Our garden is on the site of our previous pocket garden in order to maintain the ‘no dig’ philosophy of gardening- we recycled the older, top covering of compost to our bug hotel and then topped up with newer compost. This meant that we already have millipedes and worms in the plot!

We have planted our lettuce seedlings and pea seedlings as well as basil and parsley so we can enjoy green salads from our garden later in summer.  At the back of the garden, there are two sunflower seedlings, which we sowed just before the spring break so that they would be in bud at least for our entry. We have also added amaranthus seedlings that P4/5 donated as they are growing them for the RHS ‘Grow With It’ project. Their variegated foliage has added interest and instant colour to our bed as well as the plant having edible seeds that can be cooked and eaten. We also saved the chives plant from last year’s garden and used it in this one!

The frame of the garden was built using an old pallet.  Our janitor came and helped with the sawing of the pallet as it was hard going!  We then added the bird house that we had built at the start of the year and made a pond using a small bowl and surrounded it with stones and rotting bark-one piece made a nice bridge feature!

We filled between the slats of the pallet with sticks, stones and pine cones to encourage more wildlife and we found a toad nestling in the grass so we are excited to see if it takes up residence in among our garden’s bug house area!

We have learned that our seeds germinate better in school than out in our polytunnel but once they have grown they thrive out at the polytunnel as long as we water them regularly and it doesn’t get too hot over the weekends.

Our favourite part of the garden is the little path and pond as it looks like is has come from a miniature world, it is there to provide water for our bees. We now know that we need to add pebbles under the water so the bees don’t get waterlogged.

One of the challenges we had was that the lavender seedlings did not grow, they shriveled up after one hot weekend and although we tried to save them we were not successful so we substituted some pink ameria instead from a donation by a friend of the school. We noticed it was popular with our bees and butterflies!

Our garden will remain there until next year as it gives us a chance to watch the sunflowers grown and come into full bloom and also it offers the minibeasts a safe home.