Arataki School Gardens Term 2, 2024

Ruma 13 from Kopukairoa joined with Mangatawa this term to take care of the school gardens.

At the beginning of the term they had a fun treasure hunt, digging in the garden beds, and managed to fill a basket with kumara to share with the school community at the front of the school.

Once the garden beds were topped up with beautiful black soil from Te Puke Landscapes, we started planting them out again.  We did careful rows of carrots, working hard to make sure they stayed watered during the week, so that they would germinate.  We also planted cauli and broccoli seedlings and sowed lots of broad beans, snowpeas and sugar snap peas straight into the garden beds.

This term, PiPS worked closely with Arataki School and applied to Tauranga City Council for funding to install a rainwater collection system at the school.  This will allow us to gather rainwater for our gardens, as well as for the school sandpit /water play area.  Our application was accepted and we hope to have it up and running by term 4!  This means that we won’t have to work so hard to keep our seedlings watered, lugging water from the tap to the shadehouse!  I’m sure our seedlings will be happier drinking rainwater too!

We made the most of the wet days, learning about our garden birds, in particular the native species.  The kereru was a hot favourite with his white singlet and his big ‘puku’ getting drunk on fermented berries and falling out of the trees.  The piwakawaka was also a contender for the most popular, because of their cute call and how they follow trampers through the bush… one of our  gardeners even told us that his nana is a piwakawaka and always stays close.   

The gardeners showed great passion for the birdlife and really enjoyed colouring them in and later taking part in the NZ bird survey on the last week of term.