ away from school. Next year we hope that the younger pupils can do a lot of the sowing and link it in to their science work on ‘growing plants’.

There was a nice surprise when the class went out to the rear plantation beds today. Our autumn crops had been badly affected by the extremely cold weather but some of them, including; Russian kale, chard and rhubarb chard had thrived in the cold conditions and were ready to harvest! So our first job was to prepare our first crop of the season for harvest and delivery to ‘The Plough’ in Wangford. By the end of the session we had quality controlled, packaged and sent £5.50 worth of vegetables to The Plough!

Our next job was to clear the beds entirely and plant our spring crops. After our winter analysis of the top crops for the best yields we have Italian lettuce and iceberg lettuce to set, both of which should be fast growers and provide us with a quick crop. We just have to watch out for the slugs and snails who are hungry after the long, hard winter!

Thursday 29^th March 2018

Update!

 

Well it has been a busy few months building our business team as the cold weather has settled over our garden beds. During the winter we have worked on marketing and finding out which crops we should focus on growing for this coming season.

For the entire autumn term we have used lots of mathematical and literacy skills in creating reports, posters, data sheets and writing persuasive letters to companies who may be able to support us this coming year.

Operation ‘Greenhouse’ is also in full flight. We decided that after the loss of our poly tunnel in the winter gales that we would replace it with a polycarbonate greenhouse. Using our scientific skills we did a study of sunlight and investigated the rotation of the Earth to find the sunniest (and safest!) spot possible on our school field. The new greenhouse will be sited near to the Poets chair. We are hoping to buy it using some of our profits…watch this space!

Today we started work on the allotment. It had been a good few months since our last visit and although still chilly, we decided that the temperatures were now high enough for the weeds to start to grow!

As part of our handing over of the allotment to class 3, class 4 showed the pupils in class 3 how to identify different types of weeds and how best to deal with them! We used to science to achieve this, investigating tap roots and surface roots and how to deal with each. We also looked at different types of grasses and how they can impact on the allotment if not dealt with properly.

By the end of the session much of the allotment had been cleared and laid ready for the first crops to be set there in April.

Hopefully this year we will be able to grow lots of fruit and vegetables that we can use in school DT sessions to cook with and preserve throughout the year ahead. Food for thought!!