In a lull

It's been a long time between posts - sorry! - this was mainly due to holidays but also due to the dreaded rain, which comes at the most inconvenient times. On the other hand, it's kept the baskets looking pretty for a good while, so all is not lost.

We have a lot of work to catch up on - many weeds to pull; many tomatoes to water; even a couple of cabbages to harvest. We're thinking jacket potatoes and home-made coleslaw for lunch next week? - should be both tasty and healthy.

We've been plotting what we can do gardening-wise during the winter months and we think maybe we'll plant up a few hyacinths to sell at the main desk, just starting in a small way, and seeing how far our entrepreneurial skills get us...

Playtime!!

Thanks to Carl and Ryan for permission to upload this great picture of them enjoying swingball in the new garden space. It's proving popular so Julie and I will just have to have our turn sometime when they've all gone home...

Raised veggie bed, featuring particularly rampant tomatoes, in the background. Beyond that is the back area, which we kid ourselves we're leaving wild for the sake of the local birds and butterflies, but if we're honest we just haven't managed to tackle it yet. Top priority for next year.

Salad days

Rainbow radish, grown by our own fair Platform hands and shortly to feature in a very small, supporting role on the Café Jaxx menus...

Sadly, the lettuces were rotted by the rain before we could get to them - and just don't mention the peas - but the tomatoes are looking healthy. Tomato pasta's looking a distinct possibility on the healthy eating front.

Have been giving a lot of thought to the whole garden operation. We can use it for the PSD modules as we'd planned, but the regular watering, deadheading, weeding, etc, needed would maybe also suit a half-day work placement for an E2E student - preferably one of our own! Students happy to garden come and go here but there aren't usually more than two of them at the same time, so a work placement type system might be more workable? Worth a try anyway.

Phase Two

Our latest enthusiastic gardening student has left us for pastures new - a quick turnover's an occupational hazard with a tier 1 E2E provision - and it seems like a good time to stop making the less enthusiastic ones take part in planting, digging and weeding.

Alongside that tho' we're bringing in a new qualification which most, if not all, of our students will be expected to take. Two of the modules, Making the Most of Your Leisure Time and Healthy Living, can easily incorporate a gardening/garden produce element so the changes we've managed to make in the garden will continue to benefit future students.

We have a little of the YOF cash left so we're ordering some onion sets - I have visions of steaming bowls of French Onion Soup for the students we have over the winter - and a few windchimes to counteract the constant rattle of the nearby trains and drone of the railway announcements.

A touch of colour

We have 4 big tubs, a cwt or so of compost, trellis on the fence and some stunningly healthy clematis to plant up, but will it stop raining long enough to allow us to get on with it? Nope.

So, in the absence of climbing plants to photograph, here's a shot of one of the hanging baskets. Won't that look pretty from the railway platform at the other side of the fence?

What we need to do now...

A visit from Barry to see how we're getting along and to offer some advice on jobs we can be doing now or in the near future:

Tomato plants - pull off the extra growth at the axis of the leaves and the main stem.
Also buy some tomato plant food and use regularly according to the instructions.
And for next year - remember to plant only one plant per tub. We planted some surplus plants in a tub and at the moment they look healthy but a little crowded!

Webb's lettuces - maybe thin these by taking out alternate plants. Poor things - they're not ready to eat but they're cramping the style of their near neighbours so they have to go for the good of the crop.

Beans - snap them off at the top of the bean poles, otherwise they'll just keep on and on growing.

Gherkins - let them trail over the side of the raised bed. They're obviously free spirits and won't come to harm from a bit of adventuring.

Veggies generally - dig in some granular feed but don't let it touch the leaves or it'll burn them.

Send off for horticultural catalogues with a view to finding some onion sets for August sowing.

Finally, we can re-sow the patch when we've harvested. This is the bit that fills me with unease, in case I get it wrong. But Barry advises 1) it's too late for carrots now and 2) we can plant anything we like from the long list he's given us. Everything is in seed form straight into the ground, except for the onion sets.

Phew, I feel tired thinking about it.

Spot the difference

One from a few weeks ago; one from today