Junior school gardening club just started

[Two_Sheds]

chicken poo pellet sprinkling!

Oh, Health & Safety Police: risk of salmonella. I hope they had gloves and masks on, lol

[Jeanied]

Gloves, yes (mine) - masks ... well it was a windy day!

[Jeanied]

We had a great session today. The runaway success was the laying of little brick paths after my adventure in skip diving last week - just as well, as the skip was taken away and emptied today - but not before I had recycled 60 new buff bricks for the school.

So now our great big square bed has small internal paths dividing up the plot!

We also planted up an unidentified squash of one sort or another - (label was lost somehow) and a baby cucumber kindly given to me by Jelliebabe! A few rows of radish, rocket and carrots were sown as well- some careful trickling of seeds along the drill and some lovely labelling skills were deployed. A basil seedling and some beetroot seedlings were planted out. According to one of the mums who came to collect, her son now loves radishes and had never even tried them before!

The juniors clearly adore gardening club! To crown it all for me was two of the stragglers finding a female stag beetle on the driveway. It was carefully transferred to the lawn nearby so it didn't get run over.

[Jeanied]

Things seem to be on the move again! There are 4 black plastic deep beds to be put into use - except they are just plastic boxes that don't stay particularly square. So a bit of skip diving later (on my way back from school today) I came across some wood to make stakes to hold the beds square. And I'm off to the local supermarket who have promised me their split bags of compost for half price - it will take a few of them to fill these beds.

I think the head is beginning to wonder what I am going to come up with next

[Jeanied]

Oh and I am working on a running around game as suggested by two-sheds. I will figure out how to share it on here when I have had a test run by the club!

[Two_Sheds]

Oh and I am working on a running around game as suggested by two-sheds.

I should have patented it.

Ours had fun this week ~ the cleverer ones were given a dozen name labels and one of my gardening books. They had to use the index to find the right plant, then go and try to find it in the garden. I only gave clues if they were very stuck.

They loved playing detectives, and I got a chance to do some weeding

[Jeanied]

Right - running round game created and in Word Document format. 22 true and false statements. It is being trialled next week so I will report on progress!

[Jeanied]

Just a catch up post! The running round game never got played in the end - the children have been so busy growing and weeding. We still have it in store in case it is needed.

The club re-started in September with the new term and there is a waiting list of children wanting to join in. We have had to limit the numbers to around 20 as things get manic with any more.

The best plan so far has been to divide the children into teams - red, yellow, green and blue. Each team has its own patch in the garden. I had a big bag of ball pit balls in the right colours - so the beds have been marked out with canes with a ball on the end to protect their eyes.

This week we made leaf collecting cages from a roll of chicken wire (half price in Aldi!) cut into four 2 metre lengths - rolled to make a tube and wired up to the fence to hold them upright. Each team has their own tube, duly marked with a plastic ball wired on, and they are competing to see who can get them filled up the most. They adored this activity and went home all excited about collecting autumn leaves. The simple things in life eh?