Rotary Presentations

 

A huge thank you to Ellon Rotary who held a presentation ceremony giving out funding to many local charities and groups today.  Above you can see Mrs Murray (left) collecting £500 towards sensory equipment to create a nurture space for supporting pupils.  Mrs Murdoch, Mrs Quantrill and her daughter (centre) were awarded £500 for the library to help with future workshops involving a journalist, an illustrator and an author.  Miss Swallow (right) gratefully received £500 towards the garden project so we will be able to afford timber to maintain the sheds and raised beds, bird food, peat free compost and seeds next spring.

Richard Fox gave a summary of the many and varied projects that the Rotary supported today. 

Planting , maintaining, repairing!

On Wednesday Kyle Lawrence and Kody planted a beautiful cherry tree in the Memorial Garden.  It was gifted to us by Mrs Buchan on her retirement.

The hole was started by the S1 team as it needed to be deep and the ground is very stony! 

Last Friday the Interact Group who work with Rotary sowed lots of sunflower seeds.  Once germinated, the seedlings will be planted out during the activity days.

Onions…

potatoes…

broad and runner beans…

 

sweet peas and tomatoes have all been planted,

after a great deal of preparation!

William helped fill the water bottles for seedlings in the polytunnel.

Kody has now clad the first side of the small shed to ensure it lasts many years.

Other jobs have included cutting back roses, fixing a rotten gatepost and renewing pallets under the IBC tank to keep it safe.  Thanks to Mr Pate and Mr Higgins for providing muscle power for that!

Miss Swallow is off until after the summer holidays so the garden is in the hands of the ASL department, library volunteers, other staff volunteers and Gordon Park Nursery so I look forward to returning to a well weeded and nurtured garden! 😁🌻🥔🥕🍅🧅🧄

Work continues in earnest

Pupils have continued to work hard preparing for the summer season - both during classes and at lunchtime.

We are weeding and mulching the beds ready for crops.

Cara has turned this…

…into this…

…and also swept the polytunnel…

…whilst William and Skye helped tidy dead pots from past years.

Kody, Kyle and Lawrence have continued to learn about the mowers and cut the grass

William has used the chipper…

…to chop our “stick pile” up for covering soil between plants.

We’ve also had some fun in the garden playing giant jenga

…and connect four!

Ellon Timber delivered more building materials for us.

Meanwhile, Miss Swallow has managed to turn this…

…into this!  That’s the last bits of path finished at last (just 8 years or so after we started them all!)

Kody is also restoring his plant stand so that we can have a herb garden in pots this year :) 

Thanks to everyone for your hard work and enthusiasm so far - keep it up and the garden should look great this summer!

Better weather gets us busy!

Today, we did our first grass-cut of the year.  Kody, Kyle and Lawrence were learning how to use the mower.

At break time, the Interact group came to see the crocuses they planted in the autumn…

…they are a symbol of Rotary’s End Polio campaign.

In the afternoon, William helped chip lots of sticks into small pieces…

…which we used to mulch the fruit border.

Kyle, Lawrence, Ashley and Cara came during lunch earlier in the week to shovel the gravel from the parking area…

…it will be the foundation of our last unfinished path.

Ashleigh helped sweep the fruit cage path…

…and started using compost from our “cold heap” to spread on the veg-beds.

On Monday, the Junior Enhanced Provision S1 class planted onions into modules.

They put them in trays of water in the polytunnel.  We will plant them outside once they have good roots.

In other news, Gordon Park preschool children are excited to adopt a couple of the beds to grow their own flowers and veg this year.  Here, they are putting potatoes into egg boxes to “chit” before planting out.  We look forward to seeing what they choose to grow and hope they enjoy our garden!