Term 4 in the Kai Grower’s gardens

It’s hard to believe that such growth can happen in the short space of a term! The beds that we filled with LJ’s magic soil in term 3 are now flourishing and our kai growers have proudly harvested baskets of produce to share with the Tahatai Coast community at pick up time!

Our new entrant gardeners explored the orchard and the vegetable beds, learning about what they can and can’t touch, taste and pick.

They sowed seeds in pots to take home and came back with stories of how well their seedlings have grown!

We have done lots of learning about how companion planting works and our summer veg beds were planted with this in mind.   The squash and pumpkins providing ground cover, like a living mulch for the soil, will keep it from drying out and turning into a dust bowl over summer, and the sunflowers and corn will act like living stakes to support the tomatoes and beans, while the beans fix nitrogen in the soil.  

We are also learning to harvest our veg by cutting off at the base rather than ripping the roots from the soil.  This helps to keep the soil undisturbed, retaining carbon and leaving the fungi and soil microbes undisturbed.

It also makes for beautiful gardens with flowers blooming among the veg, attracting butterflies and bees to the gardens to pollinate and make our gardens more productive.  The poppies were stunning this term and the swan plants have attracted lots of monarchs!

The orchards are benefitting from companion plants too and we are hoping for a bumper season of fruit this year!

It is awesome to see some of our dedicated gardeners arriving with empty bottles to collect worm wee from the worm bins, to take home for their own gardens.  Their eyes light up when we move some of the fruit and veg aside and they discover masses of tiger worms and red wrigglers chomping through our organic waste!  One keen gardener has told me about his 50 potato plants that he is growing at home (!!) and has even taken home worms to start his own mini worm farm in some plastic containers.  Their enthusiasm for gardening is infectious! 

There’s something for everyone in the gardens, and they also love making signage for their garden beds.  We hope to put up signage on all of our fruit trees too next term.

The rainwater collection tanks are in, and have already been in use.  We are hoping for great yields now that we can water our beds straight from the tanks.  Rainwater irrigation for the lower garden beds will be up and running in term 1 next year, thanks to the funding received by PIPS and Tahatai Coast School from Tauranga City Council.  

Next term we hope to have a shadehouse to propagate our seedlings and Mr Greg is working on building a compost bay from upcycled pallets.  There is also a pergola on the way so that we will have a covered area to continue gardening, even on the wet days!  

We finished the term with a christmas craft, creating decorations using air dried clay and our dried poppy seed heads.  A great way to spend a wet morning!