St Gregory’s Catholic Primary School………… Yet another week of typical English type weather, a mix of warm daytime temperatures, cool evenings and early mornings, wind and then a day of relatively heavy rain – put all of this weather together and then start to think about what we can sow, plant and then grow…………………………………………… This is where the poly tunnel really helps with our growing work, the option of sowing lots of seeds under protection gives us a big advantage allowing us to start lots of seeds off and then we can keep them growing until it will hopefully warm up and stay warm. That is the biggest challenge sometimes, we can start seeds off, they germinate, but then the cool weather does not allow us to plant them out. The poly tunnel right now is packed full of seed trays, plus lots of different plants all growing well. It looks like we are going to have a fantastic crop of strawberries, there really is a lot of fruit on the plants - again, the big advantage of the poly tunnel. See the strawberry photographs below……………………

Strawberry plants loaded with fruit………………

Herb garden is looking green and lush……………… Our herb garden is really coming to life again with lots of lush green growth taking place, indeed the many different varieties of mint that we have growing are really making lots of strong growth………………………………………………………… Also, we have some wild garlic that is growing too, this plant has a very strong garlic smell accompanied by beautiful white flowers too……………………………

Wild Garlic

The wild garlic that is growing in our herb garden has some beautiful spiky white flowers and hasabeautiful spiky has rich garlic whitetoo…………………. flowers………… smell

Wild Garlic Lots of lush green growth……………

Busy times ahead……………………………………………………………………… There are some very busy times ahead in and around the allotment growing area, hopefully – no promises, but let us hope that the threat of frost has passed us by now which means we can really get to work on both sowing seeds and planting out on the allotment. As soon as we are able to plant out many of the plants that are housed inside the poly tunnel, this in turn will free up space to allow us to plant up the seeds and crops that will benefit from the extra protection that the poly tunnel affords. We have our grape vine making some really strong growth inside the poly tunnel, we have some potatoes that the Reception children planted really making some excellent growth, indeed they have flowers on which usually means there will be potatoes ready soon…… Also, peas that the Reception children have grown in the poly tunnel have plenty of peas almost ready to pick – peas straight from the pod taste delicious – indeed you cannot beat fresh produce especially home grown!!.......

Watch out for some new developments

Eco – team preparing for National Gardening Show…… The school Eco-team are very busy at the moment preparing an entry to a major National gardening show competition which will be held at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. This competition is being organised by the Royal Horticultural Society alongside the BBC Gardeners World Live Gardening Show which attracts thousands of visitors every year……………………… The theme of the competition is based around the 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland – we have to create a hanging basket to reflect the story which has to be colourful and attractive. Also, you have to give your entry a title - our entry is titled “A Festive Feast”. Our hanging basket is being planted up each week, to date we have a beautiful red geranium, two different varieties of tumbling tomatoes, plus lots of different edible herbs such as borage, thyme, apple mint and chocolate mint. We are going to add some more plants to our basket plus we have sown some seeds this week in a tea pot which will be attached to our hanging basket. Watch this space……

More competition planting………………………………………… Based on the Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatters Tea Party theme, we have planted up a tea pot ready to add to our display…………………………………………………

More Eco-team planting……………………………………………………… Wild flower seeds sown by the school Eco-team are starting to germinate so watch out for some summer colour – perfect for our pollinators too………

Big Lottery Grow Wild Flower Seeds……………

Reception Class growing……………………………………………… The Reception Class growing lessons led by Jenny are starting to show what can be achieved by sowing and planting your own seeds – peas and potatoes will both be nearly ready to harvest – delicious fresh home grown food, not a chemical or a pesticide in sight – how growing should be…………………………………

Potatoes above ready to flower, peas top left swelling up nicely and on the right, you can see the Pea shoots sown by the Year 2 children……………………………

Loads of salad crops growing in the poly tunnel… We have lots of different salad crops growing in the poly tunnel which will all grow very quickly now that we are getting longer daylight hours plus some added warmth – lots of watering will be the order of the day now………

Fresh salads……

Coventry and Warwickshire business support for school growing project…………………………………

Littlehurst Nursery and Garden Centre Bennetts Road North Corley Nr Coventry CV7 8BG

01676 540178

School Growing Project