Perched atop a rolling hillside with gorgeous views overlooking the Teign valley lays a little strip of land that has been The Lighthouse’s allotment for the past few months. During this time staff and students have carefully tended to a whole array of vegetables and fruits, expectantly planting them as seedlings and watching them bud and bloom following careful watering and wishful thinking. The aesthetics of an allotment are also important and so we have been busily weeding and improving our little patch to make it a pleasing place to be.
So far, we have enjoyed making the rhubarb into a delicious crumble, sampling freshly picked raspberries and are looking forward to harvesting our potatoes, peas and tomatoes when ready. The allotment has provided a great opportunity to develop the students’ independent living skills, as well as nurturing their individual interests and hobbies.
Away from the allotment, we have been engaged in a sunflower growing competition. This was a fantastic opportunity for everyone at Lighthouse to get involved. Having planted them back in April we have been enjoying watching them slowly spring to life. Some found that they became quite attached to their sunflowers once they were given a name. Examples include; Winston, Nigel, Edwin, Plant You Grow and Icarus. Every day people could be seen busily watering theirs and ensuring that at the right stages, they were tied to rods for support and moved into larger pots for optimum growth!
However, nearing the end of the sunflower competition in July there was lots of controversy. To our horror, we arrived at work to find three of our biggest sunflowers missing! Was this an inside job? A mere misunderstanding or a sneaky opportunist? After lots of investigation work and a careful search of CCTV we found that they had been stolen in the night! Breaking the news to staff and students was difficult as many had grown to love their sunflowers, however after a couple of days and a casual search of the surrounding area we were able to reunite two of the sunflowers back to their rightful owners. Hurrah!
The judging of the sunflowers will take place during the last week of term with categories such as tallest, largest and prettiest sunflower all to be considered. Good luck to those taking part… I’m sure we’ll all be eagerly anticipating next year’s competition!
