Term 3 - When Ideas Come True

Term three has been full of excitement as we planned, organised, and established an orchard with a total of forty fruit trees! What an amazing opportunity and initiative from the school to achieve such a goal. In the years to come, the school will be able to provide fruit for students and share it with the community.

We began by planning the orchard, involving the tamariki in a Google slideshow. There was so much to learn, from how long it will take for the trees to bear fruit to the best planting positions, taking into account space, sun, and wind. Afterward, we walked to the area where the students selected a variety of fruit tree and positioned themselves in the perfect spot for planting.

The following week, we started digging the holes. We were fortunate to have Les, our caretaker, help by using a hole borer. The tamariki were thrilled to watch the drill in action. However, we still needed to get hands-on, scraping the sides of the holes to make them square and large enough. The tamariki were determined and worked so hard—forty holes are a lot to dig!

With the hard work done, I organised the fruit trees. We were lucky to receive support from Palmers in Bethlehem and Tropicana Garden World, who provided a range of fruit tree varieties. With a trailer loaded, the tamariki helped unload the trees and stored them safely until planting day. Each tree was donated by a family from the school community, leaving a lasting legacy at the school.

The Planting Day:
We were blessed with beautiful weather, and the school organised a wonderful ceremony. Parents were invited to plant their donated tree alongside their child, and a priest blessed the orchard and each tree for strength and growth. Mr. Mills, the principal, also gave a speech. The family with the youngest and the oldest child began planting, followed by the other families. We used fresh compost to mix into the holes before planting and added mulch around the trees. The tamariki then watered their own trees with watering cans.

In the following weeks, it felt as though the orchard grove had always been there. The trees settled in well, and we ensured they were watered regularly. We also scattered flower seeds around the orchard to attract bees. It was heartwarming to see the tamariki proudly showing their special trees to friends and visiting them during morning tea.

While the orchard project kept us busy, the school garden continued to thrive. We were pleasantly surprised at the end of term three with big broccoli heads, huge beetroots, and picture-perfect radishes. We also planted seed potatoes and started sprouting kumara in a water bath, which the year three and four classes carefully tended to. The kumara tipu has already grown so much! 

Term 2 - A Sensory Garden Makeover and a Feast of Garden Goodies

Term 2 flew by really quickly. We have been really lucky with the weather most of the time, and when we weren’t, we ended up in the staff kitchen cooking delicious meals with our garden produce.

It started with our annual kumara harvest. It’s been the second year we’ve had success growing kumara, as well as growing our own kumara tipu, which takes several weeks. The vines started to turn yellow, and the kumara tipu have been growing since November of last year. We pulled the vines off and started carefully digging with our hands for the gold. The tamariki have been so determined to find them all, making sure not a single kumara gets missed! It was another great harvest, and we stored the roots for a cooking day.

This term, our school garden has been a hive of activity and transformation. We gave our sensory garden a much-needed makeover by mulching around the plants, ensuring they have the best environment to thrive. LJ from Te Puke Landscape Supplies provided us with a load of fresh cedar mulch. The garden now looks even more inviting, and the plants are happier than ever!

But that’s not all! Our garden has provided us with an abundance of produce, and we’ve turned it into a series of delicious culinary adventures. Here’s a peek at what we’ve been up to:

Lemon Cupcakes: With lemons from our very own lemon tree, we baked the most delightful lemon cupcakes. The zesty aroma filled the kitchen, and the cupcakes were a hit with everyone.

Kumara Chips: Remember the kumara we harvested and stored earlier? We turned them into crispy kumara chips. It was a perfect snack that everyone enjoyed, and it was wonderful to see our hard work in the garden paying off in such a tasty way.

Feijoa Cake: Feijoas from our garden were transformed into a scrumptious feijoa cake. The unique taste of feijoa made this cake a standout, and it quickly became a favourite treat.

A Veggie Soup for Matariki: Our pumpkins and garlic came together in a warm, hearty soup along with other vegetables that tamariki brought from home as we cooked soup for this year's Matariki celebration for the whole school! It was a hand-in-hand team effort by students and teachers, peeling and chopping vegetables. By the end of the day, seven crockpots were on the go for the next day's end-of-term festive Matariki celebration! This event showed how rewarding our garden produce can be, and the tamariki were proud to cook with the ingredients they had worked hard to plant, water, and nourish.

Garden Abundance: Our garden has been incredibly generous this year. Alongside our culinary creations, we’ve also seen the growth of a sweet watermelon and an impressive yield of tomatoes.

This term has truly been a celebration of what our garden has to offer. From giving the sensory garden a makeover to enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of our labour in the kitchen, it’s been a rewarding and delicious experience. We look forward to more gardening and cooking adventures in the future!

Term 1 News

It was a true surprise coming back to the start of Term One after the long summer break. Suzanne Aubert School garden is truly blessed, as it was flourishing with fruit & vegetables even without having a drop of rain for such a long period of time.

On our first day back of Term One, we were mainly just exploring what we could find and what happened over the school holidays. There were ample pumpkins creeping along the ground, lots of tomatoes, a real highlight being the heritage tomatoes which are a dark purple colour, beans, our favourite rainbow carrots, and the star of the show- an outstanding-sized watermelon hiding under all the greenery around it. In Term Four of the previous year, we planted corn and basil, beans as companion plants beside the watermelon, and it seemed to work as they looked after each other. 

The tamariki have been picking tomatoes continuously every week, eating them straight off the plant for morning tea, and we also saved lots and put them in the freezer for future cooking, which we did one morning when it was “finally” pouring down with rain. We made spaghetti with homemade pasta sauce the Italian way by chopping up the tomatoes, including the skin, and letting them simmer for quite a while to reduce the acidity. It was great for the tamariki to learn that we whipped up a sauce with just garden produce as the garlic—yes, we have been growing our own garlic—and fresh herbs like basil and thyme also came from our school garden. It was funny, as the teachers passing the kitchen could smell it from the corridor and were wondering what we were cooking!

Soil health is important, and without our garden buddies – worms – our fruit and vegetables wouldn’t work so well. We had a learning session about earth and tiger worms, their anatomy, and preferences for eating. Our worm farm got a top-up with some coffee grounds, newspaper, and vegetable off-cuts, and the worms rewarded us with rich worm tea for our plants.

I’m really impressed with the junior kids, who continuously put in their food waste like apple cores and watermelon skins into the worm farm. The tamariki created a new sign for the worm farm and the staff room, indicating what worms are keen on eating, to reduce food waste unnecessarily going into landfill.

We continued with our creativity and made a few more garden signs for our beds, as sometimes we forget where we planted seeds until they sprout, so the signs are a good reminder. The tamariki had great fun painting some river stones and naming all our herbs individually.

Exploring seeds in the garden was another task, with lots to harvest! Dill, beans, sunflowers, parsley... it’s great for the tamariki to learn where to find the seeds, and it’s impressive that one plant creates so many seeds to plant more plants! There's no need to buy them when we can dry and pack up our own. The kids loved packing them into little envelopes and writing the variety and date on them. We'll keep them for more planting, fundraisers, or giving them away as presents.

LJ from Te Puke Landscape Supplies delivered a generous cubic metre of fresh soil. As we lay our garden beds the organic way, like a “hugelkultur,” over time the organic matter decomposes and drops, so the beds would need a “top-up.” It’s hard work shovelling, filling wheelbarrows over and over, and cleaning up afterward. The tamariki did so well, and I’m proud of their determination to get the job done!

A well-deserved treat and end-of-term fun was baking a feijoa cake. We planted feijoa plants a year ago, and they are still growing, so Nina brought some from her garden. Feijoas are full of vitamin C, and the plants are very low maintenance and, once established, so rewarding! The tamariki have been busy scooping, measuring, stirring (and secretly licking), and we made two outstanding feijoa cakes. Not a crumb was left!

I’m looking forward to our gardening adventures in term two. Happy holidays, tamariki!

Wrapping Up a Bountiful Year in the School Garden

Term four kicked off with a delivery of fresh garden soil from Te Puke Landscape Supplies. After winter, the soil had settled, so topping it up and mixing in some fresh soil was beneficial. There's something about boys and trucks; they were thrilled when Mike arrived with the delivery.

In one of the freshly prepared beds, we planted Kumara Tipu, which we grew ourselves in term 3 by letting a kumara sprout in water. The tamariki took the planting seriously, measuring the shoots about 30cm apart with a tape measure!

With year 1/2 now involved in the garden, we explored one morning to see what was growing. We discovered a picture-perfect broccoli and lots of rainbow carrots. The whole class pulled out a colorful carrot each, and the joy on their faces was rewarding. It's unbelievable that 27 carrots grew in just one box, it remains the kids' favourite!

On rainy days, we wisely used our time to paint our pergola frame in the shed. We chose a bright beachy blue called Hullabaloo, matching the vibrant school colors in the surroundings. The pergola frame will soon be assembled, creating a great feature entrance to our school garden.

Approaching Christmas, the school planned a twilight market for the community with various activities and goods for purchase. We creatively contributed garden-related items for sale, including seed packets made with year one from our amazing calendula flowers and herb salt made with year 5, using dried herbs from our school garden. The tamariki were creative with the labels, and the herb salt was a hit, selling out!

At the term's end, I bid farewell to the year six learners who have been with me since the garden journey began in 2023. For a fun end-of-year activity, we harvested a bumper crop of potatoes and cooked them up, creating an elf's kitchen with different stations for scrubbing, cutting, and spicing while listening to Christmas songs. It was a great farewell for year six.

Lastly, a picture of two year six boys planting 'Amy,' the apple tree, as a Center piece in the middle of the school garden. By today, the tamariki have counted about 15 apples growing on it! 

I look forward to returning in 2024 and continuing to inspire gardening ideas for the tamariki at Suzanne Aubert Catholic School to enjoy!

Adventures in Learning and Growing, Term 3

The term started with an exciting hands-on project. Our enthusiastic young gardeners created their own personalised seed envelopes by folding them in the origami way. We then filled these envelopes with different types of seeds, ready for them to take home and use in their own garden. Their own individual designs were just adorable!

For a special Friday, the grandparents have been invited to the school. We contributed a fresh Garden Salad made with ingredients freshly picked from the school garden, including lettuce, radishes, carrots, and herbs. Since the garden was full of beautiful winter flowers, the tamariki decided to decorate the tables with beautiful flowers, adding a pop of colour to the tables.

Our young gardeners also explored the world of composting by setting up a new worm farm. Learning about composting is not only eco-friendly but also a lot of fun! Our young gardeners explored the differences between earthworms and Tiger worms and gained an understanding of the role of worms in turning kitchen scraps into rich, nutrient-packed soil and “worm tea.”

This term, we also engaged the junior classes to take part in the gardening program. I was invited into their classroom to present a slideshow about sunflowers. We explored the world of sunflowers, including their growth cycle, the number of seeds they can hold, and how tall they can grow. Our new entrant kids were then inspired to plant sunflower seeds in punnets and around the school garden. These sunflowers will soon greet everyone with their vibrant colours and provide our bees and butterflies with pollen and nectar.

“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade!” This is always a winner. We squeezed some juicy lemons and mixed them into a yummy lemonade. The tamariki had a lot of fun decorating their drinks with fresh mint leaves and a slice of lemon.

It’s great to see our young gardeners trying new vegetables they’ve never tasted before, like Kohlrabi! We had quite a lot of it growing in our school garden, and after some hard work in the garden, we picked some Kohlrabi, peeled it, and cut it into slices.

Here’s a funny story: a few weeks later, a girl asked me, “Nina, is there still some of the purple stuff in the garden?” I was wondering what she meant. “The one we were eating last time.” Ah, you mean Kohlrabi! “Yes, that's the one. I loved it!” There was one lucky last piece growing in the garden, just for her to take home. What a big smile!

As we wrapped up this term, we spoiled ourselves with a sweet treat called ‘flower chocolate.’ This delightful creation featured edible flowers from our garden, adding a touch of natural beauty to our initially melted chocolate. Afterwards, it was chilled in the fridge. Once broken into pieces, it was finger-licking delicious.

We can’t wait to see what the next term brings as we head into our probably most favourite season: Summer! Wishing everyone a restful and joyful holiday!

Kumara Heroes: Term 2, 2023

Despite the rainy Term Two we’ve had, we were still able to get some sunny days and had a fun and full filled time, rain or shine.

One unforgettable highlight was the extraordinary Kumara harvest.

The story began with a single halved tuber sprouting in the classroom back in August 2022 and in November with carefully planted vines. As the garden was just established last year it was the kids’ first experience of growing their own kumara.

On a sunny autumn morning we learned how to harvest, cure and store kumara, we then took action by taking off the vines and digging down carefully with our hands to look for the garden gold. It was truly rewarding to see the kids’ joy finding them, especially once they’ve found out by counting proudly 207!

We laid the Kumara in a long line for the other kids to see, it was the highlight of morning tea just to look at all the different shapes and sizes… and there were some really big ones !

As we had plenty of rainy days, we've been cooking a lot with our own home grown garden produce. It is astonishing to see how the tamariki try different food they normally wouldn’t eat at home. When they cook it themselves they give it all go!

We made savoury waffles with garden herbs, kale chips, Mini Pizzas with garden greens and home made tomato sauce with tomatoes we’ve been freezing from last last summer harvest, and of course roasted Kumara, all our meals were delicious !

As the growing cycle has slowed down we we turned a dull concrete slab in the garden into a piece of garden art by painting it with bright colours, we looked into the art of composting, teaching our tamariki the value of collecting natural garden waste like egg shells, banana peels, seaweed and coffee grounds.

We learned about worm farming, exploring the difference between earthworms and tiger worms and nourished our winter veggies with the elixir of worm tea. To shield our winter plants from the chill, we gently nestled them in warm blankets of pea straw, ensuring they remained snug, moist and nourished throughout the season.

Last but not least we celebrated the end of Term Two with a well deserved hot chocolate for winning the biggest and best Kumara harvest !

A fun and action packed term has come to the end and it will be exciting to see the journey of our Kumara Heroes continue in term three when we march towards spring !

from Nina 

All About Insects

After the summer break, the garden at Suzanne Aubert Catholic School looked just as pretty as when we left it before the school holidays. The community came during the holidays and helped themselves to tomatoes, courgettes, and corn.

We started collecting seeds from flowers and vegetables that had run their course. The kids enjoyed picking sunflower seeds out of the flowerheads. We then packed them up in little sachets, named them, and stored them until next spring season when we will plant them again. It's great for the children to learn that if they save the seeds, they can plant even more plants without any cost.

Alongside our other schools, we received all the equipment to set up our sentinel garden, supported by Tauranga Moana Biosecurity. Mike from Te Puke Landscape Supply brought fresh soil, and the kids had great fun giving him a hand shovelling the soil off the truck.

The STEM kids are responsible for looking after the sentinel garden, and they created a slideshow to explain it all to the other year levels, which has been awesome. Lisa from Kiwifruit Vine Health came as a guest speaker and explained to the kids why it's important to detect unwanted bugs found on specific plants planted in the sentinel garden. From now on, they will be “bug detectives”.

Our focus is on looking after our monarch butterflies. We found plenty of hungry caterpillars, which was great to see since we planted the swan plants just last year. It's a great success as the school has just been established, and we can see more and more beneficial insects starting to appear.

Watch our new space in Term Two where we will be creating a butterfly garden.

A great way to finish Term One is always a cooking session where the kids are eagerly waiting. We made homemade herb breadsticks with a herb dip using freshly picked herbs from our school garden. The ingredients are simple, but the herbs added a punch of flavour. The kids loved it and shared it happily with their teachers for morning tea.

From Nina

PiPS 2023 Autumn Fundraiser with SPRING BULBS

Help PIPS get more equipment for your school gardens by beautifying your garden and the community.

Here is a great opportunity to purchase spring flowering bulbs and seeds to show your support for your in-school garden programme. Bulbs are easy to plant, fun to grow and will reward you with gorgeous flowers year after year.

We have some great choices here - why not try them all!  Bulbs are supplied by GardenPost who source bulbs from New Zealand’s and Holland’s best growers. PiPS will make a least 30% profit on all sales.  A planting guide will be enclosed with each order.

To order: Click here to fill in the order form, then make payment via internet banking

- by 30th March 2023.

Payment to: 01 0475 0158776 00 PIPS Incorporated 

                    - Reference your name and school.

Delivery: Will be around 10th April 2023. We can deliver nationwide, postal cost will be around $6.

Thank you for supporting PiPS – your in-school garden programme.  

Enquiries to:     Clare Rodgers – pipstauranga@gmail.com

Happy Times

A very busy, productive and rewarding year 2022 !

From a blank site to a pretty, functional and productive school garden, the project to establish a learning Rongoa garden has been completed. 

The kids have been such hard workers and should be so proud with was they’ve achieved this year, I am definitely proud !

In term four we’ve finished filling all the garden beds and planted our first seeds and seedlings.

The first harvest of silverbeet,kohlrabi and beans were a success and straight away we did a cooking session with our garden produce, it was great to see the kids trying food they've never eaten before.

Colourful garden signs have been created by the tamariki, adding pops of colours to the garden along with the blooming flower bed and planted sunflowers along the edges.

The last task of the year was mulching the site, it was the last finishing touch to a picture book school garden.

A lovely farewell present was a big bunch of colourful carrots pulled up by the year 6 students on our very last gardening day together.

What a nice way to finish a busy year 2022, was by the school organised garden celebration, the garden was blessed by Father Richard, followed by a speech by Mr Mills the Principal and a reading by the students, it was a very special ceremony !

I’m looking forward to another great year in 2023,

Nina

Busy Bees

After a long period of waiting, planning and preparing we finally started to create the Garden beds at Suzanne Aubert Catholic School!

Suddenly it all happened with Dads as builder volunteers helping us build the raised beds and putting them into place.

The kids were really hands on, lining the timbers to protect the wood and filling the first beds in the organic way with layers of  cardboard, twigs, leaves and topped with good quality garden soil. 

We all worked really hard with shovelling, lifting and moving the wheelbarrow around.

Did you know that one garden bed nearly took us twenty wheelbarrows full of soil to fill it! 

We’ve planted the first bed as a Rongoa garden (a herb garden) which is really special as Suzanne Aubert was an herbalist and we would like to continue with this tradition.

We planted an apple tree as a statement in the centre of the garden, in years to come it will give the children a shady spot in summer to sit under and fresh juicy apples from the tree to enjoy.

We are so grateful and have to say a big “Thank You” to Farmer Autovillage, Mitre 10 Pāpāmoa and Rotary Club Pāpāmoa who supported this project and helped make this project come true. 

Herbs and Lemons

We had a lot of rain so sometimes it wasn’t possible to work outside, so we made it cosy inside instead and learned about the benefits of herbs and what they are used for in the healing medicine. 

We cut twigs of Rosemary, Thyme and Mint, rubbed them in between our fingers, this is also how you can identify them as they smell so divine!

We learned via a google slide how New Zealand native plants have been used in Māori Medicine to heal wounds, a sore tummy or tooth ache, as our focus is on a Rongoa garden and many of these plants will be planted in the school garden.

We ended the day with a boost for our immune system to keep us healthy and made hot lemons with Manuka honey and mint.

We Make A Start!

What’s happening at Suzanne Aubert Catholic School…we finally made a start !

We have a final plan now, of how the garden in future will look like, there will be lots of work ahead but the kids are all motivated and we’ve started to level the site. The first native plants have been planted like Hebe, Akeake & Kawakawa.

We had a day planting seeds in seedling trays with winter vegetables so that the seedlings are ready to be planted once we’ve got some raised garden beds built.

Welcome to PiPS, Suzanne Aubert Catholic School!

Kia ora, I’m Nina from PiPS and I’m so looking forward to working with Suzanne Aubert School and their wonderful staff and students to create a brand new garden for their brand new school! I’m really excited to see what we create and learn together!

We are in early planning stages at the moment, so I visited the school and met the team leaders, the principal and the liaison teacher.

We measured the site together and the kids did some drawing for me how they could imagine their garden in the future.

We are planning a garden which is focused on herbs as Suzanne Aubert was a herbalist, she used also Māori plants for herbal medicine so we want to include them and focus on a rongoa garden.