Horton - the beds are ready 26/3/08

Class 5 showed their muscle power! They took to the garden like ducks to water. We now have three fairly large trial plots. One was composted two months ago and dug. We have left that to its own devices. The next was also composted and dug two months ago but we have redug that. The third has not been dug since this time last year. So we covered it with 4 cm horse manure, and then 2 cm of municipal compost. This will be our "no-dig" bed.

We then tackled the compost heap. An explosive activity as a rotten orange exploded all over my head. Very funny. The compost was very slimy and not well rotted at all! Maybe the children can prepare a fact sheet about composting for Horton!

Minsterworth mud bath!

Friday the 14th March 2008


We decided to make the most of the beautiful sunny morning and began to dig the "Dig" plot. Some of the children got a bit carried away and also dug the molehills and playing field...We found lots of interesting life in the soil - big juicy worms, ants and eggs, larvae. Also lots of other bits and bobs including pottery, coal, old crushed glass etc leading us to think that we had stumbled across an old rubbish heap belonging to one of the houses nearby.

Next time we hope to bring wood and compost and get the "no dig" bed up and running.

Watch this space!

Worm-fest at Horton

Today was our first session with the children at Horton. Years 4 and 5 were fearless when it came to holding the (very wriggly) worms! We set up a wormery to explore how important worms are in mixing and aereating soils.

We also took a look at a teaspoon of soil and had some guesses at the amount of micro-organisms present (something like 6 billion!)

The children are all keen to start digging, and not digging, and growing! Their favourite veg are carrots, tomatoes, runner beans, cucumbers amd peas so hopefully we'll have some of these for them to taste in June.

Next week we'll be setting up the plots and taking a closer look at soils.