Saving Seeds for Next Year

As we bring in the harvest we are starting to see plants in the garden that have finished producing fruit and flowers.  We have let some of the plants 'go to seed' - partly because this encourages lots of different insects and birds to come to the garden to eat the seed, and partly because we want to save the seed from these plants.  If we carefully take good quality seeds from the plants, dry them and save them in a safe dry place then we can plant them next year and get more fruit and flowers - it's a wonderful gardening cycle!   

We took the last runner bean pods from the runner bean plants. The pods had got too big and tough to eat but the beans inside were beautifully big and purple. We carefully took them out of the pods and put them on some paper to dry out a bit, before putting them in envelopes to save in a draw for next year.

We did the same with some lovely Cosmos and Marigold flowers.  We're a step closer to getting a good  harvest and flower show in our garden next year. 

New Year Harvest

It's back to school and we're very glad to welcome some new Gardening Club members for our first session of the new school term. The garden's done quite well over the summer (thank you, watering team!) and we can now harvest the fruit and vegetables of our labours.

First we had a look at the apple tree outside the nursery and reception classrooms.  It's a big tree which gives lots of cooking apples - which means they are a bit sour if you eat them straight from the tree, they taste nicer when they've been cooked. There were lots of windfalls lying around which we collected.....

...and sorted into ones which we can store to use later and those which are beyond their best but can still be composted. 

We washed the good apples and wrapped them in newspaper. 

We hope they will store well in a box in the potting shed. But there are lots more on the tree - we're planning to have our own 'Apple Day' in a few days, so watch this space!