Bean Diaries

Onions in the potting shed

Even though it's cold outside we're still thinking about the growing season.

It's really useful to keep a record of what we're doing in the garden. In future years it will be good to remember what grew well and what was a disaster! It's also helpful to know where and how different crops grow. We can compare different growing seasons and see what changes and what stays the same.

We've each got a small exercise book which we're using as a garden diary.

This week we're planting Dwarf French Tendergreen bean seeds

First we filled a small pot with soil...

...then we made a hole in the soil with our finger (or for those of us who are not yet keen on putting our fingers in the soil, a pen)....

...put the bean in the hole, about a small finger's length in. Covered it over with soil...

...watered it and put a label on so we know what is going to grow there!


We took our bean pots home for the holidays.  We're going to look after them on a sunny windowsill indoors - and keep a record in our diaries of how they grow over the Easter holidays.

Get sowing!

This week we were really pleased to be able to plant some seeds.  We chose some delicious sounding tomatoes from our seed collection.

We can't wait to see the purple sheen on a variety called Cerise!  We also planted a variety called Chadwick which we hope will produce juicy cherry-sized tomatoes.  

Hopefully by the time they have grown big enough to plant out, it will be a bit warmer outside.

We made some more wooden signs for the vegetable beds so that we can remember what we have planted, and where we have planted it.  

As well as practising our English spelling, the children were keen to try writing signs in other languages that they know.  Now we know how to write tomato in Slovakian.

We also varnished our birdhouses and our signs so that if they get wet, the paint won't wash off.

Painting signs and bird boxes

It was too cold to go out into the garden today so instead we painted our bird boxes.

We also used some small pieces of wood (old cheese boxes donated by our local Deli Downstairs) to make signs for the vegetable beds.


Some of us painted our signs but others drew signs with crayons and pencils and they looked equally nice and next week we are going to write some in different languages.

    This is a picture of someone holding the tomato written using some Greek letters.