Fine drizzle blew about in the wind but it didn’t stop two groups of volunteers wanting to come out into the learning garden to do some jobs.
Wellies and gloves on, spades, forks, a mixture of pruning equipment sourced the first group of children were now ready and willing to get started. Josie, Amy, Maddie, Michael and Cali wanted to do some digging but before they could the ground had to be cleared in the vegetable area.
Michael worked with Jacob their job was to removes the old runner beans from the garden canes, cut off the string so it could be re-used, then tie the canes in bundles. The girls had to cut back all the dead material from half of the vegetable plot, this consisted of dried globe artichokes, the long green stems from our Jerusalem artichokes, sunflower heads which we needed to save for the birds.
All three wheel barrows were now full so these now needed to be emptied onto the compost heap, I had to climb onto to try and flatten it as it is now quite high!
Time to dig, all of the group either chose a spade or fork to turn over the ground the soil looks surprisingly good.
This team had the chance to take home some poppy seed, a potato and a small onion from the garden.
Out came Noah, Amelia, Becky and Amelia they were also very keen to get digging, they chose spades to do their digging, a few more potatoes were found.
This group then cleared the remainder of the vegetable garden, being careful to leave in any produce which was still ok (I am hoping to use some in the church for the harvest display), again there was a huge piles of dried material to put on the compost heap.
The children collected garden rakes to level the ground which had been dug, cut down the dead spikes from the hollyhocks, and then put the tools away.
Finally we potted up the summer geraniums into large pots, these were now put into the learning lodge to hopefully overwinter. From little plug plants they had now grown huge, deep red and bright cerise pink in colour.
All of the children were awarded dojo points today as they worked well in their groups, helping one another and having fun.
Next week we will be planting out more spring bulbs,
