What a fabulous Spring day! It was the first really warm day we’d had all year. The greenhouse was groaning with plants waiting to go out into their permanent homes.

But then, disaster! As from half term, Mr. Lanfranchi had arranged for the Gardening Club to have early lunch so that everyone could arrive together. It worked so well the first couple of weeks, but this week there was a problem in the canteen so everyone had to wait until later to eat. Alas we couldn’t do as much planting out as we’d hoped.

But nevertheless we managed to get some peas, beans, onions and salad greens in.

We had a brief spell in the Green Room learning about Crop Rotation. Anyone who’s done Anglo Saxon history will know about crop rotation already. But for those who don’t here’s some information.

If you plant, say, carrots or leeks or cabbages in the same place every year they use up all the good things in the soil that they need to grow into strong plants. To avoid this you divide up the vegetables into groups and plant these groups in different parts of the garden each year. This means that some plant put back into the soil nutrients that other vegetables use up. This way the soil always remains good and healthy.

Here’s a typical rotation plan:

We had to find out how far apart to plant the little seedlings.  Here’s what the BBC and other gardener experts say about the plants we planted out: