The Arataki School Gardeners, Term 4

This term Whaea Maeve started at Arataki School with the young gardeners.  She is a keen gardener and is excited about working on creative projects with the young gardeners.

This term some of our tamariki learned how to make their own seed raising mix and planted sunflowers in cups to take home and water until they are big enough to plant in the garden.  They’ve loved spending time in the gardens, discovering herbs and edible flowers and naming all the veg.

 Our years 3 and 4 have been busy working on a rongoā māori project, making kawakawa balm and learning about its healing properties.  It’s been an exciting process, from leaves, oils and beeswax to the finished product, with labels beautifully decorated by the children. 

The Lunchtime Garden Club have planted dahlias and sunflowers at the front of the school, to bring some colour to the entrance area.  They have been testing some wool mulch mats too, to keep the pesky slugs and snails at bay - some of our gardeners are more keen to relocate the snails to the compost bin, which also works a treat!!  We are working on harvesting greens and clearing some of the overgrown areas of our garden beds too, to make way for planting corn and beans and planning for the development of our sensory garden is well underway.

 Our new entrants have cleared and added compost to the triangle garden outside their classrooms before planting sunflowers and a wildflower mix.  They love watering their gardens, so we should have lots of colour there shortly!  They are an artistic bunch, and did some awesome garden artwork last week.  This week they made paper seed trees, to plant mesculun for salads, tricky work for small hands.