Our Gardening Gallery 2023
Category: rangers
Childminding Long Weekend Away In Wales
In the summer holidays we went on a mini break to Wales and had lots of fun.
We went in a boat through the underwater river and looked at scenes and listened to the story of King Arthur. We walked a few miles through winding caves then returned to the boat for our journey back out into the bright daylight. Fun was had by all.
October Fun Photos At Tracie’s Treasures
October’s Favourite Photos
Pumpkin Play
We had fun this week with the Pumpkin’s, heres a little gallery of our activities.
We went to Teds Farm Pumpkin Patch to choose some Big ones to carve out.
We all had a fun day out and can’t wait to go again next year.
Let’s Go 30 days Wild With Wildlife Trusts
The first 10 Days….
Can we do one wild thing everyday for the month of June! A whole 30 days? We are involving Our Childminding Family to join us in the challenge! Why don’t you join us too? Have a go be Wild for June with us and the Wild Life Trust.
Day one: Chloe Camping and making a wild 3D picture with sticks and stones.
Day 2: While out on a walk Chloe found and rescued a dragon fly
Day 3: Tracie, Chelsea, Chloe and Ruby went for an amazing walk in Snowdonia and came across a Waterfall and went Swimming.
Day 4: Elsie And Jack was looking for wildlife outside of the front window.
They saw flowers, Butterfly’s, Poppies and Incy Wincy Spider.
Day 5: Chloe went Tree Hopping at Zip World, she was high up in the trees and saw Birds, Rabbits, Bees, Dragon Flys and squirrels
Day 6: We found A Wasps Nest!
The nest consists of around 8,000-10,000 hexagonal (six sided) cells arranged in 8-10 tiers of about 20cm in diameter. The building material is paper-like and made of “chewed” rotting wood mixed with the wasp’s saliva. Construction is begun by a queen wasp but completed by workers (sterile females)
Day 7: watching the swifts going in and out of the barn and listening to their song was amazing.
Day 8: Identifying wild plants around our garden and looking in the barrel pool.
Day 9: Elsie planted some wildflowers in her plant pot at home. She sent me a picture to add to our blog.
Day 10: we put some crushed up crisps on the bench at the park. We sat still for a while and a Robbin and Black Bird came to have a feed.
Weekend Away Camping In Wales
Our Summer Garden Flowers Gallery
Half Term Fun
It was lovely having Emma come and help Tracie care for us, we miss her so much during term time. It was also lovely to catch up with leo and Martie who came and spent the day with us, they have grown up so much!
The weather has been so kind for us, We have spent lots of time in the garden playing, planting, hiding and relaxing.
Our Jack took advantage of the lovely summer day to play out in the front garden, he loved this hot poker flower, he pretended it was a microphone and kept us all entertained with funny rap songs.
The long flowers were an amazing yellow colour which went with his t-shirt.
Jack practiced his ball skills, we tried to have a game but the table was to small. Next time we go to the park we will take our rackets and balls as they have a tennis table there!
Lottie had a lovely time playing at Sector8 in the bouncy little ones play area. The big kids Georgia, Leo, Jack and Chloe played for a whopping 2 hours in the ‘big kids’ area.
We went for numerous walks around Stanly park. We took picnics, balls and got to play in the playground as it was very quiet.
Georgia loved playing with the Ello bricks and shapes. She made a lovely flower garden. She also made lots of crafts, this one was a pre printed princess dress, hair, shoes and gloves. Georgia then had to draw the princess’s face and join the arms and legs. It was so good she wanted to display it on the wall and make another one to take home. Georgia was so clever writing her full name on the top of the picture all by herself.
While walking around the park we kept an eye out for ‘Liverpool Kindness Rocks’ we were just about to give up when Tracie found one! She screamed and had to jump high to reach it.
We finished the week off starting our ‘30 Days Wild’ campaign by putting up bee and insects houses .we made sure the wild birds have enough clean water and seeds.
Little Gardeners: Spring into Summer.
The children have been so busy working hard sowing seeds, potting on and planting their crops.
They have been growing a vast array of fruit, veg and salad crops and we are just beginning to reap the rewards.
Last year we sowed strawberry seeds, they took a while to germinate but after a while we were so glad to see little seedlings appearing through the compost. This year they have flowered and we are so excited to eat them. We have been thinking what to have them with. Chloe wants them just the way they come, Phyllis wants afternoon tea, Tracie wants Jam and Mason wants them on pancakes! What a choice we are going to have!
This week we have potted up our tomatoes ready to take home and plant in our own gardens, in pots on our patio’s. Alba came for a visit, she took one home for her new garden.
The greenhouse is flourishing at the moment we have Loofa (to make as Christmas presents later in the year, watch out for that blog!) Our Lemon tree which we have grown from a pip has grown to about 2 feet now! We are hoping for some flowers then fruit soon.
We have summer bedding plants and Pac Choi for our stir fry’s. On the right side of the Greenhouse we are growing our baby cucumbers, We can soon have cucumber sandwiches to go with our Strawberry afternoon tea!
Behind the greenhouse we have our front garden project plants growing. We have 3 different types of Lavender plants growing ready to make a fragrant hedge later in the year.
We had a disaster last year with our cabbages. The slugs, butterflies and caterpillars decided they were going to eat them before us! We are touch wood (as Tracie says) beating them this year by growing them in a huge copper pot (apparently slugs don’t like copper) with a mesh over the top, lets hope our efforts work!
In the big veg trough we have Parsnips, Carrots, leeks, swede and Beetroot growing ready for winter vegetables. Hopefully we will produce enough to keep us in Scouse and soups all winter.
We have to be creative where we grow our vegetables and fruit as we don’t have a-lot of space. Our projects help to make our environment work for us, so we are clever and pack in fruit and veg in between the ponds, flower beds, wildlife feeding stations and play space.
We have sprouts growing in between the giant poppies, sweet peas and peas growing up netting together and our mange tout growing on wigwams.
Our lettuce is growing in rows on our decking and we have herbs in the living wall with tomatoes growing up the trellis. The only place left to play is on the washing line, even there Ive been known to hang bird feeders and hanging baskets.
Our lovely garden is packed full of planting to stimulate our five senses, smell, taste, touch, seeing and of course eating.
Tracie's Treasures 