How to make a raised bed!

During my first visit to St. Mary's School I found a really great and enthusiastic crowd of teachers, eager to get a school vegetable garden up and running... they had plenty of space, plenty of willing children eager to get digging. Two weeks on, two areas of turf had been stripped and we were ready to get going!!

When I returned I brought with me.....
eight lengths of roof perlins and 40 bags for decent compost!

I discovered a few years back that the cheapest way to build a raised bed (of any significance) was to purchase two 20ft (6m) long perlins,
saw them in half and nail them together!
Voila.. a raised bed within an hour!!

Then comes the heavy work! Several bags of compost later the garden begins to take shape! The heavens opened, we all got quite wet, but we soldiered on to complete the task and finally, within two hours we were planting... and sowing seed! Wow, all in a mornings work!

I'll be back next week to plant some more, but in the meantime, the childen are going to plant an apple tree, plant some seed potatoes in old car tyres... it's all action!!

Spring Lamb and Green Fingers!

The spring has well and truly arrived with lovely bright mornings and light evenings .. a great time for gardeners! The crisp early mornings are still cold enough to damage small seedlings, so we still need to be careful about what we plant out.

Just to remind ourselves that Spring really was on it's way, we got ourselves five little (tiny!) pet lambs. Very sweet, very cuddly, adored by the children, but lots and lots of bottle feeding!!

The greenhouse is now full of seed trays which need regular watering.

Don't forget that even when it rains.... it doesn't rain in the greenhouse!!

So far we have French climbing beans (purple – remember the magic beans from last year?), French dwarf beans (yellow), Pumpkins (of course!), Swiss chard, peas and sweet peas, Parsley and leeks, Gourds, courgettes, and mixed salad leaves.

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I've had a great time digging and planting and now it's your turn! The vegetable plots are looking bare ...time to get busy! We do have a few broad beans coming through and the onion sets are growing nicely, but it's now time to plant beetroot and radish, rocket and lettuce directly into the ground (now that they won't be damaged by late frosts)

. . . .

The potato tubers we placed in the greenhouse have now chitted (produced little shoots) and also need planting into well manured trenches. This year we are only planting those knobbly little Anya and Pink Fir Apple salad varieties. They are difficult to find in shops and are very expensive... so a great vegetable to grow for ourselves!

After months of worrying about the bees, and whether they would survive such a bitterly cold winter.... out they came! They've been out and busy in the garden for weeks now. The next worry is... will they swarm, when and to where? Our job now is to keep an eye on them and to check them regularly.