Seeding, Feeding, Collecting and Tidying

Autumn is here and it’s time to finish harvesting our summer produce. That includes our sunflowers! Today we were busy de-seeding the big flower that the bees were so busy on a couple of weeks ago. We have given some seeds to the hungry birds, and as for the rest – some will be saved for the gardens next year, some are for selling and some are for us to take home. We can eat them or save them, the choice is ours.

We also wanted to make some plant food for our winter garden beds, so we made compost ‘tea’. This tea is not for us to drink – no THANK YOU! – it contains horse poo, sheep poo, comfrey, grass clippings (and some of our morning tea)! But it will be just great for our gardens. We learnt how organic matter like this helps feed the soil which in turn grows stronger vegetables.  

As well as harvesting and soil feeding, autumn is a time to tidy up the garden, there are the old summer plants to clear away, along with loads of summer weeds. So we had plenty of work to do and plenty to put into the compost bins.

The Year 8s have been trying out different ways they can harness the rainwater for their gardens. Here’s what we have at the moment: