Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

Last week, I wrote about our late gamble with winter salad. Just seven days later, and three of our eight containers have germinated already (the rocket and mixed salad leaves, since you ask). It’s not quite the jackpot, but so much better than I hoped, and just the thing to engage the children. Now, even though it’s got a lot colder, I’m tempted to plant some more.

There is less promising news from the cabbage bed (see September’s blog), where caterpillars, slugs and, I suspect, pigeons have combined to make a sorry sight. There are now many skeletons where once stood young brassicas, and most remaining plants are sporting the colander look, their leaves riddled with holes, their lives hanging by a thread.

It seems too cold for caterpillars, and there is no sign of them on the plants, which just leaves the birds and slugs. I wrote a bit about slugs last term, but not about the best design for a beer trap. Often these are badly designed which means they don’t work properly, killing useful creatures and filling up with rainwater, too.

The best beer trap is made from a plastic container with a lid, say a pot of margarine or hummous. First, cut out sections at regular intervals around the rim so that the top resembles the crenellations, or battlements, on a castle. The holes you have made should be big enough to fit a slug. Now fill up the container as far as the lip of the battlements, put on the lid and bury the the whole thing slightly in the ground, making sure the bottom of the battlements are raised above the soil surface.  This design should mean that no inquisitive frogs should fall in the top, while nice insects like ground beetles will not wander in at the sides. You don’t have to stick to beer: any sweet liquid, such as a solution of jam and water, is supposed to work, and I have been successful with cider (usually cheaper than beer).

For the pigeons, we have put up netting, stretched tightly over bamboo canes that have been planted around the sides of the bed. To deter the birds further and avoid them getting caught in the nets, old CDs are suspended on string across the middle.

And all this for a bed of cabbage.

Dominic Murphy’s book The Playground Potting Shed: A Foolproof Guide to Gardening with Children is published by Guardian Books, priced £12.99. To order your copy for £10.99, visit guardianbooks.co.uk or call 0870 606 4232.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

Sometimes at gardening club, everything gels perfectly — the weather, the jobs, the sense of achievement from our brief, Tuesday lunchtimes together. That happened this week when we planted our onions. It had rained the previous day, but the clouds disappeared right on cue. A bed had already been cleared, so we could start planting straight away. But best of all — and this is rare — the group really pulled together.

Often, when there are large turnouts like this one (there must have been at least 15 of us — a lot to control in the garden, believe me) I find myself flitting around different groups of friends, trying to keep some interested, and others out of trouble.

Normally, then, such encounters are chaotic (mildy so, most of the time, but complete anarchy when it is muddy). It is only when a handful turn up and we work as one unit that you could ever call us organised.

But this year, some of the older children in gardening club have been with me right from the start. As well as knowing the ropes, they are now in the top of the school, wearing Senior Pupil badges and keen to show off their authority. Why not, I thought, put this new status to the test?

So I asked a couple of them to take charge of planting our onion bulbs (known as ‘sets’). This is a popular way to grow onions because it is so much easier than raising them from seed. And some varieties (we used ‘Radar’) can be planted in autumn, for earlier harvesting the following year.

I got things going by pegging out rows and explaining to the children how deep the sets should go (the depth of a thumb, about a trowel head apart). Then I left them to it, one girl supervising the planting itself, another handing out the bulbs to a queue of younger children waiting their turn.

I won’t know how well it worked until the sets send up their shoots, but it was a liberating feeling, and hopefully for the children, about as interesting as planting onions can get. I have a new watchword for gardening club this autumn term. Delegation.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

Early September, and there is still much you can do in the vegetable garden. That’s if the weather lets you. Our new term at gardening club got off to a bumpy start because of heavy rain, and it was not until the middle of the month that it was dry enough for our first meet.

I was impressed by the turnout, however: lots of new recruits from years one and two, and a few from higher up the school There were familiar faces from last term, too. But the favourable numbers only made me more anxious that what I planned would not interest them. A six-week holiday (for which read ‘neglect’) had left our raised beds in need of a good weeding — and weeding, I reckoned, would hardly get pulses racing. There were no vegetables to pick or dig up (the slugs had got the beans and the pumpkins left from last term), no time to sow any seeds if we were going to clear some space. These children were getting the boring stuff before the fun: like having to clean out the rabbit hutch before you can cuddle your new bunny, or wash up before you can eat your fish and chips.

I reckoned wrong. The children got stuck in, ripping away dead cornflowers and sow thistles, and in 45 minutes, we cleared two beds. Admittedly, the soil got trampled and a lot of roots got left in the ground, but it was a start. The following week, I simply arrived a little earlier to give me time to get one of the beds into shape, and we were ready to plant.

But what to put in? I have never been excited by growing cabbage. It is always cheap to buy in the shops, and I probably have some lingering prejudice against it that goes back to soggy school dinners (I should add that having learned to cook it properly, I now enjoy eating it). But at this time of year, when the growing season is as good as over and gardeners are looking to fill that bare patch of earth, young cabbage plants (or ‘plugs’) take on a different hue. No longer are they the dull staples of the vegetable world, but an OPTION.

So I bought some plugs from our local garden centre, and we have planted a whole bed of these brassicas, criss-crossing it with string to keep pigeons off. I am watching out for other pests, too, as the warm weather over the last week has brought out the cabbage white butterfly, whose caterpillars would soon trash our new planting. And I am trying not to think about slugs, who did so much damage to our garden last term. Soon, they will be gone for the winter and our new babies will be relatively safe. I never thought I’d feel so strongly about cabbages, but here’s hoping they make it through to that day.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

For the past two weeks, the children and I have been clearing the raised beds in preparation for the summer break: weeds go for composting, veg and salad head for the kitchen. However, we are going to leave some plants for the  holidays — not the original intention, but it seems criminal to uproot them at the moment.

Chief among them are our climbing French beans, which have only just revived themselves after the bashing they got from recent cold weather and slugs. If everything had gone to plan after we sowed them in May, they should have been cropping by now.  But with the erratic British climate, plans are there to go wrong and things don’t always grow like it says on the  seed packet. Now our beans are only just beginning to bush out on their teepee frame,  a few flowers peeping through here and there.

As far as these climbers are concerned, poor weather might now work in their favour. If we have a wet summer like 2007, and temperatures remain reasonably normal for the season, they will still be going when the children return in  September. Like last year, there should be enough to make a couple of lunches for the entire school (the variety, ‘Blue Lake’, is a fabulous cropper).

If, on the other hand, the weather stays sunny and dry (stop  laughing at the back), I don’t mind popping over to the school to water the beans now and again, especially if it means I can bring some back for supper. I’m sure some of the children and their parents will help out, too, because the school is right in the middle of the village. One way or another, the beans should muddle through.

Another good reason to leave these plants in place is that their luxuriant growth should keep down nearby weeds  — the latter being deprived of light and water.

Less work to do when we come back in September, and a few free meals in the meantime — it can be handy when not everything always goes to plan.

Dominic will be back in September with his latest news and lots more ideas for the new term! 

Dominic Murphy’s new book The Playground Potting Shed: A Foolproof Guide to Gardening with Children is published by Guardian Books, priced £12.99. To order your copy for £10.99, visit guardianbooks.co.uk or call 0870 606 4232.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

The children have been agitating to dig up their potatoes for several weeks, the lush top growth of the plants suggesting masses of tubers under the soil. But I have been resisting,  waiting for flowers to fade and foliage to die back — a sign that these ‘first early’ spuds are genuinely ready to crop.

We’re into full harvest mode now, and this week we picked our first mange tout and courgettes (the latter, a variety called ‘Defender’ that we grew in pots in the polytunnel, has begun cropping after only eight weeks).

These two will only play bit parts in school dinners, mixed in with other veg or in sauces, simply because we lack the facilities to grow bulk quantities of them. The potatoes, however, are a different story: we have a whole raised bed devoted to them, and pulling them up has to be the high point of the gardening club year, simply because the quantity we collect in
our short lunchtime session is enough to make 100-plus meals.

Harvesting spuds is best done with a garden fork, gently getting under the plant and levering the roots upwards. A textbook harvest, I imagine, would see members of gardening club making an orderly progression from one end of the potato bed  to the other, leaving no plant unturned and taking care not to spear the tubers. The reality, however, is more chaotic, a dig-and-grab frenzy, with the children competing with each other to find the most potatoes.

It’s like one of those TV programmes where everything in the supermarket is free and you have 60 seconds to collect as much as you can. And I know which one I’d rather watch any day.

Dominic Murphy’s new book The Playground Potting Shed: A Foolproof Guide to Gardening with Children is published by Guardian Books, priced £12.99. To pre-order your copy for £10.99, visit guardianbooks.co.uk or call 0870 606 4232.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

The end of term is on the horizon, with little more than a month before we down tools for the summer holidays, and there’s a demob atmosphere in the school.  At gardening club, though, we’re kept busy with weeding, watering and cropping bits and pieces (the best is yet to come). Last week, some of our broad beans were used in a fund-raising curry that went out to homes around the village. Then there was the year’s first harvest of salad leaves, which the children had served up with their lunch.

Though it is late in the term, we have also just sown basil - enough so that, in a few weeks,  each child in gardening club will have a pot of their own to take home. Aim for three seedlings to a 15cm pot: it’s crowded for a plant that can reach 45cm, but I reckon it will all be eaten well before it gets anywhere near that size.

There are many varieties of this most delicious herb on sale, but we grow the popular and versatile ‘Genovese’: call it common if you must. Seed packets will tell you the weather is now mild enough to grow this herb outdoors, but you’ll get far more reliable results keeping it inside. And growing in a pot, it is surely made for the kitchen window ledge, to be plucked as the fancy takes you and tossed over your supper.

Dominic Murphy’s new book The Playground Potting Shed: A Foolproof Guide to Gardening with Children is published by Guardian Books, priced £12.99. To ,order a copy for £10.99, visit guardianbooks.co.uk or call 0870 606 4232.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

The recent wet weather might have played havoc over the half term break, but it hasn’t dampened our spirits at gardening club. We’re feeling upbeat after a group of us went up to the Chelsea Flower Show to see the Edible Playground garden, and some of the children were interviewed on TV. The garden even featured some beetroot that we had grown at school: that’s right, Thornford School veg at the most famous garden show in the world. Best of all, though, the Edible Playground won a gold medal and top prize in the courtyard gardens category (click here for more).

The rain has, however, brought out the slugs and snails, which have been feasting on the climbing French beans we planted out before half term. Now they lie forlorn and riddled with holes at the bottom of the bamboo teepee we made as a support. Luckily, there were more beans in the polytunnel as back up, so we have planted those as well. Fingers crossed, this second batch will soon grow big enough to survive regular nibbling. I could bore for England on ways to control slugs and snails, but I’ll spare you the full essay. However, there are some basic rules which will help keep these pests at bay. The best starting point is to take away their hiding places. Both creatures love cool, damp areas to hang out during the day, coming out at night to attack your plants. So keep the grass short near your vegetable beds, remove plant and other debris such as broken flower pots, too. This will help but won’t eradicate the problem. Unfortunately some slugs live in the soil, but you can help to disrupt them by regular hoeing, exposing eggs and creatures to the birds. I also swear by nematodes, a parasite that attacks the slugs and is recommended by organic growers (see www.organiccatalog.com). Unfortunately, it is expensive, one six-week treatment for our garden costing about half our annual seed budget, but I know it works. I could go on and on with this fascinating subject, but instead check out a good article on eco-friendly slug and snail control here

This week, also, we harvested our garlic, planted out way back in December. It’s been put on a shelf indoors to dry, though if the weather were more reliable it would be best hanging outside in the open air. Next week, we’ll have a go at plaiting it. Luckily my eldest daughter comes to gardening club and is a dab hand with the garlic plait. I confess that, despite having two daughters and having done their hair on occasions, my plaiting skills are not all they should be.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

There has been an incident in the polytunnel. Somebody has used the hose to water the seedlings, and our neat rows of seed trays and pots look like a battlefield. I am sure whoever did this was only trying to help, but you can imagine the carnage when a powerful jet of water hits a tiny plant. Now, several of the seed trays look like a squirrel has broken into our nursery and been digging round for its lost nuts.

It is no use being angry. Children love watering, and plants need a regular drink, so it makes sense to bring the two together and at school, we have a watering rota for the weekdays. On these unsupervised occasions, there will inevitably be casualties, but you just have to be philosophical about it. Enough plants survive and if you keep repeating to the children ‘Watering can and rose - not the hose’, the message might eventually sink in.

Although it is mid May, we are still sowing seed, but with a view to the children taking plants home and growing them on, rather than keeping them at school. It’s the perfect time to sow courgettes, for example. Sow in individual pots of compost with the seeds on their sides and place on a sunny window ledge or in the polytunnel. They will only take a week or so to germinate, and when they are about 10cm high they should be sturdy enough to go in the ground. For those with no garden to speak of, compact varieties, such as ‘Venus’ and the yellow ‘Burpee’s Golden’ , can be grown in large containers (at least 30cm deep).

Pumpkins can be started in a similar way, though typically they need around 2m of growing space and would need a whopper pot to cope with them. For a monster fruit, you should go for ‘Atlantic Giant’, but be warned that many of the larger varieties do not have the flavour to match their size. A good one for eating and big enough to carve for Hallowe’en is ‘Small Sugar’.

Dominic Murphy’s new book The Playground Potting Shed: A Foolproof Guide to Gardening with Children is published by Guardian Books, priced £12.99. To order a copy for £10.99, visit guardianbooks.co.uk or call 0870 606 4232.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

Dominic Murphy, Gardening Correspondent for The Guardian runs a gardening club at his local primary school in Dorset. Here is his blog. Watch out for his regular updates…

The carrot and beetroot seedlings we sowed indoors in March are now 3cm high and big enough to be transplanted outside. Big enough, but not yet tough enough - which is why for the past week we have been hardening them off, and will continue doing so for the next week.

‘Hardening off’ means acclimatising plants to the great outdoors, and all the perils that come with it, before planting them out. A healthy specimen will be better able to withstand the cold, wind and the attentions of pests. The process involves leaving your charges in the open air for gradually longer periods of the day, until they can remain outside all the time. Think of it like going into the chilly British sea - it’s less of a shock if you do it gradually, splashing yourself with water before you take the plunge. However, while the theory is sound, the reality in a school is a tad more tricky. Who is going to remember all that bringing in and out? At our school, we have found the simplest method is for me to do it, moving the plants outside when I take my girls to school and bringing them in when I pick them up. If exceptional cold is forecast, the seedlings just have to stay indoors all day. It’s a common sense thing really, not perfect, but it suits us. Now you know the theory, find a method that works for you.

Blog posted by Dominic Murphy

Back from the Easter holidays, and I am trying not to panic. There is so much we need to sow soon if we are to get crops before the end of term. OK, so the children really enjoy the  planting, watering and weeding, but a harvest. . . now you’re talking. 

At gardening club, then, we mostly grow vegetables that crop quickly. If the children like to eat them, all the better. We don’t, for example, bother with the likes of broccoli and cauliflower - not only can they be tricky to raise, but they take ages to mature so will need weeding and watering over the summer holidays. If it is really wet like last year, there is a chance they would make it through to autumn term, but although Britain is renowned the world over for it’s rotten summers, I don’t think we should bank on it. 

It is mid April, time for sowing mange tout in pots in the polytunnel (they could go outside if you wish) and potatoes.  We are planting Arran Pilot after a local gardener recommended them to me (it always pays to take note of what works well in neighbouring plots; not so much keeping up with the Joneses, but learning from them). These are what’s known as ‘first early’ potatoes, which describes the time they take to mature.  Yields won’t be as high as ‘main crop’ spuds, which are harvested in late summer and autumn, but this sort can be dug up in 11 weeks or so. 

Potato planting, where sprouted tubers are put in a trench in the ground, is great to do with children. Sowing small  seeds can be fiddly and younger children especially need close supervision. Potatoes, on the other hand are not only easy to handle, but the digging and the weird-looking, over-size seed give the process a cartoon-like quality.  

Dominic Murphy’s new book The Playground Potting Shed: A Foolproof Guide to Gardening with Children is published by Guardian Books, priced £12.99. To order your copy for £10.99, visit guardianbooks.co.uk or call 0870 606 4232.