Harvesting last year's produce

Soup making

The Gardening Club have harvested their potatoes and vegetables to make some tasty soup!

Busy little gardeners

The recent warmer weather has meant we have had to work hard to keep the garden irrigated. Here are two of our young gardeners tending to the raised beds.

 

It really has been nice to sample some of the fruits and vegetables from our garden. The children have had the opportunity to take home a variety of different products such as tomatoes, beans, carrots, potatoes, lettuce and courgettes. Unfortunately the radish had 'gone to seed' and were too bitter to eat but we did dig up some pretty impressive turnips!

The delicate little sweet peas had flowered and were picked to take home. Everyone agreed how lovely the perfume was. We noticed the sunflower heads were starting to die and we intend to gather the seeds for storage when the time is right. Some new little chrysanthemum plants were planted in the raised bed. We look forward to seeing them grow.

Finally, over the summer holidays some little weeds had started to grow at the front of the school so we used a bit of 'elbow grease' to dig them up and scrape away moss from the slabs. 

We hope you love our school gardens as much as we do!

Thursday 20th August

Six members met today along with Mrs Thomson, Mrs Whyte, Mrs Morrison and Mrs Fraser our new helper.

 

We had a wee chat about all the things that have grown while we have been on holiday and decided there were some things we should harvest today and share between ourselves. So we armed ourselves with big forks for the potatoes (in case there were some where the “shaws” (the leafy green parts of the potatoes) had been taken away. We wondered why anyone could be so mean as to take the shaws or dig up the potatoes we had grown and decided they must never have grown anything themselves. We also took trowels in case we had time to plant cabbages and lettuces.

 

We were quite excited to see the carrots in the courtyard – we could just see the tops of some of them above the earth and the foliage looked very good. But they are still too small to dig up so we need to wait a few more weeks to see how big they will grow.

 

The first thing we did was look at the roses at the main entrance. Mrs Morrison explained we needed to keep taking off the dead heads of the flowers so the plant would put all its energy into new flowers and not into the seeds in the pods behind the dead flowers. The Jubilee Rose has lovely big flowers and a sweet perfume.

 

Then we tackled the potatoes. Triumph! Lots of them and we filled half a trug at least. We will divide these up to take home tomorrow once we have some plastic bags. We learned that you have to take out even the tiniest potato otherwise they will grow next year and mess up the bed. We only put the fork through a couple of potatoes and these need eaten soon or they will rot and affect the others.

 

Then we started on the raspberries. The canes have grown enormous. Mrs Whyte thinks they may have had too much nitrogen fertiliser which encourages leaf and shoot growth rather than the fruit. And of course there are raspberry plants springing up all over the place because they spread by sending out roots and then sending shoots up from the roots. We need to think about this bed next year and what to do with it.

However the fruit was delicious and sweet and the strawberries that were left were excellent as well. A lot of the strawberries were past because they had ripened when the school was on holiday.

 

We picked any peas and beans that were ripe as well. And then we had a look at the turnip. Everyone got one of these. There are still some too small to harvest so we can get at least another one each later on.

 

We each got a wee carrot when we thinned them out again. The carrot plants need to be a bit apart so they can swell up to a decent size. If they are too close together they will stay small. Let’s hope the carrot root fly don’t get at them!

 

Some of us picked sweet peas. What a lovely perfume. Some went to Mrs Murray and Mrs McPherson and some were taken home. There will be plenty more flowers so long as we keep taking off the dead heads. They will last till the frost comes of a very strong wind blows them down.

 

We discussed the sunflower seeds. We agreed to collect some when the petals fall off and leave some so the birds can have some to eat.

 

We got a lovely present of a cold frame from Mr Fraser and we will plant some micro salad leaves next week and keep the in the cold frame.

 

Altogether a very satisfying day seeing the produce that we grew ourselves from seed.

 

Sam didn’t have an interesting fact for us so he is going away to find out about the origin of potatoes for us for next week.

Summer Holidays 2015

While the school was closed for the holidays, everything kept on growing!

The grass needed cut and various shrubs at the main entrance needed to be kept down a bit, so Mrs Whyte and Mrs Morrison were kept busy.

 

Luckily for them, it was quite a wet summer so no watering of the beds was required. But the tomatoes, courgettes, cucumber, pumpkin and pepper plants needed watering and feeding inside the greenhouse. Then rain outside didn’t get to them!

 

We also had help from Ross’s Dad (with help fron Ross) who strimmed the land where the bug hotel is and where we might develop a fruit garden. And Mr McKelvie removed the great big concrete slabs from the courtyard – fantastic!

 

The beans and peas grew and some additional seedlings (we had sowed the seeds towards the end of term) were planted. The radish “shot”. That means they grew big tall flower heads and became past their best. Next year we should remember to plant them earlier to make sure they are ready for lifting before the holidays.

 

The sweet peas grew quite tall and needed to be helped to cling onto the netting; and the honeysuckle, clematis and winter flowering jasmine are all coming along and clinging to their netting as well.

 

Unfortunately the greenhouse has suffered a bit of damage from passersby so we have attempted to repair it and have encircled it with wind barrier white netting. So the light will still get through and the wind will be stopped a bit. Hopefully the plants will do all right with this temporary fix.

 

There are a few cherries on one of the trees in the orchard and lots of apples.

 

Looking forward to our first meeting when school starts again – we are changing day to a Thursday this year.

 

 

 

Tuesday 23rd June

 The last meeting till after the summer!

 

It is the day of the P7 Leaver’s Dance so some of our members were not here. But for those who were it was busy and exciting.

 

We all signed a “thank you” card for Mr and Mrs McKelvie before we went outside. Then we had a wee look at the courtyard and saw some flowers on the alpine strawberries – so even if Mrs Morrison had knocked them over they seem to have survived! A few had died but we can get more next year.

 

The poppy has big buds on it and a wee single poppy has flowered – it must have come in as a seed because we did not plant it.

 

Mrs Whyte and Mrs Thomson took one group to edge round the big bed at the front entrance. That made the grass looks much neater. They also cut back large chunks of the conifer tree that had brown dead branches so it looked better and would grow again.

 

Mrs Morrison took another group to the raised beds where we did some weeding. It is amazing how the weeds seem sometimes to grow better than the things we have planted!

 

We found the first pea pods (not fully grown yet) and a couple of tiny bean pods. The peas have not grown very well but the beans are full of flowers. If our nest lot of peas germinate well in the greenhouse, Mrs Morrison will plant them out over the summer.

 

We each got a radish – it is only two weeks since we thinned them but they are fully grown now. It is just as well we thinned them out so they had room to grow. Some were a round ball shape and some were more like cylinders because we had planted two different types of radish.

 

We all each also got a (very wee) lettuce from the thinnings.

 

Some of us planted wallflower seeds so that we can plant them out in the autumn where the begonias are just now at the main entrance. And we also planted a planter full of gladioli. They should be well up when we get back after the summer and then flower in September. The planter is next to the dahlia.

 

Then some of the mums and dads and grans and grandpas arrived to see our garden. We showed them the raspberries and strawberries, the peas and beans, the turnips, the lettuces, the carrots, the radish and spring onions; all in the raised beds. We showed them the cucumber (it is looking a wee bit peely wally poor soul), the various tomato plants (there are a few flowers on two of them), the courgettes and the pumpkin in the green house. We showed them the sweet pea wigwam and the dahlia (my, how that has grown already). We showed them the fruit trees, the flowers at the main entrance, and, inside the school, we showed them the courtyard.

 

We also showed them the sweet peas and the sunflowers which are getting taller by the day

 

Mr and Mrs McKelvie came to visit as well so we gave them the “thank you” card. Mr McKelvie had brought a present for those who did not get a plant from him last week. So everyone got an “Ornithogalum” which needs to be watered sparingly about maybe once a week. Its common name is the False Sea Onion and its proper name is Ornithogalum Caudatum or Ornithogalum Longebracteatum – what a mouthful! Let’s hope we manage to keep them all alive. Mr McKelvie also said that he had lots of alpine strawberries so we could get some more from him to fill the gaps where some of ours had died.

 

We gave everyone who was at the club a wee note of the web site for this blog and a reminder that the first meeting next term will be on Tuesday 18^th August – see you all there.

Tuesday 16th June

Excitement, excitement! Both P5 groups, the P6s and the P7s were here today.

 

We all got ready for our walk to Woodlands Cottage, on the road to Chapel Farm.

 

It took us about 25 minutes of brisk walking (and lots of talking!) to get to Mr and Mrs McKelvie’s house. When we got there Mrs Mckelvie welcomed us with squash and biscuits which we ate sitting on the grass. We asked Mr McKelvie a few questions such as “Why do you like cactus plants so much”. He said he didn’t really know!

 

After that we split into wee groups to have a look in the four greenhouses where Mr McKelvie keeps around 2000 cactus plants and succulents. Now we know that cactus plants have spikes and succulents mostly do not. That’s the difference.

 

There were some we should not touch because it harms the plants and the plants might harm us. There were plants of all different shades of green and grey. There were some with lovely flowers and some without.

 

There was one plant that had been grown from a seed planted almost 60 years ago. It was over 2 metres tall. And we saw a plant that had a ring of flowers on it. We could tell the age of the plant by counting the rings on it above the flowers – there was a ring for each year. The rings were where the flowers had been each year.

 

We saw the “nursery” greenhouse where Mr McKelvie made new plants. One way of doing it is taking a wee bit of an existing plant and putting the part that had been attached into a sandy mixture where it grows new roots. Another way was breaking off a “leaf” and leaving it alone for a few weeks by which time it will have grown roots.

 

The “nursery” house also had a fig plant growing on the wall. That green house had been part of the walled garden of Houston House and the fig tree was quite old. There were figs on it. We heard that the greenhouse faces south so it gets lots of sun and keeps warm, while the wall keeps the heat and throws it back into the greenhouse – figs come from hot countries and need lots of heat to grow and ripen.

 

Once we had seen all the 4 greenhouses we were allowed to see the rest of the lovely garden. We heard that the garden had been in shade till just two or three years ago when a lot of large trees were cut down. That had let light into the garden and now Mr and Mrs McKelvie could grow lots of different plants.

 

When it was time to go we all thanked Mr and Mrs McKelvie and gave them a “seal of approval”. We also invited them to join us next Tuesday to see what we had done this year, even if our peas are much smaller than theirs were!

 

Then we reluctantly set off for the school again, walking the mile or so through the village. We passed St Peter’s Well which is in a field quite near Woodlands Cottage.

 

We all enjoyed our visit and learning about cactus plants and the succulents – and think we are very lucky to have a star of “The Beechgrove Garden” living in Houston and letting us visit his garden.

 

Our interesting fact this week is that sap from trees does not freeze like water does. That is because sap is very full of sugar which supplies energy to the tree. And in the cold, the sugar acts a bit like antifreeze in a car radiator. Some trees can survive to minus 62^oC – pretty cold!