Composting

Very few kitchen gardens are without a compost bin or heap. Composting is a way of converting any organism that has once been living into a nutrient rich product. This when added to the soil, not only introduces nutrients from which your plants will benefit, but improves the soil structure.

 

A composting project also fits in well with the primary science curriculum for instance possible links with Sorting and using materials, Grouping and changing materials, Rocks and soils, Micro-organisms.

Composting is an all year round activity; however, you will find that some times of the year are more active than others.

For more information and advice click here

Also available on my website is a free Smart notebook download. If you don't have a Smart Notebook application a free interactive reader can be downloaded. This allows you to use but not to save any changes.

I would appreciate feedback on how useful if at all you find the resource.

Why not make a video of your gardening project?

This video comes from the BBC Dig In site. Making a video of your school's gardening activities is an ideal literacy activity and is not as difficult as you might think. I have successfully carried out film making activities with children as young as 6 and also children with special needs. Without exception they have loved it! Film making also integrates Gardening into your ICT lessons. It motivates children who would usually have difficulty in writing about their experiences and adds a new dimension to literacy lessons.



If you do create a video you could upload it to YouTube or TeacherTube and I would be happy to post a link to it on my website. Also I am still keen to receive any photos and information about your school garden to add to my website examples page which at the moment has NO examples. If you have a website showing your schools gardening activities why not email me the link to add here? The aim of this page is to inspire other schools to have a go and also alert them to what went well and any pitfalls. Remember someone has to be first!

Why fertilise the soil?

If your soil has just been cleared and hasn’t been used for growing before then you will probably not need to use a fertiliser. New ground often produces fantastic crops. Over the years plants use up the natural nutrients in the soil and so the fertility needs supplementing with a fertiliser of some sort.

Fertilisers contain three main plant nutrients, nitrogen (N) which is needed for healthy leaf growth, Phosphorus (P) which is needed by plants to produce healthy roots and shoots and Potassium (K) which is of general benefit to plants but is particularly necessary for plants to produce fruit and flower.

Fertilisers also contain very small amounts of trace elements such as iron and manganese.

The proportions of N, P and K should be quoted on all fertiliser packs as N:P:K so 10:12:24 indicates that the fertiliser is high in potassium and would therefore be good to use on fruiting or flowering plants.

When using fertilisers it is important to follow the instructions on the labels. Just in case the label becomes unreadable you may find it useful to male a note of the instructions to keep somewhere safe.

Click here for more information

Growing Potatoes

It's time to start deciding which varieties to plant next year. There always seems to be so much to take into consideration. Suppliers are obviously going to present the seed potatoes that they sell in the best light so a website such as The British Potato Variety Database can be a good source of information.

Click here for seed potatoes from Dobies
Click here for seed potatoes from Unwins
Click here to read about planting potatoes in containers

Click here for advice on buying seed potatoes and other potato products

Trying to grow carrots without carrot fly damage!

A description of our method of growing carrots along with one or two other additions has been added to the gardening techniques page of The School Vegetable Patch website.

Planting onion and shallot sets

We use sets from which to grow our onions and shallots. Onions can be raised from seed but are more prone to problems and do not do as well on poor soil. The process also takes longer to produce a mature onion. Growing shallots from seed is fairly uncommon. Last year for the first time we tried heat treated onion sets. These are treated to cut down the chance of the plant bolting and producing a flower stem. The heat treated sets are more expensive but did perform better than those that were not treated and so this year that is all that we are planting. Heat treated sets should be planted slightly late than other sets i.e. late March to Early April. Onion sets are smaller than shallot sets. An onion set is an immature onion which was grown from a seed the previous year. It will grow and form one onion, whereas a shallot set splits and forms a cluster of several shallots.

We also planted both onion and shallot sets last year to overwinter which will give us an earlier crop. The ones planted this spring will be good for storing over next winter. Click here to read how we go about planting the sets.

Sowing Parsnip Seeds

Parsnip seed does not keep well and so it is recommended that new seed is purchased each year to increase the chance of good germination.

Parsnips are in the ground for a long time - we are still harvesting parsnips sown last year, so this should be kept in mind when choosing a location for sowing.

Most advice is to plant very early but there is no point in doing this if the ground is cold and wet as the seed will rot and so not germinate in these conditions.

Parsnip seeds are notoriously slow to germinate and some people prefer to pre-germinate them on damp kitchen paper but touch wood we have generally had reasonable success using the method explained here.

Pricking our seedlings

We germinate most of our seeds in seeds trays and transplant out into the plot as young plants. Most young seedlings need pricking out once they have germinated.

If you are new to gardening and are unsure of how to do this click here

A new section has been added to the School Vegetable Patch website. Click here

This is intended to help those new to gardening understand some techniques. If you need instructions for a gardening techniques then post a comment and I'll see what I can do to help!