Arataki School Gardens Term 3, 2024
Our Tuesdays this term were spent with the Montessori and Kopukairoa classes, and we have certainly got a lot done in the gardens. Our first task was to shift the Sentinel Garden from one end of the field to the other, so after digging and transporting countless barrow loads of soil and then carefully transporting plants, we called for help (thanks Brian!) to take the kiwifruit bin on a wobbly journey across the field to a new spot among the garden beds. It’s amazing how fast we can get things done, when we all work together!
Our next project was to renew the strawberry beds. We topped up the beds with our wonderful Arataki School compost and then planted the strawberries in mounded rows, topping them with upcycled wool packaging as mulch. Then strawberry decoys, painted from riverstones, were placed on top, to convince the birds that there is no reason to peck at the real ones, when they come on.
We also had a few wet days, which we used to full advantage, in the hall and the community room, learning about all sorts. The first subject was potatoes, and how to chit them. We tucked our little seed potatoes in under woolley mulch in trays and then left them in the garden shed, where the gardeners checked on them regularly to monitor how much the sprouts had grown.
Another big focus this term has been learning all about fungi, and some of the amazing kinds we have in Aotearoa. The gardeners were excited to tell us about their experiences of finding unusual specimens, like stinkhorn fungus and basket fungus. We are following up this learning with a garden project, to create NZ fungi using wooden stumps and fruit bowls by the sensory garden. The gardeners have done a wonderful job, of painting the stumps and lids, to represent some of Aotearoa’s amazing fungi.
We are very grateful to Resene who donated lots of testpots for the project! On each mushroom there will be a QR code that takes the viewer to information about that particular fungus. The students were really into it, and one of our gardeners even did a mushroom spore print at home and brought it in, to show us the following week!
We have had some amazing harvests of the beautiful romanesco broccoli and big heads of cauli. Some of our gardeners were amazed to discover how good they can taste raw, dipped in tasty hummus! One day, they got through five giant heads just snacking in the garden!
Our summer veg garden is another interesting project we have on the go. We are preparing two pea straw bales, by watering and feeding them with worm castings to add nitrogen. In week 1 of term 4, we will plant them out as straw bale gardens. The idea is that the decomposing straw provides a nourishing bed for our seedlings, which, due to the heat of the straw, should (hopefully) grow faster than they would if they were planted as usual in the garden bed. We plan to set up an experiment with our summer veg. creating one regular summer veg garden next to the pea straw gardens so that we can monitor the progress.