Cleaning up and garden treasure

The garden is often a mess after the summer and needs a good clear out. This is generally a popular job. The greenhouse at St John's gets completely overgrown with plants that have finished growing for the year, including a very prolific grape vine. I've no idea what the hat was all about.

And there's often hidden treasure lurking underground. No matter how hard you try to pick things in July, you always miss something. Which then is a bit of treasure for the autumn garden clean up crew.

Giant carrots from a bucket

We had a few carrot seeds hanging around so we planted them in a bucket filled with compost and left them over the summer. I was expecting a few skinny specimens but we pulled out some whoppers. Carrots always do better when they are raised off the ground about 18 inches as the carrot flies can't fly that high.

Grapes in Longsight?????

St Johns has a large lean-to greenhouse which has an ancient looking grape vine. This year I did some research about how to prune it properly and we got a couple of bunches of grapes which were there waiting for us when we got back after the school holiday. They were really sweet and the children loved them.

Last of the parsnips

We forgot about a few parsnips that had been in the ground for over 12 months at St Johns. After a titanic battle, we eventually pulled them out. They were a bit rough around the edges but we didn't care. No supermarket cosmetic standards here.

'Allo Vera

At St John's, there are several pot plants that have been sitting in the greenhouse for years. We noticed that an Aloe Vera had got a bit overcrowded in its pot and that several little babies were fighting for space. 

So we took it out of its pot, separated the different plants and re-potted them. The roots on these things are amazing, up to 5 feet long, wrapped round and round the pot, I can see how they survive in the desert. Let's just hope they'll survive the re-potting.
 

Garlic time

Garlic is a great thing to grow in schools. It provides an activity in late autumn when it can sometimes be a struggle to find things to do outside. Planting is simple and suitable for any age group. You just take a clove and push it into the ground. It's best to buy seed garlic as this gives more reliable results.

It works much better outside and thrives in even the coldest winters. In fact I've heard it said that the cold helps to split the initial seed clove so that it forms a bulb containing different cloves. Then it just sits there over the winter and is ready to harvest in the the last half term of the year. Harvesting is good fun, requiring a bit of digging until the pungent bulbs can be lifted out. It's also a plant that virtually all cultures use in their cooking and can provide a good opportunities for children to share how their families use it.

Flower power

This year we've grown a lot of flowers from seed in the greenhouse at St Johns: sweet peas, nasturtiums, giant marigolds, cosmos, dahlias and they've worked a treat. They look great and then at the end of term children created bouquets to give to teachers or to take home.

Cuttings

Growing new plants from cuttings is a great activity during the autumn and winter when there may not be a lot else to do in the garden. It helps if you have a good supply of "parent" plants as we have in the greenhouse at St Johns.

Plants such as spider plants and Aloe Vera are good candidates as are herbs such as Rosemary. There is plenty of advice about how to do this online and we have had really good results, particularly with house plants like spider plants. Children can take plants home and look after them there or keep them in school but, either way, there is potential for them to have their own plant which many really value.

Saving energy at school

I've been supporting 3 primary schools to save energy during Eco Schools' Energy Saving Fortnight based on previous work I've done. St John's made the biggest saving, using 7% less than the previous two weeks.

They had children carrying out daily inspections and awarding points for classes where energy wasn't being wasted. Points were displayed on the Health Schools board every day with the overall results also being presented.

They will probably carry on with this and would save around £1000 a year if they could shave the same amount off their whole energy bill. Once it gets up and running this type of monitoring system is very easy and cost free to maintain. Pupils are also taking these messages home so there is also a wider impact on the community.

Manchester City Council's Energy Management Unit were really helpful in providing data.

Tetrapak wallets

We've cut back some of the gardening work at St John's and been doing some other projects with an environmental theme, an eco club and an energy saving competition.

Here's a purse made from a fruit juice container. These are really easy to do. You'll need scissors, a stapler, a hole punch, elastic bands and that's it. There are some good instructions here. 

It's a carrot!

One bad thing about the cold, wet summer meant that lots of things we planted at St John's were not ready to harvest before the summer holiday.

One good thing about the cold, wet summer was crops that we planted in the spring were well watered over the summer holiday and were just waiting there for us when everybody got back to school.

These little carrots are an Italian variety (Franchi seeds) and grew very well in a relatively shallow container. Yes, they really are carrots.

Harvest time ... potatoes

We dug out the potatoes from sacks at St John's and a got a great crop (this was just the first few) of a different earlies. It was a big surprise as we hadn't done this before and didn't know how it would work.  There was nearly a riot at the end of the after school club when we hadn't harvested everything; "We don't want to go home, we want to finish this!!"

Katherine Moores at Hulme Community Garden Centre helped us plant the sacks back in February and did some work with the children to help them learn about potatoes. Thanks Katherine!

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.

Potatoes going crazy

We've planted some potatoes in sacks at St John's, with the help of Hulme Community Garden Centre. You need to add compost to the height of the leaves as they grow. These have gone a bit crazy and the ones planted more conventionally have yet to produce any leaves. We'll have to see which produce the better crop. Still, the Gardening Club seemed to enjoy working with the compost.

Cress Heads in a potato

An imaginative take on an old favourite in the Nursery at St John's. They scooped out the top of potatoes, put in a layer of tissue paper and added the cress seeds.  One week later - Cress Heads!

Children painted the faces and stuck on googly eyes.Time for a hair cut soon.

St John's signs

I really like these signs that Gardening Club members at St John's have made on a couple of wet and cold Tuesday afternoons.

We used bits of old wooden pallet, sanded down and then they got to work with coloured pens. We've used linseed oil to waterproof the signs which will go up in the greenhouse, around the insect hotel they made and in the courtyard.

Rosie, by the way, is the school rabbit.

The Ardwick Avocado

I've started working at St Chrysostom's Primary in Ardwick.  When I asked a group what they'd most like to grow, one boy said "avocados!"

We were gathering ideas so I didn't want to curb his enthusiasm by telling him that we couldn't or that it would be difficult and, besides, something made me think that you could do something with avocado stones.  When I looked it up in my old House Plant Expert book, there it is on page 150: Fun Plants.

Apparently you put the stone in a pot, keep it warm and dark until it germinates and then you can get quite a nice plant (no fruit though). There was also mention of other seeds that might produce a plant including citrus fruits, dates and, crucially, pomegranate because today at St John's one girl said she'd love to grow them. So, we'll have a go and report back.

The diamond plant

I visited St Peter's RC High School recently where Sowing Success offer therapeutic horticulture sessions for students.  Jo was kind enough to give me this little Echevaria which she assures me that children love because water forms beautiful little diamond-like bubbles when it falls on the leaves.

They're into their succulents over there and it's something that we can do more of at St John's with the greenhouse. Not a good as a nice leek though is it?