Mrs Thomson took one group to plant strawberries outside in
the bed which was half full of raspberries. We had to lay a piece of black weed
control fabric down to cover the earth, and then put pins into it to keep it in
place. The fabric will stop weeds growing and also keep the fruit nice and
clean when it ripens – it won’t get all mixed up with the earth. Then we cut
holes in the fabric and planted the strawberries in them – it looked really
good when we had finished. We are going to have to put some net over the plants
once the fruit comes to stop the birds eating it before we get to pick it!
Mrs Morrison took one group into the courtyard. We took some
dead heads off the daffodils so that the plants would get big and strong for
next year’s flowers and not put all their energy into making seeds.
We put together the new strawberry planters and filled each
layer with compost for the alpine strawberries when they come. They are smaller
fruits than usual strawberries but they are very sweet and just the right size
for the planters.
Then we filled up the empty bin liner with compost and
planted some carrot seeds. We hope they will grow long and straight because
there are no stones or hard bits of earth in the bin – sometimes carrots that
we grow outside get a bit “not straight” because of stones in the earth. We are
going to plant carrots outside as well so we can compare in the autumn when we
harvest them.
We also planted up some herbs – rosemary and marjoram and
chives. Some of these were already in pots but had not been looked after last
year. So we moved them around the pots, put in some new compost and trimmed
them back to a nice smaller shape.
Mrs Whyte took one group and planted out our potatoes. We
had “chitted” them for the last few weeks by leaving them out in the light, and
the “eyes” had sprouted. We dug trenches and put them in. When they come
through the earth we will have to pull the earth up from each side to cover the
stems as high as we can to get more potatoes.
A busy day! And not raining or snowing!
