A picture tells a thousand words - well done to everyone who helped out with the garden this year, especially the 5th class gardening team. 

We were absolutely thrilled to collect our 5th Green Flag on May 25th in City North Hotel. Miss O'Hara and her Green Team have done a massive amount of work and have passed on their enthusiasm and knowledge about biodiversity to the whole school. 

Our gardening team is mainly pupils from 5th class, however many children throughout the school have helped out. Some classes have been busy with weeding and other classes have planted seeds. 

Junior Infants: Tulips and daffodils in October.
                        Runner beans, cress and carrots in March. 
Every year the new Junior Infant children plant bulbs in the garden, so at this stage every child in the whole school has planted something....we have almost 500 children in our school, maybe some of them will grow up to become gardeners and landscapers!

1st/2nd: Planted flowers in wellies in May
2nd/3rd: Sugar snap peas and broad beans in April / planted outside in May.
              Marigolds and Beetroot in April - next year we will plant these earlier!
              Miss Scallys class are wonderful weeders!

4th: Sunflowers in April / planted outside at end of May.

5th: Everything else!!! 

In our garden we have at least 16 types of flowers, 6 types of herbs and 17 types of fruit and veg! We are very proud of the work we have done as we have never had such a variety of flowers, fruit and vegetables in our school garden. 

This year our wild flowers and our mint refused to grow. Maybe it is time to invest in a little green house! We bought mint, hardened it off and planted it out, but the mint we planted from seed did not like the cold!

Our teachers Miss Sheils, Miss Kane and Miss O'Sullivan worked with us, and our SNA's Mary and Eleanor were always there to give a helping hand. We could not have managed without them. 

Kielan Kenny in 5th and Cameron Fagan Ward in 6th put in lots of extra work and were always willing to help out when extra jobs needed to be done.

Of course Pat our caretaker was on speed dial in recent months. We are especially thankful to Pat for helping us get our wormery up and going again and for putting up our new water barrel. Sammy scarecrow had a few falls and Pat and his drill were never far away!

We would like to thank Sandra and Jimmy Kelly, parents of James Kelly for their organising flowers, window boxes and lovely hanging baskets. As always this is very much appreciated!

The Muldoon family also donated flowers they grew themselves at home - and a special well done to Abigail Muldoon who even continued to weed while on crutches!

Sharon O'Connor, Diarmuid and Lucy's Mum bought lovely new trowels and gloves to get us started! 

The Kennedy family, parents of Elena Kennedy donated lots of veg, flowers and beautiful strawberries...thanks to them our raised beds are full to the brim this year. 

Mr Slack brought flowers after every trip west in recent months, it has really helped to add variety to the garden. The geraniums are so colourful and travelled the whole way from Mayo. We wish Mr Slack senior lived closer as he is an expert gardener and we really appreciate all the plants he has donated to the garden. If Meath don't make it to the All-Ireland we promise to cheer for Mayo instead! 

A huge thank-you to the children and parents who came to school on a beautiful sunny Saturday in March to help weed and tidy up the school garden and outdoor classroom area. The raised beds were completely overgrown, the outdoor classroom was full of weeds and the whole garden was in an awful state. They worked tirelessly under the hot sun and a huge transformation was made. Sadly we forgot to take before pictures - but here are some of when the work was complete! Well done to the children involved (Lucy and Diarmuid O'Connor, Eric and Kielan Allen and their wonderful Mammies Sharon and Martina ). The children all received a homework pass for coming to school on a Saturday! 

The St.Seachnall's Gardening Team is made up of children from Mrs McHugh and Miss Shannon's 5th classes. They are very hard-working and eager, and have transformed the school garden despite all the rain and hailstones in March and April.

This year some other classes got involved too. Miss Sheils and the Gardening team could not have managed without them. 

The Junior Infant classes planted tulips and daffodils in autumn. Every year the new pupils do this. We had so many flowers in springtime, we even had to recently dig up some bulbs to make room for our summer bedding plants. We have wrapped up the bulbs safely and will find a new place to plant them in Autumn.

First class planted marigold seeds, peas and beans. They also helped with the weeding, and there was a HUGE amount of weeding!!! Eleanor one of our SNA's is an expert with a shovel and the children quickly learned what scutch grass was!

Miss O'Sullivan's 2nd class and Miss Kanes 3rd class have been a huge help to us this year. They have been looking after all the plants that are not yet strong enough to go outside. 

Miss Kane's class made our lovely colourful bird feeders. They really enjoyed making them and they add beautiful colour to our garden. It goes without saying the birds are really pleased with them too! 

MIss Kanes children also planted beetroot, cherry bell radish and spring onions. Some children from 3rd class also took on painting the wall and the Senior Infants have had great fun watching the garden and it's surroundings transform as they play at breaktimes. 

Mrs Gallogly's 4th class planted beautiful Hyacinths in the Autumn and they were in bloom just in time to decorate our table for Catholic Schools Week. They also are having a competition at the moment to see who can grow the tallest sunflower.

Mr Murphy's 6th class also got involved by planting spinach, peas and cress. 

Pat our caretaker repainted the wall of the garden and painted the furniture in the outdoor classroom. Last week he helped us put up signs that Mary one of the SNA's donated and also erected 'Jeff'  the scarecrow. 

The Gardening Team want to say a huge thank-you to all those classes who got involved this year. It was great fun having children of all ages take part and we learned lots of new things along the way. A big thank-you to Eleanor and Pat, we really appreciate your help!

In the coming months we would like to buy a rain barrel for our school. We think this would be a great way to reuse water and save money. We also have a wormery in storage and hope to introduce some worms to it again in the autumn. 

Miss Sheils took some photos along they way. ​We hope you enjoy our slide show! 
From the 5th Class Gardening Team.

Well done to the 5th class gardening team and our trainee gardeners in first and second class who put the finishing touches to our garden today. The sun finally shone and great fun was had by all. We would like to say a huge thank-you to Sandra and Jimmy Kelly, parents of James Kelly in second who organised beautiful summer bedding plants for our raised beds and wellie wall. We really appreciate your help and support. Also a big thank you to Pat our caretaker who is always there to lend a hand.