Tuesday 26 June 2012

Bliss returns

Jim returned today and made us all very happy. He told the Y4 boys the tomatoes were the best he had seen in any school:) The group talked to him about the ladybird larvae and Jim explained that the one on the bamboo cane was going to become a ladybird by becoming a pupa and then a ladybird.We have to feed the tomatoes now they have flowers so the fruit will grow. We will have a lot of tomatoes and the residents of Falcon Estate will be helping harvest them this summer.Year 5 have done a fine job rescuing the beans, garden club have also added to the bean collection by planting them straight in the ground. 
             The turnips have surprised everyone and there is a lot of interest in how big they will grow. A lot of people know the story of the enormous turnip. We will have to wait and see. Some of the cabbages are under cover and are huge some of them are not under cover and are tiny. The enviromesh is like the 'mithril' of the garden world.                                                        

Monday 25 June 2012

Peas Please

Our peas are looking good. The structure built by Jermaine and Jerome in Class 4 has produced healthy peas with lots of flowers. Thankyou boys.

Saturday 16 June 2012

Today we tried to spread out the radishes. The squirrels seem to like pulling them out so we decided to put them back in but not in a row.

Apparently we should thin out the carrots too.
This will help the other carrots grow  but the smaller ones we can eat.

Our potatoes have flowered which we were not expecting so that was a surprise.

A visitor inspires

 Today we had a visitor in the garden who listened to what the children liked about gardening. It was great to hear what they loved about being outside and to watch how focused they were.

Children got on with a variety of jobs:
Earthing up potatoes
Making the structure for the beans to climb up
Weeding the beds
Watering the trees

The sun was shining it was blissful.

Thursday 7 June 2012

Rain and Resilience

This is the first view from the back of the garden. Through the pouring rain the Tooting Prince's Trust young people dragged, carried, pulled and heaved until all the rubble, roots and rubbish was gone.

I cannot thank them enough for what they have done the children will be amazed on Monday.
We can now see the space that the London Orchard Project will be able to work with.
The garden looks enormous now.

The space looks big enough for a shed and a shelter. The children would like a covered area to shelter from the rain but still be able to work.


Wednesday 6 June 2012

Old friends and new skills

Even on the busy Jubilee weekend people turned up to work in the garden. An ex pupil popped in while passing he has grown more than the plants.
We learnt how to take out the shoots from the tomatoe plants to make sure they grow without being too bushy.
I discovered some of the year fours had not eaten a poached egg before so they thought the poached egg plant looked like a fried egg.
We planted the corn some which will grow sadly others will not as they were snapped as they were planted.
The trees were trained onto the wires and we learnt why you can't leave the branches horizontal if you want them to grow. The branch needed to be at an angle so the auxin would keep telling the tree to grow. We also pruned the new growth from the bottom of the trees.
Finally we have a tap. No water runs through it yet but it will.

Friday 1 June 2012

President Visit

We were honoured to meet the President of the RHS Mrs Elizabeth Banks. She came over to the secret garden and looked at all the plants we have been growing. She thought our garden was inspiring.

She also took the opportunity to meet the young people from the Prince's Trust Tooting who have been working really hard to clear the end of the garden so we can plant some more fruit trees.