Since the last ‘Garden Update’ blog we have continued to look after our plants and have been rewarded with good crops of strawberries and radishes.
For several of our snack times in the Den we have had strawberries and radishes that have been grown and picked by ourselves. The radishes were a French variety meaning that they grew into a longer shape as opposed to the traditional spherical radish, the flavour was also less ‘peppery’ than those we had previously tasted which meant that they were enjoyed by most of the group. The strawberries were also a delicious addition to some breakfasts and teas as we have had such a good crop this year. We learnt from our experience last year that we needed to protect our strawberries from other ‘animal’ visitors to the paddock at night, so we covered them with a net.
The tomato plants have now produced fruits and we are waiting for them to turn red. Tomatoes seem to be a popular plant to grow as many children have shared their experiences of growing them.
We regularly measured our sunflower which peaked at 154cms, and bloomed into a bright sunny-yellow head. Unfortunately, the sunflower has now stopped growing and we had to chop off the head, however, we have kept the head to dry out and collect the seeds for use next year. The stem of the sunflower has been put into our new compost bin, which was expertly crafted by Ed “red fox” and Jess “pink dragonfly”.
We are lucky that our garden area is situated next to the old pig sty which is filled with brambles that have produced vast quantities of plump juicy blackberries, on top of the blackberries that we have picked along the greenway, we have enjoyed many snack times tasting our delicious fruits picked by ourselves.
Ed “red fox” has suggested that we need to come up with a name for our garden/growing area/mini allotment/veg-growing patch. Please let us know if you have any good ideas!
Lucy