Planting and Eating

Today Whaea Fran taught some of us how to plant seedlings. We dug a hole, then dipped the seedling’s roots into seaweed fertiliser before gently lowering it in, making sure we didn’t scrunch the roots up. Then we carefully pushed the soil back around the plant and put mulch around it to keep the soil moist and the seedling protected.

Meanwhile another group was making chips using kale from our garden. All we needed was kale, olive oil and salt. We washed and dried the kale, cut it up, brushed it with olive oil and cooked it in the oven until it was crisp. Once the chips came out we sprinkled a bit of salt on them and munched them up. It was so easy and delicious we could hardly believe we were eating vegetables!

Others were busy in the garden beds planting seedlings. In a couple of months these plants will be ready to harvest, while another group were planting seeds – a ‘beneficial insect blend’ of flowers that will not only look beautiful but help attract bees and other pollinating insects into our garden. We used pots that have been donated to us.

What We’ve Been Up To This Term

We have been really busy this term getting the garden beds and orchard ready for winter, and finishing off preparation of our coop in readiness for the arrival of our chickens. 

It was a proud moment today when we used our very own compost to fertilise the garden beds and the orchard. We are so proud that we can use the weeds and waste from our garden to help our plants grow, and close the waste loop.

The Montessori class is going to take daily care of our chickens once they arrive. Today they planted feijoa and citrus trees to provide shelter for them. Citrus and feijoas are two types of plant who will really like the fertiliser (poop!) that the chickens will provide. 

Ballance Agricultural donated two garden beds, soil and vegetables for the Year 0 and Year 1 classes to start a garden. The Zinna group planted vegetable seedlings to help the younger children get their garden started. Thank you Ballance Agricultural!

The Zinnias then transplanted seedlings ready for the vegetable gardens and the market stall.

Meanwhile the Frangapani group looked after the orchard using a combination of compost made at the garden club, sheep pellets and potash.

We also have four rows of garden beds down by the orchard. Ruma 11 and the Hebe group are preparing the rows for our legumes plantings of peas and broad beans. Legumes are amazing winter crops as not only do they provide us with veges but they give nitrogen back to the soil. 

Thank You Tui!

Once again Tui Garden have been really generous to our member schools and have donated a whole lot of potting mix and seed raising mix to our member schools. This will be a huge help to our gardeners through the year. Thank you again Tui Garden!

Wicking Beds Tutorial

Last week Whaea Heidi attended a working bee at the Women’s Refuge to put in garden beds. These type of beds are called wicking beds and they are designed to make efficient use of water with very little watering required. She was so impressed at how well they work that she has made notes for us here, so in future when we put new beds in we can use this method.

Here’s what you do:

First you line a frame with thick plastic:

Then put in a permeable pipe and fix one end to the top of the bed. The other, sealed end, is laid flat in the bottom of the bed:

Then layer 10cm of sand on top. Make drain holes at that height through the bed and the plastic so it can’t overfill.

Alternate mulch, pea straw and soil, adding some lime to the mulch to help it break down. Layer up to the top and overfill it to a high mound, as it will settle down a lot.

To water the bed, pour water down the pipe to fill up to the level of the sand. The water will slowly permeate up into the other layers. Watering is only required every two weeks to keep the bed hydrated. Seedlings also require direct watering for the first couple of weeks.

Preparing for the Summer Holidays

Cosmos group have been hard at work getting our kumara, pumpkin and yam patches ready for the summer holidays, when we won’t be here as often to water them, by mulching, watering and fertilising. Ruma 11 has been working hard watering them every day and have been doing their daily writing out beside them. No wonder they are growing so strong and healthy.

And here’s an awesome little surprise – isn’t this kiwifruit bin looking amazing? We can’t remember planting these beautiful flowers, but they’ve appeared anyway! We feel so happy that they chose our garden to grow in.

Bird Feeders

While we were tidying up the rongoa garden today the Hibiscus group collected pine cones that were lying around, and we made bird feeders from them. We used dripping that Whaea Mel brought and wild bird seed left over from the market day. Our manu have loved having this extra food around. We noticed a tui today and can’t wait to see who else will turn up.

Meanwhile others were busy planting tomatoes against the shed. We learned that this is a very sunny position and that the tomatoes will thrive here. The next-door-neighbour is going to pop over and pick them for us over the summer holidays, and said that in exchange for the tomatoes she will make some relish or tomato sauce for us. That sounds like a good trade to us!

Planting and Composting

It was so busy in the garden club today. Room 11’s Little Gardens were ready to plant, so today they didn’t split up into their usual groups but stayed together to plant them instead. As well as sunflower plants they are growing courgettes, tomatoes and corn, which will be ready to eat when we come back. Whaea Clare is going to take pictures so we can see how they go.

Look what we’ve grown from seeds! Time to get them in the garden where they can really take off.

Meanwhile the Frangapani group got to work on the garden bins that are in the shady spots in the garden. We need to plant things in these bins that don’t mind growing in the shade. We learned that the crops we grow for their leaves (for example: kale, lettuce and spinach) and those we grow for their roots (like beetroot and carrots) tend to do better in shadier conditions than the ones we grow for their fruit (such as tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and kumara).

Frangipani also planted a couple of bins with cover crops. The job of a cover crop is to replenish the soil so that it’s healthy and full of goodness for the next time we plant in it. We usually dig these plants back into the soil once they're fully grown, where they release their nutrients into the earth. So although it can seem a bit odd that we are filling these bins with plants that aren’t even going to give us a harvest, a good way to think of it is that a cover crop is growing a harvest for the soil, instead of for us – and that seems only fair!

The Sunflower group were planting sunflowers (what else?!) around the edges of the garden club. Not only will they look beautiful and provide our manu with food in the form of sunflower seeds, but they also deter pests from the garden.

And the Cosmos group were composting with Leo. We had made loads of compost from waste from our gardens and lunch boxes. It felt good to distribute it to all the garden bins and the citrus grove, feeding the plants and soil with something we had made from stuff that would have otherwise gone to the tip.

A beautiful day to be out and busy in the garden.

Market Day

The bees were busy this morning with our first GangSTAR Gardening Club Market Day!

“Whanau Kia Ora!
It's Market Day!
Bring your gold coins and buy prepared seedlings of cucumber, tomato, basil, hebes and so many more varieties... including an enterprising idea from rūma 16!  
On sale are also one-off original painted pots and one-off original painted plant labels for beautification and organisational purposes in your garden.  
Oh but wait there is more!  
There are delicious tree cookies (guess which tree), scrumptious banana muffins, muscle building fritters, play dough, grass heads, bird feeders and flower bombs that have been prepared by the now sleeping bees.”

We raised over $300! What a great experience for our young gardeners.

Around and About the School

Despite all the rain and cold weather the school is looking so bright and fresh. We have sweet peas going crazy up the fence and all sorts of colourful, pollinating flowers popping up all over the place.

We were very busy around the school today. We planted our potato patch and mulched it, mulched the jungle gym, checked out the worms with Leo, and looked at broccoli seeds straight from the plant.

A Present For Our Manu

Here is Frangapani group finishing off our bird baths. We painted the bases last week and we completed the tops today. Hopefully our manu will love them.