One very wet and miserable Wednesday morning Primary 6 set off to visit their school orchard. They had a very important job to do. Their mission for the day was to plant 30 apple trees. These were the first trees to be planted in the orchard and they were all very excited.

The day started by preparing for the visit. We put our waterproofs on and pulled on our wellies so that we were ready to face the terrible Scottish weather. Then Eilidh and Jillian from the Woodlands Trust collected us from school and walked us along to the orchard… it wasn’t raining, we were delighted.

From Eilidh’s car we collected a spade and then made our way through the woods to the orchard. When we got there something really excited happened. The Woodlands Trust unveiled the shelter we had said we would like to see in our orchard. It was shaped as a bee hive and we loved it!

Next we were given instructions to plant our trees. It was a very tiring and dirty job but we managed. With our partner we used our spades to dig a hole big enough to fit the tree root. Once the tree was in the ground we put soil back over the top and patted it down to ensure the tree was secure in the ground. After that we recorded where we had plated our trees by drawing a map. We also wrote down what type of apple tree it was and finally we measured its circumference and how tall the tree was. We enjoyed doing this even though by this time it was pouring with rain.

Luckily we were almost finished planting the trees and so we could start to make our way back to school before we got even wetter. We really enjoyed our visit… here are some of our thoughts:

“It was a really good experience because we learnt how to plant trees. I felt really happy planting the trees and being in the orchard” – Sophie

“Even though it was really wet and windy it was still lots of fun. I liked it when I got my photo taken in the beehive and by the trees we had planted” – Iola

“I liked planting the trees it was my favourite bit because I hadn’t planted anything before” – Angus

“It was a fun day because we got to plant trees. Digging the hole was fun and I liked putting the tree into the hole” – Murray

“It was an adventurous day because it was in the woods and we were planting. It was fun” – Mariah