RBGE School Gardening Project begins again! We are delighted to be working with classes from Leith Walk Primary School, Flora Stevenson Primary School, Stockbridge Primary School, Broughton High School and Pilrig Park Special Secondary School.

The 2013 growing season has got off to a cold and frosty start so we stayed indoors and made newspaper pots to sow seeds into.

Seeds in paper pots

These pots are perfect for larger seeds which like being started off indoors such as: peas, beans, sweet peas, courgettes and sunflowers.

We make them by folding a sheet of newspaper in half (landscape) then rolling it around a tube, such as a toilet roll, scrunching the bottom of the paper together then pulling the tube out. Fit paper pots into plastic tubs without holes in so that you don’t have to worry about the watering over the weekend. Any excess water is soaked up by the paper.

We will keep the pots in a light place over the next month until the frosts are over when we can plant them outside in our plots. There’s no need to take the paper off – just plant them as they are! Free, recycled and fully biodegradeable!

We also looked at potatoes which are chitting nicely (growing shoots and roots from their eyes). We will plant them in tyres after the Easter Holidays. Groups of children will come on rotation each week to tend their crops but it looks like we’ll be waiting until after Easter to get our ground prepared and seeds sown outdoors.