Insect hotel with a green roof

When we finished the insect hotel at Armitage it looked, well, a bit unfinished. It's just a nice height so we stuck a mini green roof on top and have planted it up with a variety of herbs. It's in the early years playground so they're already combining looking for creepy crawlies with sampling the textures, smells and tastes of the herbs.

Red Rose Forest gave us some advice on the green roof based on their experience from the Green Streets project. 

Comfrey tea

There's a giant comfrey plant that grows through the greenhouse floor at Armitage. We've been harvesting the leaves for a couple of weeks and put them in a bucket of water to make a comfrey tea. It stinks but it's great plant food. Comfrey will grow anywhere and it's worth getting hold of.  Good for tying into learning about life cycles as well.

Radish fever hits Longsight

I've been growing a lot of radishes with children this spring and these beauties at St John's were probably the best so far. They're quick, look good and they're fun to eat.

Watering cans from old drinks bottles

There are lots of ways to reuse objects in the garden and here's another one. Garden Organic sell great little adaptors that you can fit to drinks bottles to create a watering can. They're much more manageable for small hands than a whole watering can, have a really good rose and also stop eager children drowning new seedlings!  Children just love watering and this means you can love them watering as well!