A busy time and some special guests

Last week we had two very special guests: Cally and Flora from the Huntly Swift Group.

They gave a lunchtime talk about how amazing swifts are.  These birds are now endangered due to loss of habitat as people often don't even know they are nesting on their houses as they are very elusive and make no mess.  Building work fills up holes or crevices that allow the birds in to make their nest on the top of external walls.

The birds also NEVER LAND!  They eat, drink and sleep on the wing and only stop flying when they are in the nest.  Also at 6 weeks old, the chicks will fledge and fly straight to Africa!  

Cally and Flora stayed after lunch to work with the S2 group...

...and very kindly donated several bird books to the school.  We hope to have a swift box on site to encourage these wonderful creatures.  It would be a privilege if they came to nest here during their summer visit - watch this space!

In other news, we are really busy out in the garden as spring is now in full swing.  The RIDAN hot composter is working really well...

...recycling our canteen food waste along with sawdust and wood-chip into lovely compost for the garden soil.

Here Dougal is mixing the compost with more woodchips to use as a mulch.  This means a thick layer is laid on top of the soil around our plants.  It keeps moisture in, stops weeds and also in time gets taken into the soil by worms to improve the structure so a win-win situation!

Another important guest last week was Councillor Kloppert.  Here she is being given a tour of the garden and school displays to illustrate what we are doing to be as sustainable and environmentally friendly as we can.  She will be speaking with the Aberdeenshire council sustainability team to give feedback to them and find out how we can continue to get even better - for example by having compostable cutlery and plates in the canteen and an electric car charge point on site.

She was very impressed with the garden and was very pleased to see the RIDAN composter in action as this reduces our food waste enormously.  Thank you to her for championing our actions.

In other news, the Interact group came out to see how there crocus displays were looking.  This has helped to highlight the Rotary End Polio campaign which we are proud to be part of.  They gave great colour and sustained several bumbles bees in a time of few blooms for them to feed on.

We were also proud to welcome a group of pupils and staff from Meldrum Academy to a seed-sowing taster session in our poly-tunnel classroom.  They had a great time and sowed calibrese, tomatoes and peppers amongst other things.  Good luck folks with your own garden and we hope you will return to help prick out the seedlings when they are ready!

Meanwhile we are busy preparing the growing beds...

...and planting out other seedlings.  Here, broad beans.

Here, seed potatoes have been planted in rows.

Ross had also finished pruning the fruit bushes into a good shape - cutting off DDDX - dead, dying, diseased and crossing material (which might rub in the wind and cause damage to the branches).

The S2 class are also working to restore an old bench - replacing the timbers...

and painting the cast iron ends.

We hope it will make a comfortable new seat when finished.

Please Vote for us!

We applied for a pack of free trees from Octopus Energy a while ago.  As a result we can now enter a contest - PURELY BASED ON THE NUMBER OF VOTES WE GET - to win a grant of £8,000 for our TEAM-CG project (The Ellon Academy Memorial Community Garden)

If you can spare a few minutes voting is easy (though does require several clicks and checking your email to confirm your vote).  It is a UK wide contest so the more votes we can get the better chance we stand of gaining funding.  Therefore, if you can SHARE AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE to encourage anyone you know to help then we might be in with a chance!

Voting ends midnight on Friday 12th April so the sooner the better - please click on the link below (or image above) now!  Also, it works best if you USE GOOGLE CHROME.

To vote, follow the link, zoom in on the map to find ELLON ACADEMY and click the link to vote.

https://octopus.energy/vote-for-our-community/

THANK YOU for reading

and THANK YOU in advance for your votes!

Public Consultation for our Memorial Garden Space

We are pleased to invite anyone interested to see the outline plan for our Memorial Garden space.  

A display has been set up in the Foyer of the community wing with information and suggested ideas for an outdoor shelter, seating etc.  It outlines what help we have been pledged so far and also gives the opportunity for members of the community to have their say.

Please give general comments, requests, ideas or offers of help on the feedback sheet or if you prefer, you can email the garden co-ordinator and Additional Support for Learning teacher Susan Swallow at sswallow@ellonacademy.aberdeenshire.sch.uk

Fingers crossed - we hope that work will begin at the end of April so watch this space!

Local firms and groups have been very generous in pledging to help us so far:

·         Craig Reid – contractor to build the paths

·         Breedon Group – supply hard-core and granite dust top surface

·         GPH (JRDs Ellon) – supply path edging (still in negotiation)

·         HMP Peterhead – to build a timber shelter

·         Ellon Youth Action Forum - to build a garden seating feature

·         Ellon Timber – possibly to supply timber for the garden shelter (in negotiation)

Thank you to all the above – we couldn’t do this without your support J

·         Some help we still need:  

        A contractor to lay the patio for the central shelter to stand on

·         A supplier to give paving slabs or similar for the patio
  A supplier to give slates or similar for the shelter roof

·         Plants, trees, shrubs

·         Seating, arbour etc!

Tree Surgeons pay us a visit. Thank You!

Recently, Duncan Wight and his team from Trees are Us came into school.

They cut branches from the beech trees that were overhanging the poly-tunnel to make it safer in windy conditions.

Duncan also showed S4 pupils the equipment and machinery...

...and spoke about working as a tree surgeon.

The team shredded lots of the branches...

...and left us a lovely pile of wood-chips! We can use this for composting in the RIDAN hot composter and mulching our borders.

We also took some of the larger logs and made a "bug pile" in the wildlife area.

In other news, we had a visitor from Meldrum Academy. Ashley Gallacher hopes to co-ordinate gardening activities there and came to see our set-up and get ideas.  Good luck to her and to pupils at Meldrum in building your own garden - hope you enjoy gardening as much as we do!

Also, it's that time of year again - Potato Day!  Miss Swallow attended the Transition Black Isle Potato Day event on Saturday 2nd March to help out.  They were happy to donate a wonderful selection of seed potatoes for the school garden - Thank You!

This means we can grow many different varieties this year.  We are also selling a few to raise money for the garden :)

Also our "garden lady" was looking a bit worn from the winter rains so Mrs Kershaw is working with pupils to re-paint the legs and feet.  Watch this space for a restored brighter look!

Meanwhile the crocuses are looking good inside the warmer atmosphere of the poly-tunnel.  Lovely to see their colourful blooms emerge! 

Memorial Garden News Flash - Craig Reid visits - Good News!

We are very pleased to announce that Craig Reid has agreed to build the path in our Memorial Garden space.  It will be a circular path to allow a central area where we hope to have a structure for small gatherings and events.  Hopefully he will be able to start at the end of April so watch this space - and a huge thank you in advance to Craig :)

Also during St Valentine's week we had a lot of press coverage about our rabbit wire fundraising campaign to protect the garden against further rabbit damage.  Consequently we now have more funds coming in to our JustGiving page

If interested, click to view online articles from the Ellon Times or Press & Journal.

Meanwhile we have started to clear up the productive garden as the winter winds have left something of a mess.  Here, Ross helps roll our big tyre out of the way!  The clean-up will continue over the next few weeks weather permitting.

YIKES! Rabbits damage our Fruit Trees :(

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO HELP protect ourgarden against rabbits by making a small donation!
Read on to understand why!

Despite putting up rabbit fencing when we started our garden, rabbits are burrowing in!  We are currently fighting a losing battle against them as they have made several large warrens in the steep bank in the woodland beyond our boundary fence.  Unfortunately they have recently chewed the bark off our prize fruit trees (cordons, step-overs and espalier) which may well die as a result.

One of many deep holes that come in under our rabbit wire (which is already buried 30cm deep)

We have now protected the trees individually (though it may be too late for them!)

On a more positive note, we are trying to do something about it!  We have started laying weed barrier and rabbit wire on the bank to stop them digging holes.  We need more money however as this is an unforeseen cost.  If you can, please help us with a small donation - we are trying to raise £664!!  This will cover the cost of weed barrier and rabbit wire for the large bank along the length of the garden.  It will also help us replace some of the trees that die and to protect some beds with hoops and netting.  We will also try and lay this barrier in the steep ditch on the car-park side of the garden to prevent them burrowing in that way! 

All in all, a huge job but if we can achieve it, the garden will be well protected for years to come.  We cleared a lot of undergrowth already and the weed barrier will make it easier to sweep and maintain in future.

In other news, we have had some good wintry weather recently.

The snow helps to clean the polytunnel as we brush it off.

Ross has been busy washing all our boiler suits...

...along with gloves and aprons ready for our busy period in Spring.

We have even sown some seeds in the warmth of the polytunnel...

...and used it as a base to sit and watch birds for the RSPB big garden bird watch!

Several classes joined in - here the S2 group make bird feeders to hang out for the event...

and the EAGer bunch had an extra Monday-lunchtime meeting to see what birds visited.

Talking of warmth, the RIDAN composter is approximately 64 degrees inside on a -4 day outside!  See the ice on the outer cover.  This is totally due to bacterial action on the food-waste/sawdust mixture.

New Year New Challenges

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  We returned from our Christmas break to experience very high wind.  The tree branches overhanging the poly-tunnels are something of a worry as they could fall and crush the structures!  We are thrilled that Duncan Wight of Trees R Us came to look at them and is happy to come in when they are next in the area to clear them for us!  

THANK YOU so much!  This is something we could not do ourselves and it will make the garden a safer place.  The S4 class hope to see them action so watch this space for more!

Talking of high wind, this is the small shed that B&Q donated to us :(  We need to landscape between the poly-tunnels so we can put it up and treat it.

In the meantime we have now stacked it more securely off the ground so it won't get blown around again.

We've only been back a week, but have been busy!  Here, Ryan and Ross are cutting plants that have died back for the winter.

Weeding too provides material for the compost heap :)

 

Some stems make good hardwood cuttings - wild rose here - so we can get plants for free next year.

They will sprout new roots and start to bud in spring.

The S2 class has almost put the last of the 2000 or so crocus bulbs into pots! 

Many are already showing shoots in pots outside

We are still retrieving seeds from their dried pods to keep for sowing in spring.  These are runner beans...

...and french climbing beans.

Before the holidays we also got two sacks of spring bulbs into the wildlife area.  This will provide colour in spring.

We took delivery of a consignment of trees and hedging plants - some for the Memorial Garden project.  We healed them in and put netting over to stop rabbits nibbling them.  (An ongoing job is laying rabbit wire on the bank in the woodland on the outside of our fence to stop them burrowing under our own fencing).