Gardening Club
Gardening Club meet every Monday from 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. starting in the Pixies Classroom.
This club is run by Mrs Felicetti and Mrs Green and is open to all children from Year 1 (Pixies) to Year 6 (Unicorns) with around 16 spaces available.
Children must come with suitable clothes, footwear and gardening gloves.
Due to the nature of this club, children registered for this activity usually continue throughout the academic year in order to see their projects to fruition. To register your child's interest should a space become available - please email office@stella-maris-folkestone.kcsp.org.uk.
Dates for Term 1 2024/25
Monday 23rd September, 30th September, 7th October, 14th October, 20th October
Plans for Term 1
Week 1 - clear weeds, pick carrots and tomatoes
Week 2 - pick remaining tomatoes and put them in a warm place to ripen
Week 3 - check on ripening tomatoes and plan to plant a herb wall
Week 4 - Make a start on herb wall and involve the hydroponic system
Week 5 - Planting bedding plants in playground planters
Dates for Term 2
Monday 11th November, 18th, 25th , 2nd December and 9th December
Plans for Term 2
Week 1 - watering and weeding, gathering pallets for herb wall
Week 2 - make a start to build the herb wall
Week 3 - planting winter herbs
Week 4 - garden maintenance
Week 5 - Christmas gardening
Week 6 - Complete Christmas craft/planting
Plans for Term 3 (weather dependent)
Week 1 - Weeding and preparing beds
Week 2 - Making and filling bird feeders with seeds
Week 3 - Propagating house plants in the greenhouse and looking at house plants
Week 4 - Assess temperature for planting seeds in trays
Plans for Term 4 (weather dependent)
Week 1 - seed planting
Week 2 - garden tour and tidying with Sunshine Team
Week 3 - weeding bee and butterfly beds
Week 4 - planting out seedlings into grow bags in the greenhouse
Term 3 - propagating house plants
Term 3 - week 1 sorting when to plant seeds and filling up bird feeders in preparation for the Big Bird Watch
Term 2 - planting her seeds in our hydroponic system
Term 1 - final week - planting bedding plants in the planters on the playground to make our school look beautiful.
Tidying and preparing
Picking our produce and selling it for donations
Term 6 - The fruits of our labour
Term 5 - Using our hydroponic system to plant seedlings
Term 4 planting seedlings in grow bags
Term 3 - Week 2 making bird feeders
Term 3 - Week 1 Preparing the beds, weeding and pruning fruit bushes.
Term2 Week 4 - Christmas Crafts - making Seed Angels
Garden Maintenance Term 2 Week 3
Week 5 - We harvested our cress and made cress bagels. It tested fresh and peppery.
Week 4 - Mrs Green showed us some carrot plugs and then we went outside to plant them in big pots. The gardeners then planted cress and we put the trays in the greenhouse.
Week 3 - The Gardeners inspected the windmill on top of the greenhouse, which will power the hydroponic system. They did some weeding and picked the last of the blackberries, which we put in the freezer. The crocus' that were planted in the greenhouse have started to sprout.
Week 2 - Raf's mum donated some wild flower seeds for us to plant. We scarified the grass outside the greenhouse and sprinkled the seeds. We then covered the area over with soil. Then we tasted more blackberries. Mrs Green found a shield bug hiding in the plants.
During our first Gardening Club of the year we checked out the progress of our greenhouse where Mr Langley explained how the hydroponic system will work. We looked at the vents in the roof and at the wooden planters around the edge. We placed some packets of seeds in a drawer, ready to plant later in the year. After that, we looked at areas that need weeding and then we picked some blackberries, which we put in the freezer to cook another week.
Plans for Term 1
Week 1. Introduction, making plans, weeding
Week 2. Weeding and assessing development of greenhouse
Week 3. RHS award development
Week 4. Planting cress
Week 5. Harvesting cress and tasting - discussing growing our own food
This week we hung our bird feeders out and waited quietly to see what birds came along. We will check how much has been eaten when we are out next week.
The Gardeners made bird feeders using lard, seeds and fruit and they will hang them out in the Rainbow Garden area.
Making plans for our Gardening Areas November 2022
RSPB Big Garden Bird Hunt January 2021
Rainbow Garden Newsletters
Autumn Gardening

This is Felipe's (Pixies) chili plant, grown from a seed and transported all the way from Switzerland!