Garden Project

This term both Year 4 classes will be starting a Garden Project.  So far we have looked at our garden and taken some photographs..

We have drawn some plans about how we want our garden to look like and we have written some letters to local Garden Centres asking for their help for some seeds and plants.

Update:  A big THANK YOU for Webbs Garden Centre for kindly sending us a lovely letter and seeds and potato plants.

Update: Friday 24th February.  Today we met with Darren from St Peter's Garden Centre.  They are really excited about our project and will be coming in soon to discuss what we should do and how to do it properly...watch this space for further updates.

Update:  Thursday 1st March.  Mrs Czyrko came into school today with a car full of gardening stuff.  She had met the manager from Countrywide store and had received 4 bags of compost and lots and lots of packets of seeds.  We are all really really grateful for everyone's help.

Week 1:  We all worked very hard to help clear the ground from rotten mouldy pears and damp soggy leaves (spot the adjectives!).  A lot of us felt quite sick after the strong smell from the pears.  We emptied both compost bins and the wormery (re-named to the  gone-ery, after we discovered that all the worms have left!!!)  We have told Mrs Hill and hopefully she will get us some new worms!

Have a look at our progress after the first week of our work in the garden...

Well done Mrs T for making this area look neat and tidy.

Mrs Lam found a fantastic green house for our seeds.

We created a huge pile of rubbish - help we need a skip!

Mr Smith created a fantastic vegetable patch,

we emptied the compost bins and dug it all in.

Week 4:  Well what a transformation this week.  We had teams raking the lawn after we had managed to get the grass cut, we planted potatoes and onions directly into our vegetable patch, we cut back some more bushes and trees, we dug over our bird area, Mr Abbot joined us again and helped to clear half of the pond of debris and gunk! and a group of children started to make clay houses.

Mrs T and her group did a fantastic job planting more seeds, here is Finbar with the potatoes that have been 'chitting' on Mrs Czyrko's windowsill for the last week:



In fact, the work has been so significant over the last two weeks that we have discovered a pair of ducks in our pond, let's hope we haven't made too much noise and scared them away!

Imogen was a great help today and the bird houses are now painted in lovely bright colours, hopefully we can find time to give them a quick varnish and they should be ready for use next week.  The clay houses were fun, have a look at the photos:

Here are the clay houses placed in the garden, the clay with break down with the sun and rain and at the same time the seeds that are underneath the houses will start to grow through the clay.

I'm sure that you agree that they look stunning.

Week 5:  We are all very pleased that Mr Smith managed to meet with Chris, from St Peter's Garden Centre last night.  Chris has told Mr Smith exactly what we need to do next in our garden, so it's all hands together now.  Chris has ordered a skip, which thankfully turned up in time, so we have managed to move a lot of the rubbish from the garden.  We were also very grateful that 5 parents turned up to help us on the day.  Mrs Lam managed to borrow a wood chipper, so all the wood, twigs and branches that the dads chopped down were passed straight away to Mrs Lam, who chipped them.  Then some children moved the chipped wood into the bird area.  Mrs Plummer will be very pleased with our recycling efforts!

Thank you to Brandon LC's mum, who worked fantastically in the bird area, but also made some cakes to share with all the Year 4 children, yum yum!!

Have a look at the photographs:

Mrs Lam, chipping the wood with Owen M.

Sorting the rubbish out - well done Ellie and Paige

Brandon LC loved working with his mum today 

                                                             and what a super job they did!

We had a hard working team digging back the pond ready for re-lining

Keep smiling Dads!

No complaints about the lack of coffee!

More smiles from Kimberley

Imogen joined us again this week, excellent varnishing.

Hurray, the skip arrived!

We were all thoroughly tired after our exhausting morning in the garden, we are very grateful for the extra adults who joined us today.  We are pleased that the children are learning so many practical experiences in the garden and also learning how to use the tools in a safe way. 

Mrs Beddow came and inspected our work so far and is very impressed by the enthusiasm of all involved.

After school news, today, Mr Smith and Mrs Czyrko met John and Jordan from St Peter's Garden Centre.  They have delivered a new wheelbarrow and plenty of wooden sleepers ready for making our raised vegetable patch.  Have a look at them and their shiny van!

    here is their van                                  and these are the sleepers for the vegetable patch

    this is John                                         and this is Jordan.

We cannot thank you enough, so THANK YOU.

24th March 2012:  Update.  We have joined the Big Wildlife Garden (http://www.bigwildlifegarden.org.uk/gardens) and our online assessment has already awarded us a Silver Level Certificate.  Hopefully with all our work over the next few weeks, we should be awarded a Gold Level Certificate.

Week 6:

With so much work to be done before our Tea Party, we decided to spend a whole day working in the garden.  Have a look at the work we managed to complete:

Well done Declan, Blake and Owen - you look like professional gardeners!

It was hard work digging back the earth from the pond, now we can be ready to reline it.

The first vegetable patch put together.

Well done Dads, you worked so hard putting all the vegetable patches together

Even Mr Smith enjoyed using the wheelbarrow, taking all the rubbish to the skip.

Mrs Butler came and admired all our hard work.

Lucy planted a Spiders Web frame in our bushes area.

and here is the skip...just need to phone and get it collected.

Summer Term

Week 1

This week the major job in the garden was to empty the pond of the water and rescue the frogs and tadpoles.  This was because there are lots of holes in the pond and it needs to be re-lined.  Many children worked together and used any containers they could find to drain the pond, Mrs Czyrko was very glad that we have a tumble drier in the school because there were a lot of soggy children at the end...

Here is Daniel he is 'assessing the situation'

Jack Clayton and friends were digging out the weeds

Demi and Sarah collected even more rubbish!

Look at the pretty blossom on the tree.

Week 2:

No photos this week we're afraid, the camera is either broken or too full of photos.  Mrs Czyrko needs to sort it out.

Anyway, we are pleased to report that we had a fantastic team of dads come and help us out this week.  We rolled out the new pond liner - oh dear!  It was too long and not wide enough.  Two dads very very kindly went shopping and managed to get some very special pond liner glue and we cut the liner up and glued it together!  Yippee.

Problem Number Two:  The news people have announced a hosepipe ban, how will we get the pond filled up? 

Update:  Ha ha - it has been raining every day for a whole week!  Problem solved because the pond is now full of water - yippee!!