Rush before the winter weather!

Lots to do in the garden tidying it ready for spring!  The Junior Enhanced Provision group have been very busy.

Weeding,

feeding the birds,

cutting back bushes,

digging up the last of the potatoes…

…and sweeping the autumn leaves.

We’ve continued cooking our potatoes in different ways - crisps, wedges, boiled, mash and CHIPS!

Everyone enjoyed them.

We’ve also had a mini “concreting team” trying to finish our paths

 - a work in progress as it’s tricky getting time and weather to match up!

We’ve laid the last of the slabs and need to join some sections with concrete - probably a job for next year now!

We’ve been keeping our hot composter filled & turned and have delivered four trays of grapes to the Basics Barn food bank at the Kirk Centre in Ellon.

Preparing for Spring!

 

Yesterday, our Interact group along with members of Rotary came to the garden to plant crocus bulbs as part of the “End Polio Now” scheme.  It was lovely to have so many people visiting!

The pots will be watered and cared for and put on display in our “plant theatre” in Spring.  More bulbs were given for planting into the Memorial Garden to add colour to our spring orchard.

In other news, we have now harvested most of our crops and been selling veg boxes to staff.

Our Junior Enhance Provision class have been digging up delicious red potatoes…

…to cook them in many different ways! We started with crisps and potato wedges.

Senior pupil Sean has worked really hard to bring the garden round after the summer holidays - mowing, strimming and hedge cutting!

Meanwhile, Miss S has been improving the accessibility of the garden by cleaning and adding guide lines to the paths and patio.

On a rainy day, we added colour to our outdoor kitchen…

…and have continued to recycle canteen food waste in our hot composter.

We spread the compost on our veg beds to feed next years crops!

The lunch club too have been planting spring bulbs in the memorial garden and keeping the path clear of weeds.

Floral Delights

Very proud on Thursday to have been asked to provide fresh flower arrangements for our staff lunch to mark the retirement of our head teacher Mrs Buchan.  We collected flowers and foliage from all our garden areas…

…and took them to the classroom to trim and arrange.

We delivered them to the library and they looked lovely on the tables.

 

In other news, Simon Whitworth from “Keep Scotland Beautiful” came that afternoon to have a full tour of all our gardens.  He enjoyed listening to our plans and how we use the garden for teaching and learning plus a huge variety of activities.  We look forward to his report later in the year and seeing what level we are awarded.  He loved what we have been doing and our plans for the future.

Today, pupils have worked really hard to get last minute jobs done - seeding the new grass path between the two polytunnels, weeding a border to plant out sunflowers, covering our soil pile to prevent weeds, and tidying left over sand, gravel etc.

Well done to them all. 

EAGerBunch wish everyone a happy and refreshing summer holiday🌤🕶

Hopefully there will be lots of produce growing when we return.

🥕 🧅 🥔 🍅 🍇 

Interact sunflower seeds germinate

 

Back in May, members of Interact sowed sunflower seeds.  They returned on Wed 12th June to see how they were getting on.

They were joined by Tanya, who came to see where the sunflowers will be planted in support of the people from her home country of Ukraine.  They will make a fine show later in the summer 🌞🌻

All hands on deck for concreting - Episode 2!

David Reid, our friendly farmer neighbour gave us a huge boost last Thursday by bringing his digger to move bulk bags of aggregate, sand and cement closer to the Memorial Garden gate.

This saved us a lot of time and energy!

On Monday, volunteer staff helped Sean and Miss S to mix more concrete.  As a team, we worked fast to keep the mixer supplied and turning.  

We tipped the concrete directly onto the platform then raked and tamped it smooth.

We continued after break in light drizzle but by period 4 we had to stop and cover the platform because it was raining too hard.  We washed all the tools and put everything away.

Thanks to Mrs Nicholson, Miss Noufal and Mr MacClarence for your hard work, and to Miss Thomlinson for helping to pack away in the rain!  Over and above for Sean M! 😎

One more push, and this platform should be ready for our gazebo!

A hot day for hard work!

 

Today started with a great team!  Period 1 we set up equipment for laying a large concrete platform in the Memorial Garden.  We will bolt a gazebo to it in future so it won't blow away in winter winds!

Period two we started ferrying gravel and sand to the garden.  We filled buckets to get a strong mix in the correct proportions.

Miss S and Sean put cement into the mix.

Adding water starts the chemical reaction for the concrete to form.

Sean starts pouring the mix.  A huge thank you to Ellon Timber for donating rebar - the metal grid submerged in the concrete to make it even stronger.

Scott brings more sand.

Codi fills buckets

We took a well deserved rest at break time.  Then continued through P3&4.

Period 5 more volunteers came out to help fill more buckets...

...wheelbarrows...

...and more buckets!

It took a lot of trips to get the material we needed into the garden.  It was very tiring in the heat of the day!

It was good to rest in the shade!

Work continued after lunch right through periods 6 and 7.

Matthew loads sand into another barrow

Lots of folk came to help,

Dani enjoys sketching in the sun 🌞

We used a long "tamper" to smooth the concrete and level it.

We will need another day to get the whole platform done.  Thank you to everyone who helped today.  It was a real team effort and you all worked extremely hard in the hot sun!  Look out for merits and "over and above-s" coming your way 👏

The garden will be closed to visitors until next session to allow us to finish the platform and the concrete to harden completely.