This week's update!

This week we planted the first plants out into our raised beds.  We planted onion sets and garlic bulbs. 
Interestingly, out of all the sweetcorn seeds we planted a couple of weeks ago, only one has grown into a plant.  Bizarre!!! They were all planted the same way and we just don't know what was different about that one.  Maybe the other ones are just slow starters!

We also went on a trip to St Colum's Park House in L'Derry today to an event organised by Children in Crossfire and Afri.  We had a great day on the theme of food poverty and how just one action can make a change for a more sustainable life for all of us.

We all gained a great deal from the day and hope that we all are able to undertake one action for positive change!  Ideas that we came up with were to buy fairtrade products so that we know the farmers have got a fair price.  Another one was to buy clothes that were ethically sourced.  These were changes that we felt we could do in the short term.

That's all for now,

Mrs Toman this week (we didn't have time on Tuesday for the pupils to do it as we were too busy planting!)

Sweetcorn seeds planted today.

This is where our greenhouse will be - both the bought one and the one made by us! 

This is some of us where the raised beds will be.

Our seeds that we planted a few weeks ago had started to grow - BUT they had got too stringy as they were not in the sunlight.  We had to throw out the broccoli seedlings but hopefully we will be able to rescue the rest of them.  We have moved them into the light and we have all got lunch-time passes now so that we can check on them more often.

We planted the sweetcorn and we have all got one home with us as well.  Also a parent has given us some gardening equipment - thank you - we really appreciate it!

Today's Blog writers - Becky, Rachel A, Rachel B, Ben, Louise, & Roisin.

Muck to the eyeballs!

Today, we put our compost bin out into the mucky end of the garden.  There will be a path to it soon but in the meantime I think we will need to bring out wellies next week! We spent more time cleaning our shoes today than gardening!  But at least the compost bin is up and working now.
We started collecting Tesco vouchers for our club today.  We are aiming to get 3500 vouchers.  This will buy us a bird box with a built-in camera and microphone.  The camera has night vision as well so we think this is an exciting thing to aim for!
Some of our seeds has germinated!  We think it is interesting that the ones that were in the heated propagator have not sprouted whereas most of the ones in the unheated have sprouted.  We would have thought that it should have been the other way around!  The brocolli, marigold's and pansies have sprouted.  Hopefully the rest will sprout next week.

That's all for this week!
Today's Blog writers:  Becky, Roisin, Ben, Rachel, Naomi, Louise.

Hi all,

The greenhouse and the trees from the Woodland Trust have arrived! 
I think we are going to be busy!
See you all on Tuesday - don't forget!

Seeds planted today!

Hi,
we are very excited that our garden is started and we think it is great.  We have planted some seeds today:

• broccoli - there seems to be a million seeds!
• peppers - we only have 12 seeds of these so we hope they all survive to be little plants!
• marigold - these were funny shaped seeds (like the spikes of a fluffy dandilion) and we did not know if we put them in the right way - only time will tell!
• strawberries - these looked like wee tiny grains of sand - we only had about 10 of these as well so we hope they all grow into big plants as we all love strawberries!

This is all we had time for today but we will be planting more next week.  Watch this space.

Today's blog writers: Becky, Ben, Louise, Rachel.

The garden is taking shape!

Hi all,

I know it is half term but the garden is finally taking shape.  The diggers have been in, the vegetable garden is nearly ready and the concrete for the greenhouses is being set tonight.  The pond has also been dug out.  It looks amazing and I hope everyone enjoys it when we get back to school next week.

Don't forget gardening club on Tuesday - 3.20pm to 4.20pm.  The compost has been bought and we have to plant our seeds for vegetables and flowers.

Bagel bird feeders made today!

Hi all,
at gardening club today we have made bagel bird feeders.  Really easy to make  - here's how:

• cut bagel in half
• butter with loads of butter - the fat will keep the birds warm!
• put the bagel butter face down onto a plate of bird seed  mix.
• Put a piece of string through the bagel and hang up in your garden for the birds to enjoy.

We all got to bring a bagel bird feeder home and we put some around our school as well.  We hope to see more birds coming to our school now.  Making the bird feeders was really fun and we liked the way we could use left over food from the kitchen.

Roisin, Rachel, Louise, Ben, Becky - Today's Blog Writers.