ST. NICHOLAS SCHOOL GARDEN CLUB
2016/17 GARDEN PROJECT CALENDER/DIARY.
Summer Term B
Green fingers garden club
6TH June
Butterfly Class
I just cannot believe that we are in the last term of our school year, it has been a busy time out in our learning garden, and the children all still love their time in “green fingers” garden club.
The first group from butterfly class were ready to come out into the learning garden, wellies and gloves were very much needed today as the weather had been wet and very windy.
The children worked in pairs today. Each pair had a container in which to put weeds, then we all made our way over to the pond area.
A lot of the wild plants had seeded around this area, these were not helpful to our pond area and needed to be removed, before the seed heads had formed. We try to keep the pond planting site full with plants that attracts things like dragonflies, so iris and ferns are good to keep.
The groups love weeding, Chloe and Freya said that it was great fun! Whilst the girls were pulling and tugging at weeds, Charlie and Alfie were in charge of the compost areas, the boys went back and forth with buckets, containers and wheel barrows full of weeds. It then began to rain we all went to shelter in the lodge , but Charlie just kept going, determined to empty the last barrow of weeds, great work Charlie he was awarded two dojos.
The first group worked really well together, and three quarters of the weeds had now been removed.
The next group were now ready to tackle the last of the weeds, Maddie and Harriot worked well, even though there was lots of giggling, and this made us all smile.
Now all of the weed had been removed, the pond area looks much better.
The groups now worked on the fence around the pond, this filled another two wheel barrows full.
Time to weed the bird bath corner, Katie and Saffron, worked on this, whilst some of the others helped me tie the sunflowers to their canes.
Finally the children put away any tools that were used, planted up our plastic cross tray with a mixture of flower seed and grass seed, we will see if that will germinate
I sorted out the dojo points, and the group made their way back to class, on what had been a very windy day.
13th June
Dragonfly Class
Miss Heal had chosen several children to take part in “green fingers” garden club this afternoon.
The weather being very warm and sunny, the children were very keen to come outside.
My first group had the job of planting up, all of the wellies on the totem poles that I had cemented in at the weekend, this is just a fun addition to the garden, and a way of recycling, the outgrow wellies.
I had purchased some summer bedding plants from the garden centre, Izzy, Ronnie, Emily, Theo and Tyler each chose a plant they would like to put into a wellie.
The group filled each wellie with a mixture of sand and compost, three quarters filled their boot, then popped in a brightly coloured plant, these were all then watered, and photos were taken.
The next group of children , were also keen to come out into the learning garden, their task was to water the tomatoes in the eco house, then all of the plants in the vegetable area, this was hot and heavy work but the children kept going.
This group also planted up several wellington boots, with flowering plants.
Lexi, Jessica, Owen, Aidan and Chloe, made a lovely job of this. We then noticed that several flower pots had gaps in where plants had died off, so the children filled these areas with seed, some flowers and some veg.
There was just time for another small group, to come out into the garden, these children, had the job of sowing “micro crops” into some recycled coffee cups, this was quite tricky, but good fun, Jacob wanted to know when the crops would be ready to pick.
I was not sure on this as we have not grown these before.
Finally we just had time to weed some of the raised beds, our onions were disappearing under the weeds, now a quick tidy up before going back to class.
Fives dojo marbles were awarded today for good work out in our learning garden. By dragonfly class.
Friday- pond dipping
Both butterfly and dragonfly class have had the chance to do some pond dipping, we found lots of creatures, including a great diving beetle, a very large smooth newt and lots of dragonfly larva.
19th June
Hedgehog Class
Today I had just one large group of children for “Green fingers” garden club, as the rest of the children, were practising for sports day.
It was a very hot afternoon, so I explained to the group that were would just do some short simple jobs today, because of the heat, the children all had their hats on and also their water bottles, to keep them hydrated.
We started by cutting back the hawthorn hedge which had worked its way inside the learning lodge, the group tackled this really well.
Task number two was to spend a short time at the lavender patch, this was out of the sun, so kneeling on their mats the children used all sorts of cutting equipment to trim, tidy up and weed this area, it looks much better now and smells fantastic, the bees love the area too!
We then went back over to the lodge for a drink, time now to tidy up our “rockery” next to the library, we completed this task quickly as the sun had moved over to this area. It looks tidy now, later on we will introduce some more flowering plants.
The final challenge of the day was to water all areas of the garden, as the group were getting organises with watering equipment, Tasmin, Izzy and Caleb came to join us, then took on pruning the willow trees , which was really helpful.
Watering was now all done, and Liam, Jess, Grace Ellie and Isabel, couldn’t resist getting just a little wet on this hot afternoon, fun and laughter all the way.
We put up the dojo winners names on the class board, well done, let’s hope that next week it might be a little cooler.
27th June
Ladybird Class
The weather forecast for this afternoon’s green fingers garden club was for rain at 3pm, I said to the children we had better get a move on, with a bit of luck we might just stay dry.
Miss Charlesworth, chose a group of children to go gardening, they were very enthusiastic, and wanted to do some digging this was good as there was planting that we needed to do.
The group began by weeding the area we were going to work in, the children worked in pairs, the girls dug holes, then carefully planted geraniums, pink wind flowers and a scented pink bush.
Working hard the boys, were weeding all of the fence area around the pond, they were also responsible for the compost heap today.
These children had the chance to look for strawberries and raspberries, before going back to class. We only found a few though, as dragonfly class found a lot of the fruit when we were out looking and measuring the class sunflowers this morning.
My next group to go gardening were keen to do some weeding, these children pulled up all of the weed from alongside the fence, which was great as we can now view the garden much more clearly.
Ben and Lauren, dug big holes to plant out the “artichokes” as they keep out growing the pots, so these tall plants are now firmly in the ground.
This group also worked hard pulling up weeds to make it tidy as next week we hope to have Steve Fry from Castle gardens coming in to set up a “moth trap” overnight, then we will look at the different types of moth in our learning garden, we hope, the weather needs to be dry!
As this group had worked hard, they were given fifteen minutes to go “pond dipping”, which they loved, and caught lots and lots of pond creatures.
We had a very productive afternoon out in the garden, with time to explore at the end, well done ladybird class.
Friday—Hedgehog house
This afternoon, Tilly and Ruby H, came to find me and told me all about their new hedgehog house that they had made with help from Mr Holiday, they asked if it could be put into the learning garden?
I was so pleased that children from the school had been thinking about garden wildlife, it is just brilliant.
Mr Holiday, very kindly brought the hedgehog house in to the garden, ready for Ruby and Tilly to find a suitable positon in a quiet corner, where it could be camouflaged using logs.
The house had been made from an old plastic flower planter, a wooden entrance section and an air vent made from an empty lemonade bottle, it is fantastic, and I know the hedgehogs will love it.
A huge thank you to the girls and Mr Holiday, for thinking of wildlife habitats for our school learning garden, things like this make a real difference.
Monday and Tuesday 3rd and 4th July
Steve Fry from Castle Gardens came to visit our school with his Moth Trap
Monday, Steve arrived in the afternoon with his very large “moth trapping” equipment, this was to be set up to run all through the evening until 4a.m, when I had to come up to school to turn it off, close the lid down, and catch any more moths and place these into jars.
This afternoon though, Steve, set up the trap, then some of butterfly class, had the chance to come out and have a look at the equipment.
Steve had also very kindly, (or his mum did), trapped several different species, of moth and put these into jars so that we could all have a look, and even hold them.
The children were fastenated by all of the different moths, some were very tiny and some were the biggest that I had ever seen.
Harley had a large moth on his head, Ruby had one as a broach, and Ben M could not believe how many different moths we had to look at.
Kacey held one and so did most of the children, it was just brilliant.
Steve talked to the children all about moths and their habitats, how that we could all have ago at home, by setting up a small moth trap, he showed us some of his books on moths, then it was time to let these lovely moths go free.
Tuesday, I had come up to turn off the equipment, and catch some moths in jars, which I did, I was amazed that I had managed to find twenty, with the help from Mr Howell.
All of the moths in jars, and in the large trap were then put into the learning lodge where it was cool and sheltered, ready for when Steve arrives.
Steve and an expert called Jo, came back at 10.15, to look at our collection of moths.
Ladybird class all came out along with the staff, to have a close look at our moths, whilst Jo logged each different species found, the children and teachers were very interested and asked questions, some children were able to hold a moth.
Hedgehog class had a break from their lession and all came out to have a look at our moths, Steve explained about the equipment, whilst some of the children were doing moth identification with Jo.
Miss Middleton took some photos, with some children putting moths into a hanging display net, some were brave enough to handle our moths.
Dragonfly class were hard at work when I went over to collect some children, but Miss Heal said that all of the class could stop and come out into the learning garden to view the moths.
These children were so excited, nearly all the children wanted to put a moth from its jar into the display net, Aidan did his carefully, along with Rhona, Izzy, Josie, Theo Jameson and Jaydon.
Michael was wearing a large pink elephant moth on his t-shirt, he loved it.
The children said thank you and it was time to go back to class, lots of photos were taken.
Butterfly class, now all of the children and staff had the opportunity to come out into the lodge to see the final moths being logged by Jo, she is an expert on “micro and macro” moths.
These children put the last of the moths into the display net, then had the chance to look around our garden to see if they could find any more.
Steve and Jo found 53 different species of British moth, that we had captured in the trap, 3 of which were unusual, and in total we had gathered around 200 overnight.
A large hawk moth, pink elephant moth, snout, heart and dart, ribboned wave, buff ermine, a common parfit and a swallow tail to name but a few, this was fastenating..
Jo is going to put our findings onto the national British moth data bank.
A huge THANK YOU to Steve and Jo, and the Gardens group for making this possible, the weather conditions were just right for moth trapping. The children thought that the experience was fantastic.
Steve loved it at our school, with happy interested polite children, and staff of course, and would like to come back next year to do it all over again.
I think nearly everyone in the school had the chance to view our moth collection, including the office staff and lunch time staff.
Also thank you to Josh H and Hope for bringing in their moths, and to Tilly and Ruby also for catching theirs.
Steve and Jo finally left at 1.30p.m
Tuesday afternoon
Butterfly class
A group of girls came out later on to help me let all of our beautiful moths free, we did this over in the butterfly garden, as in the learning garden we have several nesting black birds, and they are very clever at catching moths for food.
It took forty minutes to get all of the moths out of the display net, the girls were really helpful and careful, making sure that our moths had a safe place to hide, Saffron had one land on her face, Chloe B, was a little scared, even though three landed on her top.
Maddie and Chloe handled a large moth, we all loved watching them flying away.
The girls then cut some lavender, to make into bunches to sell at the fete, time to water the veg plots and flowers, before going back to class.
11th July
Dragonfly Class
Green fingers garden club this afternoon, turned out to be quite wet. Good for the garden, as it had been so dry, and we had used up all of the water in our rain water butt.
The small garden on dragonfly’s deck area, had become a bit of a jungle so it was time for the children to help me sort it out.
We all put on gloves, then I collected, cutting tools and containers in which to put the greenery.
I had a hard working group of children, all of which understood how to hold and use the garden equipment, safely.
Jaydon and Theo worked together on cutting back a very large shrub, whilst Chloe and Amy used the smaller tools to prune, all of the herbs which had gone wild!
Some other children from the class came to join in including Lexi, we all worked together to make the garden look tidy ready for September.
Jaydon, rescued any wildlife, so that this could be rehomed, in the learning garden, whilst Miss Heal took lots of photos of the garden group working at their best.
We just had time to tidy up and take the pruning’s over to the compost area, before P.E.
During P.E, some children had the chance to use all of our “magnifiers” to take a closer look at things like a raspberry, moth, and snail, leaf, spider, slug and a flower.
The children loved spending a bit of time looking at all of these items. Well done dragonfly class.
18th July
Hedgehog Class
Before the children from the class could do any gardening, Miss Middleton, told us that we all had to play a game of “rounder’s” with Mr Dyer, the weather was perfect, so we all were ready for the match,( Year six won.)
This was great fun, with lots of team spirit, then we all had a drink and biscuit.
I was really pleased to then have some year six children to come out into the learning garden to water the tomatoes in our eco house, the vegetable area, and the planted pots.