Stinky Stew

If you thought comfrey tea smelt bad, try nettle tea.  Not nettle tea that you'd buy in the shops, this one's a plant food. We used the nettles that had sprung up over the summer in our raised beds at St Chrysostom's and soaked them in water for a week. Then it was just a matter of decanting it into a bottle. While it's brewing keep it well away from anyone as it really does stink.

You can then dilute this and use it for a plant feed. Put the left over leaves into the compost.

Children called it Stinky Stew but assured me they hadn't named it after me. 

Leaf mould

A year ago we put leaves in plastic bags at St Chrysostom's and we got them out today. They'd rotted down very nicely and we spread them on the raspberries for a nice mulch over the winter. Children really enjoyed seeing how they'd changed.

Really easy to do, just make sure water can get into the bags, making leaf mould is a wet process whereas compost is best kept dry.

Salad Days

Every Monday has been Salad Day at St Chrysostom's. We go out and pick a couple of bowls. One goes onto the school salad bar and the other goes into the staff room to perk up the staff's lunches. When they know it's grown at school a lot of children have been trying the salad although there are some who don't like the ideas of eating something that's been in the soil!

We've grown a variety of lettuces, rocket and oriental leaves such as Mizuna, Mibuna and Osaka Purple. You can easily find packets of mixed seeds and they easily produce a crop during term time. Many are "cut and come again" where you simply take a few leaves and the plant carries on growing. Our best Mizuna grew where someone dropped a handful of seeds and we didn't get round to thinning them out!

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!

Harvest time ... garlic

We lifted the garlic at Armitage that we've grown in a large planter among the flowers. The children then plaited the bulbs together to dry. We thought we've have to show them how but we found that one of the group could do it in a blur!

Full of beans

I like beans and broad beans are great for growing at school: reliable, look good and taste good. With Miss Dawson's microwave cooking skills we were able to go from plant to plate in about 5 minutes. A few herbs from the garden and a bit of butter ... mmmm.

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.