Gardening with Steve
Steve Thorpe27 Jul 2009
Phew, I don’t know about you but it’s been 100 miles per hour lately for me and the schools and groups that I work with.
We have just about got everything planted out now and all the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers potted on in the greenhouse.
All the members of the brasica family – the cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts that we planted over a month ago are really starting to fill out.
The first sowing of lettuce are only a couple of weeks from being ready to harvest so we have sown some more to hopefully give us a continuous crop. We have done the same with the radish. Don’t forget to support your peas with netting, twine or some kind of framework once they start getting any size, as they will soon fall over and never seem to stand up properly once this has happened. Sowing can be done at split intervals to hopefully give a regular supply of peas throughout the summer.
I have tried holding some of the cabbage and cauliflower seedlings back after the original pricking out to see if they will be ready any later. This is an experiment as it would be good to have them ready at different times for the children going out and picking them to take into the school kitchen.
Once all the vegetable seedlings have come through that were sown straight into the growing area, they will need thinning out to give each plant its own space to grow and develop. It always seems a shame pulling some of the seedlings out, but I am afraid there is not much alternative. You could always transplant some of the pulled out. seedlings into another row, but they will need watering well to survive.
It’s just a case of finishing putting in all the bedding plants that the children have grown to hopefully give a colourful display at the entrances to the schools. It’s surprising what a difference this makes to the whole feel good factor of the school environment. It cheers up teachers, pupils and parents alike.
The new greenhouse is now up and in full production at Haworth Primary School. It really does look a beautiful thing and will hopefully give lots of pleasure and be a wonderful facility for generations to come.
This project was made possible by Ward Investment funding.
Members of the gardening club have been back to Christa Ackroyd’s to carry on with their work on the Look North vegetable garden. They have made another two raised beds to accommodate the rest of the brasicas family. The kids have taken a real liking to two of her dogs Marmite and Toast.
The reception class have just had a session planting all the pumpkins, I wonder if they can beat the 7 stone one from two years ago? It always fascinates me watching the development of the pumpkins. They don’t seem to get any bigger for weeks and weeks and then all of a sudden they seem to just take off. Don’t forget they need plenty of water and feed, that’s why we plant them on the manure heap.
I recently spent two days at St Mary’s Primary School in Middleton, Leeds, where I worked with every class, including the teachers and hopefully inspired them with my work. They made an outdoor classroom, concreting in all the wooden mushroom seats. These make a wonderful resource for the teachers to take classes out for story time or outdoor curriculum work.
We also made a habitat for insects and mini beasts out of old wooden pallets. They were packed full of grass, stones, old plant pots and pipes and anything else that might make a cosy home. This will also make another wonderful resource for the whole school to use.
I have just carried out a project with the Good Friday club at the church in Crossroads, the next village to Haworth. The children and adults made, filled and planted up four wooden planters which add lots of colour to the area around the village Christmas tree. We had lots of fun and plenty of laughs over the two Friday evening sessions.
Talking about Crossroads, pupils at Lees School which is in Crossroads (if you know what I mean), have been busy putting up a fence and gate in readiness for the new school pond. This has been a brilliant project that each year group has been involved with, from digging the holes and concreting in the posts to nailing on the lats and making the gate. This is the brilliant thing about my work in the schools. The amount of subjects covered and different tools used within this project alone is quite amazing and the effect projects like this have on the children is equally as amazing.
I received quite a surprise or should I say shock while recently attending the Haworth and Worth Valley Rotary Club’s 10th Anniversary dinner. I felt really honoured to be asked to attend the event along with my wife Jackie. But I was presented with a Paul Harris Fellowship in recognition of my work in the community.
This is only the fourth time they have given this award in their 10 year history so I feel really proud that they feel my work deserves such recognition.