The Little Growers Blog!

Following a rather awkward summer of weather, we returned in September to find the eight-ball courgettes had gone crazy! We have been using them to make ratatouille during environmental club and had them in our school dinners. We have also managed to harvest some runner beans which have also been used in the school dinners. Our pumpkins grew very well and we used 6 of them as part of a harvest raffle to raise money for Oxfam. We sold tickets to win the pumpkins and raised £127!!

During environmental club this week, we split into 3 groups. One group was doing the final round of cooking leek and potato soup, one group was planting seeds, filling up pots with compost and general tidying up and our group went pond dipping. We left the small pond well alone as this was where the frogs had laid all their frogspawn and cast our nets instead into the big pond.

What an amazing variety of creatures we found! We were lucky enough to capture lots and lots of newts but we also found water boatmen, dragonfly and damselfly nymphs as well as pond snails. All proof that our school pond is very healthy!

We were very excited when we checked out the pond during environmental club to find lots and lots of frogspawn in the pond – we even saw a number of frogs ducking under the water as we approached. We are hopeful for lots of new frogs this year!

We had a very exciting Get Growing Day on Saturday 10^th March 2012 where teachers, parents and children carried out a wide variety of jobs around the school grounds. Compost was added to the remaining pots and beds ready for planting, seed trays were filled and seeds sown and these are now germinating in the mini greenhouses. We have decided to turn two of the raised beds on the terrace into herb beds, so bulbs and plants were relocated to allow this to happen.

We also tackled the old pond which over the years had become very overgrown so before the frogs settled in to spawn, some of the dead leaves were raked out and now we can see water!

Today we worked in three groups. The first group was in the ICT suite making labels for the plants because the crows keep picking them out and we now need labels we can tie onto the growing frames. The second group was outside continuing to finish tidying up the polytunnels and to make sure all the were full of compost. The next job for them was to sort out the mini greenhouses.

Our group went out into the grounds to take some exciting photos of the new bulbs, plants and naughty crows! On Saturday we are going to have another get growing day so we wanted to take some photograghs before things change! We were excited to see alot of the bulbs growing.

In the woods we saw the frames which are going to make the compost bins.  

We are getting ready to get growing!

Today we had a big delivery of compost! The first job of the day was to finish emptying the growing pots in the poly tunnel. We then swept out the poly tunnel and began to refill the pots with fresh compost ready for planting on Get Growing Day.

Another group dug over and refilled the main vegetable beds with compost, being careful not to disturb any of the vegetables that had survived the winter. The last group had their turn at making delicious Leek and Potato soup.

We also had a good investigation of the pond area to see if we could spot any frogs – there was some movement in the water but no sightings yet!

Today was our first environmental club of the term. We have expanded our club to include a cookery group so that the children learn to cook with the vegetables that we are growing in school. Today they made potato and leek soup which smelt and tasted delicious!

Out in the school grounds, we checked out which vegetables had survived the winter. The leeks, garlic, onions and cabbages are all growing well, however the winter peas and winter lettuce have not survived the recent cold snap. We also spent time sorting out the beds for the new growing season. Last job of the day was to start tidying the poly tunnels ready for planting later in the term.

Little Growers is lucky enough to be working in partnership with Nemasys for the forthcoming growing season, they have offered to supply Little Growers schools with their great products free of charge. Nemasys are naturally occurring microscopic worms found in the soil, that naturally control pests. The nematodes are watered into the soil and control your pest problems whether slugs, caterpillars or weevils etc. They are one hundred percent organic and naturally found in gardens. They will control your pest problems entirely, using a completely natural, safe and sustainable method. They are perfect for use in schools because until pesticides and chemicals which are not safe, they offer a completely child friendly and organic pest control solution. For more information please visit their website at: http://www.nemasysinfo.com/index.shtml This has lots of information about the various products they offer. Little Growers can offer your school these products free of charge, the only thing we ask is photos and an overview of how you found using the product so that we can provide feed back to Nemasys.

The Nematodes would be posted to the school and must be kept refrigerated and used within their expiry date. This is the main aspect to be aware if you wish to take part in the project.

If you are interested in becoming part of this great project please do email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and let me know asap. I will then liaise with the company about shipment of your Nematodes and which specific pests you require help with.

Well it's been a long time since I last updated the site but now that the spring is approaching new optimism about the garden arrives.
Over the winter we have kept the garden ticking over and the mild weather has meant that Garlic and Onion bulbs have done really well.
One new focus for the new year is the idea of a Community Orchard. We have been talking to various growers and specialists regards planting.

We took part in the RSPBs Birdwatch this week by watching the visitors to the vegetable garden.  The children are now pretty good at identifying blackbirds and the odd crow.  I had expected a more diverse selection of birds, we certainly get a gratifying number during the day, but perhaps having 40 young and excitable bird watchers all standing there counting, identifying and asking questions put off those avians of a more nervous disposition!