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!!