First Day Back for Gardening Club

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The day may have started frosty and white however this didn't put our keen gardeners off. They arrived at school armed with warm coats and welly boots in preparation for their after-school gardening. This was our first day back since December and thankfully, as the day went on it started to warm up nicely. We had taken a break as not much happens in the garden during January and February as it's too cold for anything new to grow.

We had ordered some fruit bushes with our Morrison's vouchers and we unpacked these today. Before we started planting however we had a lot of weeding to do. Our compost bins were full to the top in December but when we checked them today they have begun to rot down and are only two thirds full now - so we added more weeds to the pile! Then we planted gooseberry bushes, a redcurrant bush, a blackcurrant bush, a blueberry bush and lots of raspberry canes. We haven't decided yet if we'll keep the fruit for ourselves or whether we'll leave it for the birds. Have a look at our slideshow to see what we got up to today.

Composting Talk from Scottish Water

We had a visit recently from Andy from Scottish Water.  As we are due to receive a large delivery of free compost from Scottish Water in the Spring time, he came out to let us know how the compost was made.  It is being sent from their Deerdykes recycling plant near Cumbernauld however they also have another recycling plant at Linwood which makes a rouger style of compost.  The ECO committee attended the talk and members of the gardening club from P4-P7 were invited.  As you can see from the photo many took up the invitation and showed great interest in this form of recycling.  Andy also showed the pupils the future plans for food recycling.

Gardeners Contribute Towards ECO Accreditation

Well done to the group of six gardeners who took the ECO inspector on a tour of the school garden recently when trying for our second ECO flag.  Pupils were asked many questions about the garden and grounds which they answered well.  This contributed to the rest of the hard work carried out by the school and our efforts were rewarded when we were awarded our second green ECO flag.  More details about ECO schools in Scotland can be found at the ECO Schools (Scotland) website.

Colder Days

The school gardening group has now wound down for the coldest months of the winter but here is a photo of one of our last days in the garden, prior to stopping. As you can see the sun was very low in the sky and there was a definite nip in the air. We had been clearing some of the weeds from the beds to fill our compost bins before winter set in. Both bins are now full to the brim! In the herb garden we have left a lot of the foliage on the plants. We were advised to do this by Bridge of Weir Horticultural Society members as it will give the insects who have been using our garden somewhere to shelter for the winter. They crawl inside the hollow tubes of stems and hide under the bushier leaves. We will cut the herb garden back and give it a good clear out in the Spring time when it starts to heat up. We raised £51 at the school Christmas Fayre with our craft goods and will use this to bulk out the garden in 2011. Our thanks go to Mr McSherry who comes in to help us with the garden every week and to the Mums who helped us with our bulb planting and crafting last term.  The school garden club restarts after the February break but full details will be issued prior to the first meeting.

ECO Work in the Garden - Sep 2010

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Well who would have thought the garden would have looked this good! When we first started out just a few months ago we had very few insects in the school garden. We now have so many plants growing that each time we are out we spot more insects, or different ones from last time. This is really pleasing our P1/2 and P2 as their ECO action is to increase biodiversity in the school grounds. They have spent structured time out in the garden as part of lessons as well as their break time when they could explore the garden with friends from different classes, passing on what they had learned and found. Have a look at our slideshow to see us in action. We know that we are making a difference by working as one big team as we now find it hard to count the number of living things we see in our garden. There are just too many to keep up with but we'll still continue our hard work!

Picnic Weather in June

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The month of June was beautiful and warm so the Garden Club decided to take full advantage of the weather.  After some end of year tidying, we had a picnic in the garden at our last meeting of the school year.  Some of our members were already away on holiday or in rehearsing for the school show that took place that night so we had a few missing members ..... but that didn't mean any food went to waste!  We had managed to secure a donation of plants from the Paisley Freegle website, a free way to recyle unwanted belongings.  We had a chat about where to plant these whilst we ate and worked out what we thought would grow best.  At the end we tidied our gardening equipment away for the summer holidays with the worry that when the school was closed our plants might die in the heat.  Luckily for the plants it rained for most of the summer so all of them grew amazingly well!

Our School Garden in May 2010

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We got together a dedicated bunch of volunteers who wished to do extra work in the school garden. We call ourselves the "St. Fillan's Gardening Club" and we meet every Monday after school. We have 7 raised beds in the school grounds and 7 large half-barrels. In May we gave 2 of our beds a makeover and tidied some of the others. We brightened up our half-barrels too with bright bedding plants. We bought them this year but next year Mrs Nicholson is going to challenge each class to grow some from seed. Bridge of Weir Horticultural Society kindly donated packets of seeds to us at their Flower Show. This will give us a great choice for next year.  We received a £50 micro-grant from  "Action Earth" which we used to establish a new rockery to celebrate 2010, the Year of Biodiversity.

Come Rain Or Shine!

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Sometimes we have to go out and do jobs round the garden but unfortunately we have no control over the weather.  Sometimes we are able to indoor jobs however often our garden club members choose to go outdoors, despite the horrible weather.  We've had fun in the rain and it's amazing to see how quickly one part of the school garden floods.  This is something we will have to work around - perhaps a bog garden at a future date?  Here we are out securing the rain catchers which had become loose.  We use this water first when watering our plants.  This is all part of our ECO work.

School Garden - April 2010

We spent a lot of time weeding the beds and pulling out old veg which had been left in the ground from last year. We don't have quite enough compost so over the coming year we hope to have all the beds fully filled and up and running. Keep checking back to see what we've been up to.