Newton Flotman Primary School Gardening Project

The school garden has flourished with this warm wet weather. All that has needed watering is the greenhouse and some of the pots. The beds have had by far enough water from the rain.

The most impressive crops this summer have been the radishes. One variety in particular, “French Breakfast”, have produced two inch long radishes. They are crunchy, not woody at all, and the flavour is hot and peppery. They are been great sliced thinly on top of a mixed salad.

The courgettes continue to come, and now the runner beans are cropping too. The wigwams are completely covered withright red flowers. Standing by them you can see, and hear, the bees going about their business of pollination. There will be beans well in to September so that the school kitchen will benefit when the children come back for the new term.

In the greenhouse, the physalis is taking over! The plants have really bushed out and are covered in the delicate lanterns which hide the bright orange fruits inside. The tomatoes and peppers really looked like they needed a drink this morning.

By far the best looking in the garden is the herb bed. The plants have really taken well, particularly the flat leafed parsley. The mint is doing well too; its spread has been curtailed by being planted in a large pot.

The shed has gained some furniture from the school. Two children’s sized tables now reside under the potting bench, providing extra shelving to make the storage area more tidy. We also have another table outside for our tray of potting compost to live on. This will enable the children to stand whilst they pot on their seedlings.

The beds could do with a bit of a weeding session, and the grass needs a trim, but that will have to wait as it is now thundering again.

The remaining meetings of Gardening Club at Newton Flotman for this term were spent sowing as much seed as possible. Lots of salad leaves, sugarsnap peas and mange tout. The idea is that by sowing some vegetables late, the cropping time will be when the children return in September rather than whilst they are all on holiday.

We also sowed bulk loads of radishes which were ready to pull within 2 weeks! I just goes to show what a benefit warm weather is, combined with plenty of watering,

Thank you to Zoe who donated her preschooler-son Ben’s spare broccoli plants to the club. When he comes to the reception class in September, he will be able to tell everyone that he has already had a hand in our garden!

The lettuces are harvested...

The best bit of the last couple of weeks of term has to be the cutting of little gem lettuces from the greenhouse, and their use in school lunches! It was with great pleasure that the lettuces were cut, and handed over to Debbie, our school cook. Other produce has been tasted by the children and teachers, including our first carrots, huge radishes and bright yellow courgettes.

...presented to Debbie....

Thank you to my friends Matt and Vicki who, as a result of redesigning their own garden, have given us a huge amount of decorative slate. With help from Matt and another good friend Sally, I collected the slate in the school minibus; Issy and Orla came along for the ride. This week, with help from Jacqui, we have started to transfer this lovely blue stone to the greenhouse. There is more than enough to cover the whole floor, pinning down the weed matting in to place, and levelling off the uneven surface.

...and eaten for lunch!

Now we are in to the first week of the summer holidays, the garden is looking fantastic. I’ve just been up to water the greenhouse – it’s been taken over by tomatoes and physalis (cape gooseberry). The potato bed is bursting with foliage, with our late-sown-early-croppers just about ready to dig [Hmm, those might have to be used as perks for those who water over the holiday!] . As another perk, I have just picked a lovely bunch of sweet peas to bring home, which are climbing all over the cottage arches at the ends of the beds. After all, they will stop flowering unless they are picked regularly!

With the competition out of the way our hard work was turned to the Grand Opening of the Newton Flotman Primary School Garden. Our meetings of Gardening Club in the run up to July 2nd were fast and furious, making sure that everything was watered, neat and tidy for our visiting VIPs.

Newton Flotman Gardeners Say Thank You

In the scorching sun, and the start of Sports Day, we all congregated around the garden. It looked fabulous, with bunting draped all along the fence, our huge “thank you” banner pinned up, and the grass trimmed neatly.

Alistair and Evelyn cut the ribbon

Mr Alistair Duffield (our kind beneficiary from Duffields Feed Mills) cut the red ribbon with Evelyn Dyer (year 5 pupil at Newton Flotman who gained us a grant of £1000 from the “Kash4Kids” initiative) to a round of applause from the gathered crowd of pupils, teachers, parents and guests.

Guests were invited for a tour around the garden, and to plant a sunflower seed for the school competition, whilst the team games of sports day commenced.

I feel like I can breathe a sign of relief now. The bulk of the hard work is complete; we are officially open for business, and now we can just enjoy using the garden as the most fabulous teaching resource.

So, the judge for the Royal Agricultural Association came to school to view our garden. He grilled me on how the school was using the resource, and threw me question after question about what the children were learning, and how we were going to use the produce grown. I pretty much had an answer for everything, but was not sure how these replies were going down.

I borrowed gardening club members Hannah and Luke to show the judge around outside, but I think nerves got the better of them both when it came to answering questions about the vegetable plot. Unfortunately, some of his questions were regarding areas that we have not covered yet at the club, such as pest and disease control.

I got the strongest of feelings that the judge was suggesting that we did not need a prize of £1000 as we already had so much in the garden with the potting shed and greenhouse. I thought this was a little unfair as he school has done so much to encourage the growth of our own plants this year.

I did pick up on areas where we can improve for next year though. It is inevitable that in our first year there will be areas which are lacking. It was commented on that our onions were not looking great due to their late planting, and that our beautiful flower-filled planters should be filled completely with edibles.I thought that we were doing fine with adding lettuce and chillies to the petunias and lobelia!

Needless to say, we received a letter telling us that we had not won any prize this year, but I am still proud of the efforts of the children getting us shortlisted in our inaugural season. Roll on next year’s competition!