Sunday catch up

Well I thought a catch up post was in order, as I have been doing lots here but haven't posted much lately (apart from about the chickens )

I was up early again this morning (couldn't sleep due to brain whirr), so have done lots and feel very content BUT am now flagging ( as you do...)

I was woken by Treacle the beautiful Black Star



laying her very first egg!



So 2 of the POL pullets are now laying :) Ginger started a few days ago and is very vocal about it! Good job someone is laying as the "old girls" all seem to have gone off in a huff and decided to moult and/or just stop laying

It has been a beautiful day here today, I got 3 loads of washing out and dry before lunch! I have mowed all the grass and it is all piled up ready to go in the compost bins.

I have cleaned Fudge the Guinea pig's house, all 4 hen runs and houses as well, so Fudge, the hens and Ruby and the chicklets are all nice and clean and cosy :-)




All the throws and cushion covers from the sitting room are in the wash or have been given a good beating on the line to get the dust out, the kitchen, halls, sitting and dining rooms have been vacuumed and generally tidied up

20 wine bottles have been released free of labels and washed and upended to dry,





We need lots of clean bottles to reuse, as we have 72 bottles worth of wine on the go at the moment!



I refilled all the various washing up liquid and liquid soap dispensers, I buy Faith in Nature and Bio D in bulk bottles to save on packaging and resources and then reuse or recycle the big bottles when empty.



I tidied up generally, cleaned the small bathroom with an e cloth and hot soapy water, I cleaned various windows and mirrors with an e cloth and vinegar.

Compostman and I started loading up my car for me to go to the Household Recycling site....



Then we picked apples ...lots and lots of apples.....and pears....



This is what 50 lbs of apples looks like..and we have lots of these tubs filled up....

Compostman picked beans, and blanched and froze a load of courgettes while I picked the pears from the other pear tree (Conference)and I think I shall have to make pear leather with the remaining Beth pears as they are very ripe now.

I will be making chutney later on from the Victoria plums in the fridge, the Damsons are finished now on our tree so we are leaving what is left for the insects ( especially butterflies!) to ea. We have lots of wine on the go and lots in the freezer to make jam out of in a few weeks time.

I now have to think about making cider and juice from the apples.

One of the cats took exception to some mending left in a pile on the floor by my chair yesterday and wee'd all over it (and my knitting..grr) so I spent ages cleaning up the mess with the special spray from the vets ( which works!) and washing out wee from previously clean stuff yuck!

I had a lovely, if busy week here, one day last week my fellow Eco Club leader (who is a teacher at Compost girl's school) came round so we could sort out the Green Flag application for the School. We had a really productive session and got lots sorted and it makes me SO proud of the children to see what progress has been made over the last 4 years. I have also re started the Eco club I run at another school nearby, as well as "pitching" for some craft workshops during half term in October (happily I got the work, so am now making stuff for it and Compost girl is helping me!)

So a busy and productive day, and week, here at Compost Mansions!

School grounds weekend

So, despite me having a VERY bad back, I and Compostman spent the weekend at school helping to extend the veg garden...Compostgirl just had fun playing with all the other children of parents who had come to help :-) We spent time extending the garden and clearing out the sheds etc....we had a skip delivered and spent a lot of time as well sorting out stuff to go into the recycling skips..and I must admit I "acquired" a lot of "useful" stuff to bring home to use ...(oops)



This is what the garden looked like before the fence was moved....



The fence has been moved out to extend the veg plot by about a further third ...



New fence posts going in....



Rabbit proof netting going in...



Lo! See the new fence! , the new raised bed! , the extra compost bins! I am soooo happy at the extra space and the new stuff it will allow me to do with the children!



Oh...the children are going to have SO much fun growing stuff in the extra space...

I am now a no show at the Compost Awareness event in Hereford

I agravated a long standing back injury lifting tables and trays of plants last weekend..and now I can't drive, or do much at all...so lovely Compostman drove me to school today and helped at Eco Club this afternoon...

because today I was scheduled to be teaching in the organic garden at School, I had Reception class scheduled to be out in the veg garden, planting potatos, carrots, beetroot and shallots.

Yesterday I had Gardening Club (juniors) out in the garden over lunch break planting potatos, beans, carrots, peas and beetroot. Then during the afternoon I was showing year 1 children how to plant up their raised veg bed with onions, carrots, turnips, potatos and beetroot, all with the theme of "purple"

I also, today had Eco Club and we did some pond dipping , which was great fun!

But, painful....and I wouldn't have managed it without Compostman's help.

Unfortunately due to my ( very painful) back injury I will also not, now, be at the Compost Awareness Week event in Hereford Fri.

Sorry! especially to Kim, who was going to come and say hello I know..

so...its rest, and recovery, and NO digging for me...

This is a really bad time for me to have an injury, as apart from all the stuff needing to be done here at Compost Mansions, there is a major re vamp of the school garden this weekend as well...moving the fence out to make the plot bigger, a new greenhouse, new raised beds..oooh all sorts of stuff ...and I am meant to be there digging and moving and dismantling compost bins and laying terram sheet and mulch and all sorts...

but I suspect I will be making the tea, instead :-( Grrr, bluddy back injury, I have had this for 40 years now, am Sooooo fed up its not true...mumble mumble mutter curse........)

Gardening at School

This post really needs to be read in tandem with my posts about the Eco Club I run at school! I also teach organic gardening at the same school in the summer and autumn terms :-)


My lovely daughter Compostgirl started primary school in Sept 2005, just as her School joined both the Eco-School movement

AND the HDRA Organic Gardens for Schools Scheme. The school is small and rural with around 160 children attending. It has a sports playing field, a small wooded area and an area of grassy playground. Some of this was used to make a vegetable garden in the late autumn of 2005, giving all six classes a raised bed each of roughly 2.5 m x 1.3 m.



In Spring 2006 there was a plea for parents to help the children with their new raised beds and compost bins. I am an experienced organic gardener and so I offered to help. I started going into school and help with Compostgirl's class. At the same time I had just trained to become a Master Composter, so I got the school some more compost bins and arranged for every classroom and the staff room to have a caddy to collect compostable materials such as fruit peelings and scrap paper. All the paper towels and waste from the garden was obviously composted also!

I got more involved and all this rapidly developed into my helping three classes with their raised beds and advising the 3 other classes, along with bug hunts in the compost bins! During the Summer and Autumn term 2006 I visited the school once or twice a week, running sessions with the children, visiting the compost bins, planting up the raised beds and growing herbs and vegetables. The children ate some salad in school and all took home a bag of their produce at the end of the summer term.




We even managed to produce some boxes of autumn vegetables from the garden that the children had grown ( even though we hadn't planned this!) and these were auctioned at the Harvest Festival to raise money for Food Aid 2006.

Back to school in September 2006, and I also got involved in the co-running of a new twice monthly after school Eco Club. I have written about Eco Club in a previous post and about a third of the school are Eco Club members and it is very successful!

Summer Term 2007 saw me regularly gardening and composting with the whole school, infant classes weekly and junior classes every other week. Despite the dreadful weather we had a good harvest. Every class bed had both July harvested crops for the children to take home AND October harvested crops to go in to the Harvest Festival. In October 2007 EVERY class provided at least one veg box to be auctioned and the children were SO proud of their efforts!



In 2008 I went into school from noon on Wednesdays - we called it “Welly Wednesday!”-to teach Organic gardening to all the school. I again helped the children to plant and grow and weed and compost and harvest.



In July ALL the school took home some veg they had grown. Every class again entered a veg box of produce grown by then into the 2008 Harvest Festival auction. The children were *so* proud of what they had grown :-)

I have just today started the 2009 growing season. I recently went on a Food for Life CPD training day at Garden Organic so I can spread the word about growing, cooking and eating organic veg to other schools in my area. This is a really good scheme, if you can, get your school signed up!



I have also just started up a Gardening club at lunchtime for the Juniors and today had around 25 children attending the first sessions :-) split either side of their lunch, we planted Broad Beans and Parsnips and discussed crop rotations and how to grow potatoes, salads, carrots and leeks. Before Easter we planted some potatoes in bags as part of the Potato Council scheme, we received 2 of each variety of Emerald and Rocket and the children decided to plant one of each in our home made compost and the other in bought in peat free growing medium...the children think the ones in our own compost will do best!

As a Master Composter and Organic gardener , I want every child to understand what can and can’t be composted, how to do it, why we do it and what to do with the finished compost. I want them to go home and spread the composting message as well!

The children also learn a practical skill from me - how to grow organic veg! Many eat produce IF they have grown it, which they would not necessarily try at home if it were purchased! (How many 5-year-old children will eat Rocket, Shallots, Mizuma or Rainbow Chard?) Above all the children enjoy what we do! We have fun in the garden learning how to do stuff.

I freely admit I don't just do this out of altruism. I am selfish, really, as I get the most enormous amount of enjoyment from doing all this! I LOVE seeing the delight on the children’s faces when we harvest a crop THEY have grown! They run up to me in the street in Ledbury to tell me about their veg plots at home. Also I have worked out, if I carry on doing what I do, by the time my daughter leaves primary school I will have shown over 300 children ways of organic growing and composting. I feel that would make a pretty good epitaph on my gravestone ;-)

I have also subsequently developed a whole new career as an Environmental Educator and now Forest School Leader, purely from starting to help at my local school and becoming a Master Composter. It has all been hard work and it takes a lot of planning BUT is very oh so rewarding. I have also been lucky that the school is so receptive to what I have volunteered to do.

What we are all doing at school though, is part of a bigger message, spreading throughout the school, of living in a more sustainable way. This has benefited the children and the school in many ways and has meant the school is now working for the highest level an Eco School can achieve, the Green Flag award.

But MOST importantly, the children LOVE all what we do! And so do I...and so does Compostman, who helps out as much as he can. And so does Compostgirl, who gets her classmates to join in..!

Catch up - 2 trips to Garden Organic, Ryton, in the space of 4 days

I have had more broadband problems recently so am woefully behind with the blog posts, but here is a catch up post of my inspiring and refreshing 2 trips to Garden Organic Ryton a few weeks ago.

I went on a Sunday to attend the Garden Organic Volunteers day, where we get various talks, workshops and an outline of the coming years strategy, a fabulous lunch and a guided tour around the gardens by members of the GO team. In particular I had a wonderful chat with Bob Sherman about Heritage Seed Library seeds, growing vegetables, the work I do at school with the Organic garden and Eco Club, and plants and stuff, over a fabulous lunch.

It was generally a very inspiring sort of day, it was good to meet other members of staff again, to fit faces to voices over the 'phone, to network with other volunteers and spend time with like minded people from all walks of life. Garden Organic views its volunteers as valued members of the team and provide lots of support, information and back up, and I got to choose a shirt to wear from a rather nice selection of organic, fair trade Garden Organic logo'd tops. I chose a polo shirt and I shall wear it when I am gardening at school with the children.

I was then back at Ryton the following Wednesday to attend a Food for Life Partnership training day. It was good fun, I met lots more like minded people who were passionate about wanting to get children growing stuff in school and all in all had another lovely and inspiring time.

So these photos are from the two days, just things which really captured my interest......I could post lots of pictures as EVERYTHING at Ryton is so wonderful, but I won't. It probably is a good thing I do not live any closer, though! I suspect I would be there all the time.....

I do urge you to go and visit Garden Organic's HQ at Ryton, the gardens are full of ideas and tips on gardening organically and really do showcase best practice. I promise you will come away with some new ideas!

The fabulous demonstration composting area! I seem to spend a lot of time in there whenever I visit Ryton ;-)

The huge compost heaps which make the wonderful compost used to grow all the fabulous plants and veggies the award winning cafe use to make the most scrumptious meals!

A wonderful pebble spiral inside the Biodynamic garden


Inside the Paradise Garden greenhouse, this garden is dedicated to the memory of the late Geoff Hamilton.



The practical bits of the FFLP course on Wednesday, sowing seed in the Allotment garden, we dug and composted,weeded and sowed...it was great fun! ( Am I odd for enjoying doing gardening in someone elses garden?)



The small town garden, this originally was put together as the garden for the C4 TV series "All muck and magic" - anyone remember that? I LOVED it!



Returning home both days I was treated to a most amazing sun, setting over Marcle Ridge as I drove home....

Beautiful Butterflies

The children at school have been following the life cycle of the Painted lady butterfly.rearing them from egg to butterfly...and here are some on the herb garden at school...

Beautiful, arn't they?

Update!

I have been very busy this week, I had an Eco club session on Tuesday ( Pond dipping...good fun!) and then on Wednesday I was gardening with the school children all afternoon...it is looking good in the Organic veg garden!

Thursday and Friday I attended a First Aid in the Outdoors" course as part of my Forest School Leader training...phew! hard work but good fun and VERY needed!!

This course was, like the one I did last year, run by the very good Anubis Training.

Harvest Festival

here are some photos from Harvest Festival at compostgirl's school yesterday.....



















Apart from running Eco Club at compostgirl's school, I also help the children with the School Organic Garden. I go in during the spring and summer term nearly every week usually for a Wednesday morning and Fri for an hour or so. On Wednesdays I take at least 2 classes ( first RECEPTION for an hour and a half before assembly, then Yr 1 for an hour after morning break) in groups of 5 or 6 at a time out to the garden and we plant seeds, weed and harvest veg and plant companion flowers. We also talk about compost, how things grow, bugs, compost and a whole host of sustainability issues....its a LOT of fun !! (Did I mention we do a lot of bug hunting in the compost heap???) On Fri I have an hour where I alternately take out yrs 5 and 6 from the senior class to garden before morning assembly.






















Above are some before and after pictures of our Organic garden....

























I started doing the gardening for compostgirl and her class (reception ) in spring 2006 and it has grown from there!!!(oh sorry that is a DREADFUL pun!!)



















This year I drew up a planting scheme for all the organic raised beds in the school organic veg garden. Each class has its own bed and there is a herb bed in the middle for Eco club ( and 4 compost bins!) , plus an eco club bed in the playground with insect attractant plants in it ( and a compost bin!) I basically organise the Organic veg garden for and with all the children with the help of the brilliant Yr 2 teacher and Mr compostwoman and with the support and help from the members of staff at the School.





























These Harvest festival photos show how well all the children have done!! Their produce was wonderful and was eagerly bought by parents at the Harvest festival auction to raise money for victims of the Floods in Africa this year. The very first photo shown just SOME of the produce donated to the Harvest Festival and includes the class veg boxes...and there was even more outside the main hall!!!


I do this, as well as co-running Eco club twice a month. all as a volunteer, because I want children to grow up knowing about composting, reducing, reusing and recycling, growing their own food and also to have a feeling of respect for our planet, its inhabitants and our shared environmnent.

And its fun!!!