Garden Classroom – Page 6 – Tracie's Treasures

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Garden Challenge 2021: Tracie’s Treasures

Posted on 25th Jun 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

We have been so busy over the last month. Today we were able to harvest our Mangetout. The little seedlings tried them once Tracie had washed them.

Three seedlings wanted to try them and no matter how much we encouraged Sophie she wasnt up for tasting them.

Alfie and Georgia loved the Mangetout and ate loads but Emma and Fearne were not so keen. We loved the faces Fearne made, at least they tried them!

Below are our other tasty fruits and vegetables we have growing in the garden.

This is a collection of photos of the plants the Rangers and Wanderers wanted me to post.

We also had a few whoopsies! We had some visitors come and make holes in our cabbages! Georgia thought it was a hedgehog, Fearne thought it was a snail and Sophie said “I don’t know Tracie!” When I told them all it was a slug they all said yucky!

Our other problem was the giant Poppies, they have over taken our vegetable patch!

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Garden Challenge 2021: Gemma’s Garden

Posted on 20th Jun 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Gemma’s vegetable beds are amazing and full of lush green produce. When the days are sunny Gemma gets Chloe to help water them.

Gemma loves Pac Choi and hers have grown really well. Once they start to flower, which is called bolting, the seeds grow for Gemma to collect for sowing next year!

Gemma’s radishes are amazing, they are as big as a large marbles.

Unfortunately my radishes have not turned out so well! Mine are as big as a grape, but not so juicy.

Garden Classroom, rangers, Seedlings, Uncategorized, wanderers

Garden Challenge 2021: Tracie’s Treasures

Posted on 13th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

What a wet May we have all had! Its been so hard gardening because every time we go to do some, the weather changes!!

The garden has loved the wet weather and all the plants and grass are all growing lovely.

Early in the year, we sowed tomatoes in various ways to see which would grow better.

Jacy sowed his tomato seed in a Bisto pot, he thought it would protect the roots when he potted it on. Eventually the Bisto pot will disintegrate when the plant is placed in the grow bag giving the roots extra space to grow.

What a fantastic idea Jacy had. His tomato plant is the strongest, tallest and has a tomato already growing on it! We are so impressed that we are collecting Bisto pots now!

The pictures below are of Tracie holding Jacy’s tomato plant up so you can see the amazingly strong roots!

The middle picture is a tomato plant we grew in the green house in a plastic pot. As you can see there are less roots and they are wonky (we do love wonky veg so thats ok!) they are much smaller, thin and scraggly. The bottom pictures (above) are of our other seedlings which we are growing in toilet rolls and they seem nice and strong! We will start hardening them off soon, ready to be planted among our flowers.

Above is our pot we sowed the Melon seeds in. We have no idea how but we have a tomato plant and weeds! No sign of a melon!

We have tried to grow cucumbers as we had a bumper crop last year. Unfortunately they didn’t grow even though we sowed 6!

We decided to go to the garden centre and buy one already established. Within 2 days they had slug damage! So back to the garden centre we went. This time we have put a water marker on it, covered the pot rim with copper (to keep slugs away) and placed it on gravel. We will see how they go in our next garden post.

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Strawberry Wall

Posted on 12th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Today, in between the rain and the wind, the Seedlings braved the weather to plant up the Strawberry wall. Tracie prepared the wall by filling it with peat-free compost.

At the weekend Tracie dug up the strawberry plants from our plot that the seedlings made last year, she prepared them for the seedlings to replant in the wall.

We have decided to build a new pond in the old strawberry bed for all our growing frogs!

This is Mr Frog, he made Tracie jump! She was sitting on the sofa watching us play when the frog jumped next to her to see what she was doing! We all thought it was funny! Tracie very carefully picked up Mr Frog and took him over to the pond.

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Garden Challenge 2021: Phyllis’ May Garden

Posted on 12th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Phyllis has been working hard in her Garden and all the plants are growing well.

The nets Phyllis has had to put up isn’t to stop the birds and pests, its to protect the crops from Hebe the cat!

What a pickle Hebe is! Everywhere Phyllis is, Hebe’s not far away causing mayhem!

All the vegetables are looking lush and growing big and strong. Phyllis has to keep mowing the grass to make it look nice and tidy.

The fruit is coming along too! There will be lovely ripe strawberries to pick and eat, they will go well with scones and cream in June! Something for us to look forward too!

Mind you that’s if they actually get to the kitchen! I know a few Treasures who like to pick and eat them before Phyllis gets a chance!!

Frank has made a Tomato planter in the greenhouse, Phyllis has planted the tomato plants the seedlings have grown for her, there are cucumbers growing too! All you need is onions and you have a salad!

Phyllis has also got lots of lovely colourful flowers around her garden to encourage the bees and butterflies. She has sent me pictures of them, below are my favourite ones. I bet they smell amazing.

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Garden Challenge 2021: Gemma’s May Update

Posted on 12th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

At the beginning of May, Gemma sent us some pictures of her garden vegetable raised beds that she had made. They have come on so well and are all starting to grow nice and strong.

Its mid-May now and only two weeks since the above pictures and the raised beds have grown so much! Gemma and the children are doing so well, they must all have green fingers!!

Chloe has been helping Gemma after school with watering and trying to keep Cooper their dog from jumping on them! All our pets want to join in with gardening!

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Liverpool Kindness Rocks by the Seedlings

Posted on 11th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

The Seedlings went into Tracie’s garden to find some rocks to paint. (Don’t tell Tracie!) Sophie found a big rockery stone and wanted to paint a sunflower, unfortunately nobody could pick it up!

Emma set the table ready to make their pretty stones. Emma suggested they make them into ladybirds as we love our story sack ‘What the Ladybird Heard’, the seedlings all got excited and screamed yeah!!

The girls worked really hard and the ladybirds looked amazing just like the one in the story! Now we need to quickly go to a park and hide them before Tracie realises there are five rocks missing from her garden!

You can buy our personalised What The Ladybird Heard Story Sack on our Etsy shop.

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Liverpool kindness Rocks: Hiding Our Ladybirds

Posted on 11th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

The sun is shining, so we’re off out to Stanly Park to hide our lovely Ladybirds now that they are varnished.

Emma thinks the trees are a good place to hide and find the rocks, the girls went off to hide the Ladybirds. Afterwards they looked and found new stones. They found one on a tree stump, another in long grass and the last one up a tree. All three were hidden by someone who is great at painting, we found them behind the COVID centre. Emma put them on the Liverpool Kindness Rocks Facebook page and found out they had only just been hidden that morning.

Tracie is going to take a rock and hide it on Sunday when she goes on her 12 mile cycle ride around Wigan. Wonder if anyone will find it and let us know?

Garden Classroom, Seedlings

Earth Day with the Seedlings

Posted on 22nd Apr 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

We had a lovely celebration today for Earth Day. The children started the activities by wanting to sing ‘Happy Birthday World!’

The first activity we did was to walk around the front garden. We saw lots and lots of ladybirds, beetles, ants and chaffinches singing in the tree next door.

Emma and the children finished their ‘World’ project. When Tracie asked Georgia what her work was all about she said “I’m wishing, I’m wishing for a country because I want to go for an adventure!” Sophie shouted she liked “the happy world” and Fearne joined in saying “rubbish makes the world sad.”

We asked what makes us enjoy our world? Georgia said “When we recycle, it makes our world happy.” Fearne said she puts her rubbish in the bin and she loves the flowers that grow in our garden.

Tracie asked Alfie what makes the world happy? “Biscuit” shouted Alfie. Tracie said that would make Alfie happy! We finished the session singing “Happy Birthday World” and If You’re Happy And You Know It.

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Strawberry Potting On with the Seedlings

Posted on 21st Apr 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Today the seedlings and Tracie went over to the greenhouse to check on their strawberry seeds.

Georgia said she thought there will be loads of strawberries all ready to eat! Tracie said it was too early in the year for strawberry picking, we just want strong healthy plants at the moment.

We opened the door and peaked in, Georgia huffed, “No strawberries in here!”

Tracie took a tray from the side and showed everyone. These are the seedlings we sowed and they have all grown really well, in fact, so well we need to re-pot them so they can get bigger!

Tracie explained to a disappointed Georgia and Sophie that the plants need to grow big and strong. When it’s June and we have lovely hot weather little white flowers will appear, then the strawberry fruit will soon be here.

Tracie took the trays of strawberry plants over to the table where she had prepared soil, toilet roll inserts, scissors and gardening tools ready for repotting the growing plants.

First the seedlings cut each toilet roll inserts into 3 pieces. Then they carefully placed them all into a tray. The seedlings took turns to fill each roll with soil.

Using a fork tool, Tracie carefully moved each seedling into a roll. The Seedlings took turns to gently push them down into the soil.

The plants now have little individual pots to give them space to grow.

All the seedlings worked hard together as a team to re-pot them and are really looking forward to the summer when we can all eat strawberries for afternoon tea. Maybe a game of tennis too!!