Since the start of term every Wednesday lunchtime Horticultural Society students have embraced this opportunity, working with a number of ARC students, and they have already completed much of the preparation of the site involving weeding and digging out the area. This will improve the environment in the space and is allowing students to develop their, planning, organisation and team-work skills.  The soil in this area needs some work, so we will remove some and replace with topsoil and compost from the Academy compost bins. The initial plan is to install a planting box with bulbs in the coming weeks for a spring display. Further plans, with input from the students, are to plant strawberries and summer flowering plants. This will certainly improve the look of the ARC playground, creating colour and attracting insects and butterflies.

Fortunately, there is a lot of additional space including a grassed area which offers lots of future opportunity. We plan to strategically place some small fruit bushes which we will grow from cuttings taken from our mature blackcurrant bushes next to West Hill to plant in this area. These will produce a crop of berries in June and can be used to make jam.