A Well Organised Garden and the Bean Experiment Results

This month we were focusing in on planting out our seedlings so we could grow veges for the school community. We planted out silverbeet, spring onions, broccoli, carrots, lettuces and spinach. We did this every two weeks so that we would always have produce to sell. This is called successional planting. We also sowed some seeds ready for the next round of planting.

Remember our bean experiment? We’d been learning about “What is a Seed and How Does It Germinate?”, and to see the germination process in action we grew some beans in clear ziplock bags. Well, most of our beans were able to germinate. The ones that didn’t we realised had mostly been over-watered, resulting in them going mushy and mouldy, or under-watered, in which case they just remained dry and hard. We found the seeds definitely needed moisture, but not too much of it!

Most people kept their resulting bean seedlings at home, but we planted a few of them into our school garden.

Unfortunately due to COVID-19 we had to stop holding Kai Growers meetings in the middle of the month, and shortly after that our kura had to close. The day before lockdown Whaea Clare went to check the gardens and it looked like the spinach was ready to sell, so hopefully by the time we get back the rest will be nearly ready too.

Whaea Amber and her daughter stopped by the gardens during the second week of lockdown and took these pictures for us. We can’t wait to see how it’s all growing now.

Our silverbeet, broccoli, rhubarb and lettuces are looking great.

And here are the seeds we sowed before lockdown for our successional planting. Whaea Clare took them home to be looked after when the school was closed. Looks like we’ll have plenty to plant out when we get back into the Kai Growers gardens!