You're not going out in that? Part 2.

 

It's been really cold the past few days. Playground are icy so children are often kept in at break and lunch times. So, even though there's not a lot of gardening to be done, it's great to be able to get out for a short time and experience the cold, see the frost sparkle, touch a piece of ice and feel the hard frozen ground beneath your feet. 

We found this spectacular piece of ice hanging from our rainwater collection bucket at Ravensbury. Of course, as I marvelled at the shapes, the children just wanted to smash it!

The most popular plant in the garden

Sorrel. 

It is by far the most popular plant I've helped people to grow. All children love it. OK I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. If you've never tasted sorrel it has a sharp, citrus tang to the leaves and children love eating it straight off the plant. 

It's also really tough, grows back every year and you can easily take cuttings from it by slicing off a part of the root using a sharp spade. This is best done in early spring. Simply replant the part you cut off and in a few weeks you'll have new leaves growing. 

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.

Returning to giant sunflowers

There are often surprises in the garden waiting when you get back to school in September. You never know what's going to greet you in the garden. These huge sunflowers had grown well over the summer at Heald Place. 

Safe cooking with children

I've been helping children learn how to cook simple, healthy foods in after school cooking clubs. One thing that crops up is helping children develop skills in using kitchen implements safely and effectively. 

One thing I've learnt is that using proper equipment is much safer than equipment that is "for children".  A good, sharp kitchen knife is better than a blunt "safer" one as children can cut without straining and pressing hard which is much more likely to lead to slips and cuts. I've found that children seem happier using a knife with a serrated edge as this gives a better grip when cutting. 

Having effective ways of explaining something is at the heart of helping people to learn new things. I found "the claw" and "the bridge" good ways to explain how to cut safely. The picture is a great example of "the claw" with the fingers holding the tomato well away from the blade. 

"The bridge" involves holding something between thumb and forefinger to make a bridge and the knife cutting down between them. 

Huge parsnips

Now I like a good roasted parsnip at Christmas but you can leave them in the ground a bit longer. 

We pulled these beauties out in March, after a titanic struggle. 

Glorious herbs

Herbs are great to grow for many different reasons. They look magnificent, they offer a sensory aspect to the garden with their taste, feel and smell and children can take them home either to eat or to grow their own.

Here at St Chrysostom's we have bay leaves, oregano, mint, chives and sorrel.  Must get some lavender.. oh and sage ...

It's easy to buy a small plant in a garden centre or even supermarket. Just plant them and most are pretty tough and will come back year after year.  They just need a bit of a trim in the late summer.

Producing new plants is easy in most cases. Just slice a piece of root off and plant it.

Sorrel is a children's favourite, they love nibbling the tangy citrus leaves.

But we haven't got a garden

Many schools lack green space to use for gardening and may be reluctant to give over what there is for growing.  However, you can still do a lot in by using a variety of planters and pots.

The ground here at Armitage was largely rubble and hardcore with a little poor quality soil.  The school laid weed suppressing fabric over it and then added a layer of chipbark several years ago.  We used a mixture of old wooden planters, conventional garden pots, an old water butt that had leaks cut in half and some pallets stacked up to make an insect hotel. It needs more watering and compost adding than planting into the ground would, but it works well.

Shock news: school cooking that is not Corn Flakes cakes

At Armitage I run a cooking club after school where we make healthy, affordable food (and the children do the washing up). This term we made, for example, hummous, tzatziki, French bread pizza and omelettes. The children invite their parents in at the end to sample what they made which is a nice oppportunity for the cooks to show off and for everyone to sit down and share some food.  Too much school cooking is focused on sugary cakes, a shame when we have a growing health crisis and cheap, healthy food is easy to make.

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.

Grow it, cook it, eat it

 At the end of term at Ravensbury we harvested potatoes, onions, garlic, broad beans and peas ...

cooked them up into a soup and sat down to eat together. We invited the Head and Deputy to join us. A great way to end the year.

Saving pea seeds

You always miss a few peas and end up with some that dry out on the plant. It's a nice job to collect these, shell them and keep them for planting. It also demonstrates the life cycle of plants. We planted these straight away in July and had peas when we came back to school in September.

Onion harvest

Onions are easy to grow. Put the little sets in the ground in the autumn or early spring and just leave them until June. It's really nice for children to come back to the garden and harvest what they planted. Here they are getting onions and garlic.

Parents and kids gardening together

We have a nice little group at Ravensbury where parents and children do some gardening together first thing in the morning. Two of the parents have gone on to get allotments and are now teaching me things I didn't know.

Pea maths

Just when the gardening group think they've got our of doing maths, it's pea maths time! Planting seeds is a nice opportunity for children to practice counting, do some multiplication and division.

New garden at Chatsworth

No, no that Chatsworth, the famouse Derbyshire stately home.

Chatsworth Futures is a specialist college in Salford for 19-25 year olds who have profound learning disabilities and autism. They asked me to help them turn this unpromising patch of land into a garden so we'll be laying out raised beds, planting fruit trees, bushes and a herb bed.

Planting a forest

We've just finished planting 400 trees at Armitage on the school grounds. Children from Nursery to Y6 were involved. We're hoping that the trees will help to reduce air and noise pollution from the nearby main road as well as improving the view, providing a wildlife habitat and an area for children to explore.

Schools can get free trees from The Woodland Trust and it's a really simple matter to plant them: dig hole, put tree in hole. A great job for a sunny winter day.

Armitage insect houses

We made these fine looking insect houses at Armitage. Two Y6 boys did all the work, cutting the frames to size, filling them with different materials and then adding some wire mesh to hold everything in. It took a while but the results were worth it.

Corny!

We tried growing corn at Ravensbury and a lot of it didn't ripen due to the poor summer. Still we got some really nice cobs. We put them in the microwave for 8 minutes and had corn on the cob. Growing corn is perfectly feasible in northern England but this was a big surprise for a lot of people in school!

Collecting sunflower seeds

A great autumn activity is to collect seeds from plants that have finished growing. Here is part of a sunflower head we grew at Armitage. You can also do this with peas, beans, rocket, radish and many flowers. The trick is to leave the seeds to dry on the plant and only take them when the frosts are about to start.

Picking the seeds out is a really nice, quiet, therapeutic activity. A colleague at Armitage thinks it should be reserved for the adults in the school!