What is a herb, No 2

Following on from ‘What is a herb?’

That blog was a prelude to creating a very small herb garden just outside the front entrance to the school. Sure I have mentioned, possibly more than once, that I do ‘stuff’ for Eco-schools at my work and this proposed herb garden is one of the more recent Eco-Schools projects.

Last week I took 4 girls to a very nice family run garden centre, actually more like an old fashioned nursery. They seemed to have fun, looking at all the different plants, trying out the garden furniture and generally making the most of the classroom reprieve. We chose bird boxes, butterfly boxes and bird baths for our woodland project and bought quite a few herbs for our new herb garden. I picked up a few more bits over the weekend, some small trowels and forks and another couple of plants. The piece of land allocated to us for the herb garden is quite small and it was very overgrown, but I managed to find an experienced gardener volunteer who has agreed to oversee the project. He spent an hour or so digging it over last week and then came by yesterday to give it a final turn and fork in some very stinky chicken manure.

Tomorrow we are going out as soon as registration is over and getting these herbs into the ground. I’m amazed at how many pupils have volunteered for the gardening projects. To be honest I’m not convinced that any of them understand the importance of what we’re doing, they just like the idea of time away from classes, but that’s a start I guess. I haven’t told them I expect a little research on the herb THEY put into the ground, just a few words for our notice board; I’ll tell them that tomorrow after planting.  

These pictures are of the land before cultivation, the land after digging and the herbs all ready to get planted tomorrow.