Harvest Time
Here at Willow Cottage we love this time of year. We have planted our seeds and fed and watered our growing plants throughout the summer months until we reach this point, where we finally get to taste what we have grown.
We have picked, dug up and selected so many things that we couldn’t possibly name them all. Our harvest this year has included, tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, blueberries, runner beans,, squash, potatoes, blackberries, elderberries, carrots, apples, plums, grapes and raspberries.
What an amazing thing to be able to share in the excitement of the children making potato salad with their own potatoes, enjoying roast squash for tea, eating plums they picked themselves and sharing crumble made with the nursery blackberries.
At Farmoor, growing vegetables got off to a slower than usual start as we had some visits from some rabbits who enjoyed making tunnels through our growing patch. Although keen to grow, we were also fascinated by the rabbits and how they build their tunnels. This sparked a lot of conversation.
The children have enjoyed growing the most amazing sunflowers! Once fully grown, we have explored the seeds, using tweezers to pick these out. We have also used the sunflowers in playdough.
Each year, the vine also grows beautifully! This year, the children enjoyed using this to make dens over in the field. They have also enjoyed watching the grapes grow, closely observing each week how big they were.
Our biggest success this year was the squash. We have harvested 10 squash so far and are continuing to enjoy a variety of activities to explore these further. We have also explored the squash and developed our use of one handed tools, using our safety knifes to chop this up.
The sweetcorn grew well, but seemed to be enjoyed by somebody else. This left the children guessing whether this was a rabbit or a different animal. Hmm.
Our tomatoes are continuing to grow, we all become very excited once they turn red, so we can taste test.
We look forward to continuing to harvest over the coming weeks before it gets too chilly. What a successful growing season.
