Growing the Future @ Ashlyns

Warm Weather

2010-04-09T11:52:00.003+01:00

The warm weather over the Easter holidays has prompted a growth spurt in all the plants. The rhubarb is nearly ready for the first pick and the fruit trees are already covered in little baby leaves and buds.

Now were are out of the worst of the weather, I think we can start getting out some of he more sensitive plants into the ground.

Progress Report wk 08.03.10

2010-03-10T14:42:00.003Z

The large raised bed has been put together and placed out.

The bath has been boxed in to make it look nicer

2 ton of top soil has been delivered ready to be put into the beds.

Spring has sprung!

2010-03-01T10:32:00.002Z

Things are looking up both inside and out.

the fruit bushes are already pushing green buds, and we will be needing to get them planted out as soon as possible. Some of the seeds have already started sprouting. It should be only a few more weeks until the ES group will have some plantlets to put out.

The fruit trees and showing very good growth, especially considering that they were planted up very late, and didnt have very good root stock. Both apple trees are showing a good 10cm of growth, and buds already. The pear tree isnt looking so happy though. Nothing much we can do at this point, just hope that it makes it through.

We had donated a HUGE rhubarb. I mean it could have been cut down into 10 plants. It was decided that to manage its growth, it would be planted into the bath. The boys in the ES group did the hard work with filling it all with soil. They may need to spend a little more time re-filling, since the soil has subsided down.

It may not look like it, but the plant is the boxes (they were put there as camouflage over the winter) not only survived, but are actually doing quite well. Mainly herbs, but there are two current bushes.

Tomorrow will be the first scheduled after school activity. The ES 6th formers will be attending to start on their skills portfolio. Hope the weather will be good

Construction

2010-02-24T10:07:00.000Z

the environmental science group have been cracking on with building the raised beds this week. Apparently it was harder than it looked.

The picture is of the smaller of the two raised beds. They put it together indoors, since it was in their words, freezing cold outside.

The larger bed needs to be put together outside since it wont fit through any doors. They hope to have the second bed put up some time next week.

February

2010-02-22T13:07:00.002Z

As the big freeze continues, the plot is still hibernating under yet another covering of snow. With the ground frozen, we have been unable to get any digging done.

Inside is another story. We have seeds sprouting nicely, and quite a few plants waiting patiently for temperatures to rise.

The 6th form environmental science group have been busy building raised beds which will hopefully be set out and filled in the next few days, as well as growing our large collection of seedlings.

A bit of a slow start to the year, but hopefully things should pick up once the weather sorts itself out.

Select Seeds

2010-02-22T13:02:00.003Z

Many thanks to Select Seeds. They have been continually donating seeds and supplies.

Their support has been invaluable and greatly appreciated.

Snow & Beds

2009-12-17T10:23:00.003Z

We got snow!

I doubt it will come to much. It will be gone by this evening hopefully

We also took delivery of the raised beds. Going to be stored until the start of the new term. Its all very exiting. When we put them up we can then start moving the earth across and getting everything going.

Trees

2009-09-08T14:54:00.004+01:00

Miss Carnell managed to get to a horticultural auction over the summer break, bringing back with her some lovely fruit trees.

I love going to horticultural auctions picked up some fantastic deals on fruit trees, ranging in price from £5-7 pounds, beats nursery and garden center prices (£14-20). So far collected Sparten, Cox, Katy, Laxton suburb (apples) and a Conference pear.

After over coming the problem of transporting them from Norfolk to Berkhamstead, they spent the rest of the summer sitting in sinks in Miss Carnells lab waiting to be planted out. It turned Miss Carnells lab into something with a real woodland feel.

Fortunately, two of the apple trees did not have to endure too long all cooped up, but they were planted out on Saturday the 5th of Sep. The plan is to have the remaining 3 trees planted out as part of the 6th form Environmental Science course.

Water News

2009-07-28T12:01:00.004+01:00

Finding a water supply has become a little bit of an issue. The pipes we thought were water pipes, may not actually be water pipes after all. And obviously with the school closed for the 6 weeks, we cant really find out either. And of course we need premises help with bringing in a builder/plumber(?) to give us a quote for a stand pipe installation. But there has been some good news. We got our bath! Still even has the old taps on it.

At the moment, it has no plug in it, so, I think someone will be heading over soon to glue in a plug, make it nice and water tight. This means that at least we can store water on the correct side of the perimeter road. Its not ideal, but it should serve the project well for the next year or so.

We would like to extend a special thank-you to Dominic from Spring Gate Plumbing and Helen and Brian in Boxmoor for the kind donation.

Button Fixed

2009-07-27T13:23:00.000+01:00

The 'Contact me' button ( ) has just been fixed.

If you tried using it within the past couple of weeks, it will not have sent your email to us.

Thanks Brian for pointing it out to me.

Its started

2009-07-15T17:05:00.000+01:00

Over the past couple of days, most of the school has been out on various trips, some of the students have stayed behind to do various activities.

And they have been busy bees, just take a look.

Blog Under Construction

2009-07-13T09:43:00.000+01:00

This is the blog space for the Growing the Future @ Ashlyns project.

Please bear with us as we construct. Regular service will be started by September 09. In the mean time, please bookmark or join our feed.