Raised beds for Mill Lane Primary, Stockton

The final three raised beds have gone in at Mill Lane Primary, one went in on Friday and was planted up with onions, garlic and winter peas by the year six students. the final two have been put in today ready for planting after the half term holiday.

Part filled beds

Almost filled beds

Growing Guide and Vegetable Planting Calender

Here at groundwork North east we have been working on a downloadable Growing Guide and vegetable planting calender we hope that you find them useful.

If you have any advice or tips that you would like us to add to these documents please E-mail us and we will add anything useful to them.

Possible School Orchards?

As a couple of our Street Eats schools have asked us about fruit trees we are currently looking at the possibility of providing a few orchard trees (and possibly some soft fruit bushes) for the schools.

We will let you know whats happening later on in the winter as planting of those sorts of things usually happen in spring.

Gardening club at Bankfield Primary School, Eston

The final gardening club of the year at Bankfield Primary school on Tuesday went well despite the howling wind and horizontal rain.

The children managed to get the bed in their polytunnel all filled and planted with radishes, lettuces and other winter salad crops, hopefully these will grow throughout the winter providing some fresh leaf vegetables for the school.

The children also helped 'winterise' the polytunnel by fitting plastic covers to the door vents, this should allow the temperature to stay higher inside the polytunnel during the coldest winter weather.

In the outside beds the garlic and onions the children planted earlier in the autumn are starting to peak through the soil giving the children an idea of things starting to grow, even the winter peas are starting to make an appearance!

VISIT TO 'INCREDIBLE EDIBLES' TODMORDEN

The trip to Todmorden to have a look at their 'Incredible Edibles' project happened on Sunday, although we didn't have as many people come on the minibus as we were hoping for, the trip went well and lots was learned. 

There where many things that 'Incredible Edibles' do in Todmorden that could be spread across the Tees Valley including ripping out council shrub beds and replacing them with vegetable and herb beds.

The first place we visited was an area that had been transformed from a rubbish dump and rough ground next to the canal into a growing and propogating area for Todmorden.

Tractor tyres being used as raised beds

Inside one of the growing polytunnels

Once we arrived in Todmorden there were many beds located throughout the town

One on a street corner

In front of the theatre

In front of the police station

In front of the community centre and library

Another one in from of the community centre and library

In a corner of the railway stations car park

Small containers dotted around the railway station

Next to the canal

On top of some re-vetting works near the canal

WORKS AT BROUGHAM PRIMARY, HARTLEPOOL

Yesterday we moved the Brougham Primary school polytunnel to a better site (away from the football pitch), photos below.

We also filled an outside raised bed and planted garlic, white onions, red onions, broad beans and peas to be harvested in spring.

GETTING READY FOR THE BIG AUTUMN PLANT!

Here at Groundwork North East we are in the process of getting ready for a mass mail out of seeds for the big autumn plant.

Over the next week or so we will be delivering some broad bean seeds and some garlic cloves to the households in the project for growing over the winter. These should be ready for harvesting in spring and early summer!

In total we will be delivering to 94 households across the Tees Valley.