Friday 8th December

Last week, we were extremely lucky to get a visit from the wonderful Joshua Piercey. He is community gardener and activist for a charity called Comunigrow (check them out here Welcome to Communigrow | Communigrow). Joshua loved our allotment and was a wealth of excellent information. Based on his advice, we will be mapping out our growing space; recording where/how the sun affects it; planning out our growing year – and lots more! We have an exciting list of activities to complete and hope to involve more year groups in this.

Here he is after having spent a lot of time with me, dispensing his horticultural wisdom. (Fortunately, he emailed me afterwards with his guidance – I didn’t have to remember it all!)

Friday 24th November

This week, some lovely children got to plant up our first box. We kept the herbs in their pots and arranged them in different ways until we found a combination that pleased us. We then dug the correct sized hole and put our plants into their new homes. There was a lot of squealing and giggling but we soon got used to the look and feel of the soil.

A lot of the herbs that we planted are fragrant and delicious. In the mix are lemon balm, sage, mullein (which feels like kittens’ ears), yarrow, rosemary, oregano and mint. We also planted some vibrant marigolds which will attract pollinators.

Monday 20th November

I have some fantastic news to share with everybody: I have made a visit to the wonderful Windmill Community Allotment and have brought back some plants to put into our new school allotment.

One of our boxes will soon be transformed into a herb garden with lemon sorrel, rosemary, sage and a whole range of other plants.

We are also planning a forest garden area, where will grow grow shrubs, perennials and wild flowers in order to mimic the way plants in nature support each other. So far, we have a fig plant, jostaberries, raspberries and blueberries. This handful of seeds will be planted around the shrubs and will grow into some amazing wild flowers that will attract pollinators.

We will start with a small group of children from each year group but the hope is to extend our gardening sessions to include more and more children. Watch this space!

Big shout-out to our amazing site team who have been helping Miss Brown to get the plots ready. Thank you, Mr Jefkins and Mr Knight. Your help has been appreciated.