It’s been all go this week as we finally got to enjoy a bit of warm spring weather. I’ve been busy in the school garden with my mates, worked really hard at a ‘pop up’ kids café on Saturday and on Sunday I helped plant an ‘Orchard for Mossley’.

School Gardening Club – write up by my gardening teacher, Sarah Hunter

Gardening club was all about soil today; we tested our soil type with my clever probe thingmybob and found it was a little acidic so we added a bit more ericaceous compost to our home made compost and worked it all in. We used fresh lime in water and plain water to illustrate acid and neutral and explained soil ph being on a scale with acid ( lime) at one end and alkaline ( chalk) on the other end, neutral being in the middle. Some plants are fussy about their surroundings and some not so bothered; like people some of us are fussy about food, some of us aren’t!

We have planted shrubs that are suitable for an ericaceous soil and chosen evergreen plants as it needs to look smart all year round (as it’s where our parents first come into the school grounds) We have chosen plants that will flower red white and blue for Mrs Brierley as she has always asked me to plant a commemorative area and we feel this is a good place. We have red camellia in the middle, some white azaleas and some heathers in various shades.

Planting at school

Year 3 have sown some “forget me not ” seeds today as the blue part of this scheme so these will be planted later. I am going to show our lovely year 1 and 2 the camellia tomorrow at forest school as we are talking about the Victorian plant hunters and most importantly “tea”, so it’s a builders brew for us this week instead of hot chocolate, good job the Victorians were partial to a biscuit. We finished off the weeding that year 3 started today and looked at the chive plants they divided and replanted.

‘Pop up kids cafe’

On Saturday I helped to run a ‘pop up’ café, planned, prepared and served by kids (16 of us) – it was absolutely brilliant, but REALLY hard work – I don’t think catering is for me !! The event was organised by Operation Farm and was held at People First’s kitchen.

There was over 50 guests and I was the ‘meeter & greeter’ and later part of the waiting on team. We served a reception drink of St. Clements, followed by a selection of sandwiches, salads, cupcakes, jam & cream scones, lemon posset and tea or coffee. We also sold raffle tickets raising money for Cancer Research. Whilst it was a good life experience of how to work in a café, it confirmed what I know, that I don’t want to work indoors with food, I want to grow it instead!!

Planting an Orchard for Mossley

On Sunday I helped to plant fruit trees in Mossley, it was really good cos lots of kids came to help. It was packed full of people and I saw a couple of kids from my school.

Planting a community orchard

I helped Rob to plant an apple tree and he taught me really well, he was really friendly and very knowledgeable. We dug a hole, I held on to the tree whilst Rob put fungi powder around the roots and then we put fertilising compost on top. We staked it too, to help support it and stop it from bending and help it grow straight and then put a tree guard on. Then a fabric membrane thing to stop weeds from growing and finally a layer of mulch. I planted some bulbs with my school friend Madison; I asked her if she enjoyed gardening too and if she preferred being indoors or playing out. It was great to see the community helping out and inspiring kids to get involved in gardening.

The trees were from R V Rogers, a nursery in Yorkshire where we bought our apple trees for home.

We filmed the planting with the help of ex-BBC Donna Liley from A V Media; we are making a short video. What a cracking day, the sun was shining and it was boiling hot !

This is a bit of footage – the real video will be ready soon.

News from the RHS Campaign for School Gardening

The rocket seeds are ready for packing – Seed Packers Ltd in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk are  slowly sorting the seeds that have returned from space, into their individual foil packets using a clever machine which will make sure at least 100 seeds go into each packet. Once all the foil packets have been filled, these will then be put into their coloured seed packet, either red or blue – you won’t know which! The completed packets will then be inserted into each Rocket Science pack, ready to be sent out to Rocket Science schools.

It’s been an amazing week, I really enjoyed the community orchard planting in the sun it was definitely my favourite thing this week. When I got home we enjoyed lunch in the sun and I said to my Mum & Dad, “this is the life!”.

Hope you enjoyed the spring sunshine too!