As the change in weather takes it's toll, we needed to act fast against the frost. This week, the horticulture class concentrated on tackling the effects the cold winter weather has on the courtyard - that is gathering leaves, turning soil and covering the flower beds to prevent frost damage.
There are quite a few trees in the courtyard, so, needless to say there were quite a few leaves to be collected. Now, while the trees are of the deciduous nature, which in most circumstances is a good thing as their plant litter is a rich source of humus (fertiliser) for the soil, the leaves need to be kept to a minimum for obvious reasons. Mainly, because they get wet and mushy and they make the garden look very messy and unattractive plus they are a safety risk as the make the ground slippy underfoot. We used a rake to gather up the leaves and then collected them in a bag for composting.
The flower beds were our next job. We had to turn the soil so it's nutrients didn't wash out of the top layers and into the bottom layers. This would have meant that any nutrients were beyond the reach of plant roots. The cultivating also helped the soil retain it's moisture. The frost has been making it's arrival known this week so we needed to cover the beds with cardboard to prevent the frost from freezing the soil. Roots are unable to take up water and the plants die from lack of moisture. We held the layers of cardboard down using rock and stone slabs.
This week we also looked at our Paper White Daffodils and onion sets that we planted a few weeks ago. I was amazed at how much they had grown in such a small amount time. The Paper Whites are now fully grown and have blossomed into beautiful white flowers with a strong, sweet scent. The onion sets had also grown quite a lot. We cut the onions and got to take them home.
 |
| Onion Sets After |
 |
| Onion Sets Before |
These plants have grown so quickly because they were in the lightboxes. The boxes reflected the sunlight onto the plants. This along with them being watered every day allowed the plants to carry out more photosynthesis than the plants outside, resulting in an extra amount of growth.
 |
| Daffodils After |
 |
| Daffodils Before |
There are quite a few trees in the courtyard, so, needless to say there were quite a few leaves to be collected. Now, while the trees are of the deciduous nature, which in most circumstances is a good thing as their plant litter is a rich source of humus (fertiliser) for the soil, the leaves need to be kept to a minimum for obvious reasons. Mainly, because they get wet and mushy and they make the garden look very messy and unattractive plus they are a safety risk as the make the ground slippy underfoot. We used a rake to gather up the leaves and then collected them in a bag for composting.
The flower beds were our next job. We had to turn the soil so it's nutrients didn't wash out of the top layers and into the bottom layers. This would have meant that any nutrients were beyond the reach of plant roots. The cultivating also helped the soil retain it's moisture. The frost has been making it's arrival known this week so we needed to cover the beds with cardboard to prevent the frost from freezing the soil. Roots are unable to take up water and the plants die from lack of moisture. We held the layers of cardboard down using rock and stone slabs. 
No comments:
Post a Comment