With the growing season starting, we’ve found ourselves with plenty of jobs to be assessed on for our diplomas. This week we’ve begun sowing our first seeds of the year and Andy our head gardener was kind enough to teach us his tried and tested method. I was surprised how little I knew. Seed sowing is one of those things that you assume is simple yet few of us do it right. You have to consider the amount of consolidation, depth of seed (and in some cases even angle of seed!) and last but not least a vermiculite covering to act as a mulch. Later we were filmed tying in raspberries in the soft fruit garden, which again wasn’t as simple as it sounds. After reducing a number of canes depending on crowding and how far out they are growing, you sew each individual cane around the central wire.
Last Wednesday we attended a one-day first aid course at City College Coventry, partly for our diploma unit on health and safety, but also to gain useful knowledge for day to day gardening safely. I don’t think a day passes without small cuts and splinters, so I now feel much more confident that I could deal with bigger injuries if they ever occurred.
Friday is going to be a big day for us. Our assessor from Warwickshire College will be spending an entire day with us assessing us on different tasks such as preparing soil and applying organic mulch, watering an area of plants in containers, caring for a planted area, sowing seeds indoors in containers, and collecting and preparing plant material for transport.
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