Gardening Club This Week

Whilst a small group of children were planting seeds, two other groups were also working hard. One group has gone around the school ground taking photos of where all of the crocus and daffodil bulbs have been planted. This is so that we a can make a picture map which will be used next year when we will hopefully obtain more bulbs to continue the brightening up of our school grounds. We can then avoid unearthing the existing bulbs and add to the display.

Our last group were working in the court yard. Some of the plants still need to be pruned like our 2 buddleia plants and flower seeds needed planting to give a summer display. Although the grounds are looking good the fun and hard work has only just begun.

Sowing outdoors begins

Although the wintery weather is not fully complete with a full mixture of frost, wind and heavy rain, the weeds are beginning to grow as you may be aware. This is a good indicator that the ground is warm enough to encourage growth. The other reason is because the school growing season needs to be finished before the summer holidays, many plants need a good head start to get established as quickly as possible.

Here are some of our gardeners sowing in one of the beds.

Why not have a go for yourself? Many seeds are cheap at the moment in the shops or ask someones you know if they have a few spare seeds to share and plant them somewhere in a pot or a border and see what happens.

It is great fun watching the seeds germinate and start growing into a tiny seedling. Most seed varieties don't need too much attention, only a bit of watering as it gets bigger.

Then you get to taste the delights of your labours.

Spring Salad Sampling

Today Portway had a new style breaktime. The children were all given little bags of salad to try and encourage them to bring a healthy snack at play-time. The time taken to prepare the fresh salad was well worth it as many children tried a mixed salad with several ingredients.

The salad consisted of lettuce(Romaine, Round and Iceberg), cherry tomaotes, cucumber, celery, peppers (orange, red, green and yellow), spring onion and grated carrot.

Many children mentioned they tried something new and are now going to ask their parents to bring in items of salad as their snack.The children have been very responsible in their attitudes towards bringing in healthy snacks.

They are aware of the benefits of healthy eating and we feel it really makes a difference in lessons. We hope the children continue to bring in healthy snacks and together we'll encourage more variety in our diet.We would also like to thank Mr and Mrs Oldfield for their efforts preparing the salad...all 330 bags of them!

See the school website http://www.portwayjunior.com/ or click on the Spring Salad Sampling link at the start of this post for photos of the children.

Gardening Club gets rid of the dead wood

At garden club today we needed to clear some of the courtyard. Over the years we have added lots of lovely plants but if we didn't clear the dead plants away it would be difficult for other bulbs and plants to grow. Here are some of us hard at work.

Gardening at home?

Why not email some of your pictures of you hard at work in the garden. The photos will be uploaded onto this site, and will be seen by others looking at this blog. (Check with your parents that it is okay to do it!) Even if you don't want yourself seen on the site why not take a picture of the plot, other people always want to see how other people arrange their garden. It doesn't matter whether it's a plant pot or an acre site. I know I'm always on the look out for good ideas or new and tasty crops to grow. Feel free to share it with everyone, and make this a community blog as well as in school.

email photos and tips to Portwaygarden@gmail.com

Victorian Gardening

In Year 5 we have been studying The Victorians and have been on a recent trip to Southwell Workhouse. It was a really good day and it gave a super insight into the way that people lived, and what they had to endure during their time there.
Some of our commited garden spotters recalled that one part of the workhouse was dedicated to growing their own vegetables for the inmates. Everyone was responsible for looking after them. They even emptied the toilet waste onto it as manure...quite disgusting but it worked! If they got a good crop they would eat better, if they grew more the governor would be happy because he could sell some of the produce to local meaning the Parish would have to pay less for the upkeep of the 'Paupers'.

Unfortunately, with our timing, March is not really a good month to see a super crop, but the ground was ready for this years crops.

Check out the website below for more information... It's well worth a visit.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-theworkhouse.htm

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

Waxwing still here!

Thank you very much for your photos and sightings of the bird. We appreciate how rare these birds are and would appreciate any other photos that you have taken of it. It can be shared on this site for many others to see. The children have been very excited with our visitor and it hasn't seemed to be too bothered by the noise at playtimes! Staff have had regular updates of what it was eating and when by the children. Some have even taking to spending their spare time sitting watching it amongst the rowan trees.

Please email any photos to portwaygarden@googlemail.com. We can upload them onto the site and recognise you efforts too.

Aren't the flowers beautiful!

Well done to everyone in Portway that has helped plant all of the bulbs. In total we have planted almost 4000 daffodil and crocus bulbs and every class has chosen their spot to hopefully make their view a little more colourful.

Although they are out now they may only last for a few more weeks but then all of the daffodils should be in full bloom to take over for another couple of weeks up until Easter.

Thank you also to everyone for staying off them and allowing them to grow freely without being trampled...remember it's all part of respecting our school. After all it was your effort to plant them!

Here are a few photos of them as they are now. Thank-you Elsie and Jothi, some brilliant pics! Once again a huge thank-you to Derby City Council for the main bulk of bulbs.

Potatoes For Schools

We thought it might be fun to see how many potatoes we can get from a few seed potatoes. We are chitting the potatoes at the moment. (See images)

Click on the link and it should take you to the British Potato Council's website especially for teachers and children. Find out how to grow potatoes, where potatoes come from and how to cook them. There's more to potatoes than meets the eye!