Increasing Skills and Independent Working
Increasing Independent Horticultural Skills
This year marks our first venture into growing perennials and bedding plants from seed. Previously, we only grew bedding plants from plug plants; now, we are raising both bedding plants and perennials from seed. This wider range of activities gives the people we support more opportunities to increase their horticultural skills as well as independent working. At Dale Farm we are aware that everyone enjoys different aspects of horticulture and so we try to ensure that the people we support are happy in their work. Some of our people enjoy working in the polytunnels, others prefer field work. No matter where people are working, we are always looking for ways to increase independent working where possible.
This project extends the growing period in the polytunnels, which is especially important for the people we support who struggle with harder physical tasks.
Seed Sowing
Very small seeds can be difficult for anyone to handle. To make sowing easier for those who struggle, we mix tiny seeds with sand. This helps distribute the seeds more evenly and enables the people we support to sow them independently.
We used three different methods depending on whether the seeds needed light to germinate or not (method 1, method 2, method 3.) Generally the the soil mix was successful for most seeds, but next year we look to add vermiculite to the mix instead of perlite at the seed sowing stage as it is smaller, still ‘lightens’ the soil mix and retains moisture, but vermiculite is smaller in size for seed sowing.
Label Printing
Writing neat legible plant labels can be challenging, particularly for some of the people we support. A label printer makes the task more accessible and has enabled many people to produce labels independently.
The label printer we have at the moment, is very time consuming as it can only print a few labels at a time, which are sometimes difficult to unpeel and stick. We will be looking at more efficient ways to print labels that are still accessible to the people we support.
Growing Perennials
This is our first season growing perennials, all of which have been raised from seed. As the plants grow larger, they provide more opportunities for the people we support to pot them on independently. Their robust nature makes them well suited to developing this skill.
Transplanting Seedlings
We deliberately produce more seedlings than we intend to use, creating additional opportunities for the people we support to practise transplanting independently. Although people often say that less is more, in this case, more really is more.
Collecting seeds
Another important part of the flower growing cycle is to collect seed at the end of the season, ready to sow again in future years. The people we support have been collecting some seed and sowing hardy annuals ready for next years growing season.
Next Steps
This year has mainly focused around seed sowing and growing. We have done some limited cuttings this year, but we need to extend this further. Here are some ideas to train the people we support over the next 12 months:
- Basel cuttings from Dahlias in spring
- Division
- Succulent Leaf Cuttings
- Root cuttings
- Hardwood cuttings
- Layering
- Watering levels for different plants.
- Training for volunteers and staff to ensure that we are all teaching in a consistent manner.
