Kai Growers Winter Garden
It’s been a bit of a slower term for growing, but our Kai Growers are as enthusiastic as ever about working in the garden.
Our plan to keep a constant supply of seedlings going is working well now. The gardeners are getting used to making regular trips upstairs at lunchtimes or break times to check on their progress and water them if they need it. We got creative and worked together to give our seedling storage shelf an upgrade, by using some thick plastic from a double mattress storage bag, some cable ties and some duct tape, we created our own mini greenhouse to help to speed up the growing process. With our new capillary action watering system, it seems to be working really well.
In the gardens too, we have been taking measures to make sure those little seedlings make it to our kai cart. The ‘war on slugs’ is in full force in our gardens and the kai growers are taking it seriously, with traps set in each garden bed and wool mulch mats around each seedling. They have also been busy making neem oil spray to keep away those pesky nibblers. The garden beds look a bit different now too as we have two garden tunnels in place, hoping to deter white butterflies and their hungry offspring.
Our kai cart is in full swing again and we have had lots of produce to share with our school whānau on Thursdays at pick up time. This is the year 6’s responsibility and they love preparing signage, packaging kumara, tying bundles of herbs and choosing some nice green leaves (which haven’t been discovered by caterpillars!!) to present in their kai cart at the end of the day. Then, once the bell has gone, the race is on to get some of the harvest before it’s all gone!
The new entrants have been coming to the gardens too, learning about what they can eat and what they need to leave to ripen. Those who have already taken home their seedlings to raise, come back with tales of how tall they have grown (or how they have perished!), and where they have chosen to plant them in order to take best care of them. They love smelling, touching and tasting what they can in the garden. Recently we’ve had a kitty visitor too, who has been a real hit!
After the kumara harvest, our gardeners were lucky enough to find some bonus treasures as they cleared out the bins, for Mr Greg to move them to make way for some big changes in the garden. Watch this space!
With the colder change, we have set up some bird feeders. We used seed feeders and fruit feeders too for the nectar loving birds we have in Aotearoa. Our gardening ‘monkeys’ were only too happy to hang them in the pohutukawa by the garden beds.
