Filed under: LSYFC
The sun is shining, the birds are singing & our convoy of cars gets us to the farm by 3:40. Final footwear changes & then over to the Field Kitchen to meet Darran & a photographer from The Western Morning News. Why do journalists always want to know how old everyone is? Never mind. Just don’t want him to write “Head teacher, 52 & looking every year of it ……” Darran gets on with the introductions. The photographer gets artistic with trowels & little plants & silhouettes etc!
Then we all move across to our plot. It looks huge, well….quite big enough anyway. How on earth are we going to prepare, plant & tend an area of approx 400 square metres? I know that the kids are enthusiastic but….. is Darran having a joke? We have a bit of a talk about why soil needs to be nice & crumbly & how we are going to divide the area into 4 bits. One for potatoes (high fertility), one for root veg (low fertility), one for brassicas (high fertility) & the last one for legumes (fertility building). We’ve all got a lot to learn & the first thing is probably to tell the difference between a legume & a brassica. Darran soon sorts this out - one is to do with things like peas whilst the other is things like cabbage. Easy! But which is which? Decide not to worry, the kids will soon work it out.
Anyway, time to get on with some planting so… back to the Field Kitchen where Darran has a range of seeds for the kids to plant in seed trays. The idea is that they make their choices, plant them (following the rule that the hole should be twice the depth of the seed) then take them home & nurture them so that they will be ready to plant out when we return after the belated Easter holiday. All went well & we all learned that a biro can perform a duel function with ease. First you write your name on the seed tray then you turn the biro upside down & use it as a perfectly sized dibber to help you to get your seed to just the right depth! I wonder if Alan Titchmarsh knows that one?
Anyway, before we know it it’s 4:45 & the parents are arriving to take their children home. And what have we planted? Gardener’s Delight tomatoes, Lymnanthes poached egg plants, Defender courgettes, Sunburst squash, sweetcorn, Alan Titchmarsh organic cucumbers, Soleil courgettes & early Jalapeno chilli peppers. Not bad eh?
Oh, nearly forgot…. Jodie also helped out. Jodie is great. She is a Landscove “old girl” who left the school about 13 years ago. Now she is a grown up who works for Plymouth Council but is really interested in projects involving children & plants & growing & stuff. When she heard about our club she decided that she must take part. In fact she is so keen that she utilised her flexi-hours arrangement to start work today at 7:00 a.m. so that she could be back at the farm to help us. Isn’t that fantastic?
Finally, mustn’t forget to mention the cake. Don’t know how he does it but Darran manages to persuade someone in the kitchen to bake a cake especially for us every week. “What sort of cake” you are probably wondering? Well, I’m not actually sure, just know that it was delicious & soft on the inside & gently crunchy on the outside. The only bad bit was that my piece fell on the ground, but it was ok once I’d brushed the dirt off. Must have been good organic dirt as I’m still here to write the blog some 4 hours later!
You know, this has probably been the best hour & a half that I have had doing school stuff for ages. Even more fun than the mountain of paperwork that I attempt to climb every day!
Next update on Tue 22nd April when we’re all back from the vacation.
