Insects

This week, as the garden bursts into life, we are thinking about insects and how they help the garden. 

We want to encourage biodiversity - many insects and bugs - in the garden. Insects can help pollinate the plants, provide food for birds, help to make compost from waste and improve the soil.  

 We had a look in the garden to see how many insects we could find. We found quite a lot of flies, spiders, bees, worms and snails.  The insects were living where it was dark and dank, underneath stones or in the soil. We collected some in a tray to look at them before putting them back where we found them. 

Insects love living in old wood and among things like hollowed out pipes.  We got some pallets that were going to be thrown away and took them to the potting shed to turn them into an insect hotel.  We cut some bamboo and hollowed it out with sticks. We used some old clay pots as well as some sticks from the playground and some saw dust and a few wooden offcuts. 

We tied the bamboo and sticks in bundles and put the old pots and bricks inside the pallets. 

We left the hotel and hope we'll get some insect visitors soon!