Yesterday the potatoes we’d harvested the day before went into the pot.
The spuds went onto the table, and then into bowls for a good scrub.
Atter that, straight on to boil. Some served with butter and some ‘au natural’. We filled three large pots with the good sized ones, and one with the little baby ones. First helpings for all of the eco warriors emptied two pots, and when almost everyone came back for seconds, they were soon all gone.
“Yum”, “delicious”, “the best potatoes I’ve ever eaten”.

We’ve been busy in the garden this spring and summer – just haven’t been sharing with our blog. As the harvest is coming in, we’ve returned to show off our skills.
This year, as well as planting our usual garden up with seeds and seedlings in spring, Clare brought in some seed potatoes and bags of compost, which we put in disused bed outside rooms 9 and 10.
Over the term we’ve been amazed at how much the potato plants have grown, and we’ve been adding more compost to encourage them to grow even more potatoes up the stems.
Monday was harvest day, and out of our garden which is about 2m by 2m, we got a decent basket of potatoes.
Next step – eating our produce!

Last week we pulled out all of the broccolli and cabbage plants that had gone to seed over the holidays, making way for a whole lot more planting for the summer months. First up, and completed this lunchtime, was a bean ‘tunnel’. We have found some beans that will hopefully grow quickly (before the term is out), and the tunnel of stakes will mean that we can crawl through the inside of the beans.

We also checked on progress on the seeds and cuttings that we  planted into pots last term, in preparation for the upcoming school market night. They are looking so good that we had to split the sunflowers so they have more room to grow, and will need to stake them. Speaking of staking, we also staked some peas that hade had dififculty finding the wire on the fence behind them.

What a lot of progress made on a lovely spring day.

Last Wednesday, after a run of good weather, we headed into the garden. We pulled some weeds, which seem to be growing well this time of year, and checked out our crops. There was great delight at the first signs of flowers in the garden, as several tulips have popped up. As happens in gardens with many helpers, we found this lovely arrangement of tulip and cabbage.

Then we set to work planting cuttings and seeds. We are planning on having a stall at the school Market Night to sell worm wine, the seedlings we’ve just planted, and some produce from the garden.

Over winter a steady stream of worm wind was produced. It was beginning to take up a rather large corner of Miss Rhodes’ classroom, so we had to start selling it. We chose a day – Monday 30 August – for stalls to be set up after school. We had 76 bottles of worm wine to sell, so the week beforehand we labelled the bottles and produced posters.

We publicised the sale in the school newsletter that was sent out on the Friday, and all of the Ecowarriors finished class a little earlier so we could help set up.

It was great fun.

Now that there’s been a break in the weather and building fences have been removed, we have been able to get back to the garden to do some much needed maintenance.

Last week we watered the garden with some of the worm wine we’ve been harvesting. We roped off two small ‘control’ areas, where we didn’t apply the growing juice, so we’ll be waiting to see if there is any difference in plant growth.

This week we did some more weeding and thinning. The patch of Canterbury Bells was particularly thick, so Clare brought along some containers and soil to pot up some of the seedlings for the eco warriors to take home.  

The team broke into groups to make holes in the potting cups, put soil in, pot up the seedlings, and write up labels, and then we broke out and did some general weeding and thinning. Our carrots are looking like they are halfway there!

We have had worm farms at Kilbirnie School for two years.

Room 10 has been going around the school and collecting food scraps. We have also been collecting all the worm juice, putting it in bottles and making labels. This week we stuck last week’s labels on bottles.

We had to choose what labels we wanted. We have done back and front labels.

We will be selling the worm juice. The money will be used by ecowarriors to do more in the garden.

Last year we began planning a garden.

We wheelbarrowed compost from the bottom school gates. It was very tiring. We filled up an old rocky sandpit.

This year we have planted it.

We have been letting lots of other people at our school join the group. Lots of people have been helping to weed and thin out our plants.

We put bricks like little paths so we can get around the garden easier without stepping on the plants.

One of our first ecowarriors was stuffing some scarecrows so that the birds won’t eat our plants.

We have had white butterflies laying eggs and green caterpillars eating our cabbages. Room 7 has been pulling off all the green caterpillars and putting them in their empty lunch boxes!

By Sylvie, year 2