Tuesday 29 March 2016

RIDAN arrives

Today, we took delivery of a RIDAN hot composter system.  Dan Welburn (who designed and makes the unique composters) came with his family from Devon to deliver it to us!
The composter will allow us to recycle all the canteen food waste and produce lovely rich compost for the garden.
During lunchtime, some school staff and members of Ellon Resource Centre were introduced to the process and how the composter works.  Members of the Resource Centre are keen to volunteer to help us build and maintain our gardens.  This is great as it means someone will be able to tend plants during the summer holidays when pupils are away!  We hope you enjoy the gardens and come to feel that they are yours too!
Each day, we will put the food waste into the "chimney end" and add an equal quantity of sawdust.
The handle is then turned to mix the contents.  In time, as the handle is turned, compost will drop out of the other end into a bucket.  It then goes into a "maturation bin" for about four months until it is ready to use on the garden.
The system should reach temperatures of 50 to 70 degrees as the organic matter rots down.  Turning the handle is important to ensure that the material falls down into the composter properly as air can then be drawn up through the hole in the bottom and out through the hole in the chimney.  If we didn't turn the handle, the food and sawdust would block the chimney so air would not circulate properly, resulting in a stagnant and smelly mixture!
Pupils from the enrichment program and some small curricular classes will be responsible for filling the RIDAN and turning the handle each day.  We are thrilled to have this ability to make our own compost on site.  The funding was awarded as part of an "Access to Education" grant for us to create a composting challenge.  The challenge will involve other types of composting - set up as an orienteering task around the new site so watch this space for more as we build the different composting stations!

Monday 21 March 2016

Tesco Bags of Help Results!


The Results of the public vote have been announced...Ellon Academy were voted into second place so we will be awarded £10,000!

Thank you to all those who voted for us - this money means that we can really get started with laying paths and erecting rabbit-proof fencing!  Look out in the local press this week for more and to find out which projects were first and third in the vote.

Friday 18 March 2016

Seed Potato Sales and Splitting Snowdrops

This week, we prepared orders for delivery to staff.  We are selling "Orla" seed potatoes to raise money for the garden.  They are an adaptable potato to grow as they are a "first early" which means they can be lifted early in the season as new potatoes with a delicate flavour but can also be left in the ground to grow into bigger "main-crop" potatoes that will store well too.
Sophie and Megan also potted up some snowdrops that have been dug up from the old school site.
They split large clumps to make more smaller ones that can fill out in readiness for planting into the memorial garden at a later date.
Meanwhile, Kieran continued to break up pallets and remove the nails so we can use the free wood for making bug boxes and picket fences.

We would also like to thank Miss Anderson who has donated some gardening equipment (including the soil and troughs we used today for the snowdrops).  It was a pleasure to find the box sitting with a note by the garden shed, so thank you!

Wednesday 9 March 2016

Numeracy in the Garden

On Wednesday 9th March, the garden hosted its first Numeracy lessons!  23 Primary-7 pupils visiting the Academy for the day spent a lesson learning about the importance of accurate measurements and how to use Pythagoras's theorem to ensure that our rectangular raised beds will actually be rectangular!  Two groups of 8 and one group of 7 pupils worked with Miss Swallow over three 50 minute periods.
Teamwork and communication were essential to get the canes in the correct spot.
Learning to use a tape measure and keep it taught and level for better accuracy.
Our "words of the day" were Pythagoras and Hypotenuse!
Pupils sat in the shed to discuss the maths before putting it into action in the garden.  Well done to those groups who got the canes perfectly positioned and thank you to the group who measured the garden spaces so I can now create a scale plan in order to calculate the area of the paths more accurately.
Meanwhile, last Friday the EAGer Bunch got cracking with treating the shed...
...or is that the CSI team?...
and Miss Swallow helped out at the Transition Black Isle "Potato Day" last weekend which means she could bring back a selection of interesting seed potato varieties for us to grow in the garden. 

Also this week, we managed to collect 4 trailer loads of willow cut from the old school site.  This can be used to create new hedges and hopefully some interesting living structures...watch this space!  Thanks to Mrs Russell (ASfL), Mr Cruickshank and Mr Wilson from Technology for all your help!