July at MMI

What a month we have had in the gardens here at MMI.

The results of our pea experiment are in, and we named worm juice as the winner for growing the best pea seedlings. Second came the seaweed juice, and finally the plain water, which started off as the frontrunner but fell behind.

Have a look at our photos below. In the photo on the left you can see the three bags of peas. The bag at the front is the worm juice one – see how the roots are stronger and the leaves are greener than the seedlings in the other bags? In conclusion our recommendation would be to soak seeds in worm juice before planting.

The photo on the right shows a close up of the germinated pea seedling. You can see the whole germination process with the roots coming out of the bottom of the seed, and the stem and the seedling leaves from the top. Isn’t nature amazing! Whaea Clare loves showing the kids this process. They’re always so excited to see the magic happening before their eyes.

We also did some sheet mulching (aka making a new garden bed) this month. We wanted a new strawberry patch so we decided to make a new area of gardens to grow them. We wanted to dig out an old bed but Whaea Clare explained the sheet mulching method was easier and quicker. All you need is cardboard, soil and mulch.

So we laid out the cardboard onto the space we measured, making sure we overlapped it so no weeds could poke through. Then we put soil on top of the cardboard, making sure it was a good thick layer, then covered the soil with mulch. That was it, the new bed was ready for planting. In a space of 20 minutes we had a new strawberry patch!