Homeschool Garden Club - Not everything goes to plan in a garden!

We are now coming towards the end of the garden year, we still have things to do. Our garlic is going in this week and the broadens are due to so in soon. But there is a bit of a lull at this time of the year. So in the Orchard Training Homeschool Garden Club we are going to use this week to reflect on the year so far.

We joined the RHS Garden Club for more tips and ideas for growing different plants, the NVQ students who work in garden centres have been very helpful sourcing advice for us. Friends and nieghbours have been very generous with their time. Although our sunflowers grow in isolation during the hardest part of this years lockdown the spirit of competition was strong and we had some very clear winners and some very small entries (mine). We have our come the difficulties in getting hold of seeds, plants and compost by working together.

One of the things we have learnt this year is not everything goes to plan in a garden. As a garden groups we have experienced high winds blowing the all bee about, we have had hard rain beating down the small beans plants we just planted, we have had high temperatures that dried out the sweet peas too early and the tomatoes suffered from the lack of rain and then too much rain - that they split.

The aubergines took too long to set we won't get many, the sweetcorn became covered in black fly, the apples that fell during June attached too many wasps, rats nibbling our produce and there were so many courgettes and green tomatoes that we had to spend days in the kitchen to process them all.

In my own garden, I have spent the year every week digging out sycamore, walnut and oak tree seedlings. Just as I thought, I had dug out the last tree seedling - I found a walnut planted in my potatoes by the squirrels this week.

I am this weekend digging a bush that has got out of hand. I want some more fruit trees to go in that spot so it had to go. Although, it is doing a pretty good job of staying put at the moment. The root has not yet come out, but it is on the way!

Along with the sweeping up of the leaves dropping from the trees (and for me picking up this years sycamore seeds falling from next doors tree), this week's homework for us in the Garden Club, is some reflective writing.

I want you to write about the best and worse of your Garden Club experiences. Using phrases like what I enjoyed most . . ., the worst job in the garden was . . ., the easiest crop to grow was . . ., my favourite fruit and vegetable to harvest was . . ., the visitors to my garden included . . ., and the all important end paragraph will start with - Next year, I plan to grow . . . because . . . . and I won't be growing . . . because . . .

Let us have a extended pieces of writing this week, in your best handwriting please. If you are dyslexic typing is acceptable.