Seed Saving Talk and Mother’s Day Surprises

Today our Arataki gardeners got a visit from Tess, the seed saving lady from Crafty Gatherer. She had to run two sessions as there were so many of us keen to learn from her. Saving seeds makes a lot of sense, it gives us free plants for the next season and it can be a lot of fun too. It also means we know exactly where our seeds are coming from, and that they haven’t been treated with nasty chemicals.

You can learn more about what Tess does at the Crafty Gatherer website.

Meanwhile some of our other gardeners were learning about amazing air plants. These incredible plants don’t need soil, and happily exist with just the water they are able to extract from the atmosphere. They made a great display on the wall, as well as wonderful Mother’s Day presents to go with the cards we made.

Air plants on the fence.

Cards and gifts for Mother’s Day.

We’ve also been hard at work in the garden, and everything is looking great. All these plants need to survive through the winter. We have kumara seedlings and potato plants sprouting too. The mahi in the garden never ends but it’s all good fun and great learning.

Our gardens looking great.

Kumara sprouting on a windowsill.

It’s nice to know the wildlife are enjoying our gardens too!

The Citrus Grove.

Our revitalised citrus grove, with a whole lot of spring bulbs waiting to come up in spring.

Fruit Trees and Bird Houses

Today some replacement fruit trees were planted. We dug, fed and watered to get our saplings off to a good start.

Fruit tree going in.

And a creative group of gardeners turned their hands to carpentry, and with the help of our caretaker Brian constructed this fantastic bird house. Hopefully in spring it will attract even more wildlife to our garden.

Bird house under construction.