Homeschool Gardening Club - Spring Cleaning the Garden!
It’s not just your desk and learning space that needs a spring clean at this time of year. Here at the Orchard Training Garden Club we know the garden does too. We have a lot to do this month in the garden, so please can our weather watchers pick out some dry day when we can have our lessons in the garden.
Here are some of the tasks we are doing this month in the Orchard Training Homeschool garden:
Spring cleaning the patio and path ways. We will be removing the dirt and grime from the patio by giving it a good sweep. If you old enough and can use power wash, you could volunteer to do some path cleaning for pocket money. Before you start to clean the surface, remove everything off the area first. Wash it down. Let it dry before putting it all back.
Talking of cleaning and washing, the benches and seats in the homeschool garden look like they need a good clean up too. if any one has spare scrubbing brushes and buckets we can all take turns and make short work of that and have some were clean to sit when we are finished this month.
While we are doing the paths, we need to give the pots a look over and see if they are still ok. Some of the garden club pots have cracked over the winter with the cold. we are looking to replace the fig pot, if anyone has a pot large enough to donate to us - we would be happy to receive it.
Thinking about those pots, it is time to refresh weed and replant the pots. If any one would like to plan a pot, please book in to the session in advance so we know what resources we need for the lesson on the day.
We have some tidying up else where to do too! There are two areas left for some hand weeding and mulching to go, we could not do these earlier because they had the crocuses on display. We also have two sacks of our Christmas Dinner potatoes left that need sorting out too. May be they will be ok for Easter Sunday Dinner. Who knows, we wont until we have had a look. There is also the petals that need to be sorted from the lawn area.
We can plant some of the plants we like and know that grow well. We can be clever with the colour too! Some of us like the rainbow walks we have been on (finding a flowering plant for each colour of the rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green Blue, Indigo and Violet) and so we will be looking at adding to that theme with more perennials this year, We have some purple lilies to move, some sedums to divide and some baby strawberry plants to reposition. If you would like to take some of the strawberry plants home, come prepared to the lessons with something to carry them home with. Don't expect the person driving you home to be overly please with you simply holding the muddy roots in you hand. you will need some pot or tray and a bag.
We have some sticks left over from the winter pruning of the apple tree, we need to make them in to a frog hotel and we want to make bug hotels so bring some materials with you to make yours and take it home again. We will have a whole afternoon lesson on that so everyone can get to use the tools safely supervised.
It’s time to think about pock money earning again and offering to give lawns their first cut of the year with the mower blades at their highest setting, and then rake the lawn to get rid of winter debris.
