Mahinga Kai

Our new greenhouse!

Imagine our suprise and excitement when our application for funding from Air New Zealand's Every Corner project was successful! It was an actual dream come true.

Our mara nui!

In late 2024, Finally, the ground was finally broken for our much anticipated large crops garden. This in-ground garden is now ganimportant part of our kura, growing large vegetables like pumpkin, potatoes, kumara and hue. We were so lucky to get money from the church to help with this project.

Garden to Table

Every Thursday we get to do Garden to Table (GTT). Thanks to Prashanti, Lou, Sapph , Kaitiaki Karen and all the whānau who come along to help us. A big thanks to the school board who support us to purchase ingredients and equipment.

Students learn to raise, nurture and harvest vegetables and then use these veges to make recipes in the kitchen. After a karakia kai, the food is shared with everyone who helped and leftovers are given to anyone who needs it.

We are the model school to GTT in Whakatū and regularly host hui for other educators who are keen to move into this space.

Grow

Harvest

Prepare

We raise plants from seeds, buy seedlings and have some plants donated. We have worked hard to have good soil and build protection so that our vegetable gardens can thrive. Our goal is to use the kai to expand our Garden to Table programme then to have enough to feed our tamariki & whānau at home.

Blueberries

"Thanks to our local Mitre 10 store, we were able to plant a new blueberry garden. It's hard work to keep it weed-free but we know it will be worth it." Naomi & Ella.

Beetroot

"Kaitiaki Karen explained how versatile beetroot can be. We made beetroot hummus and beetroot chocolate muffins. Suddenly this beetroot shot to stardom in our classroom and was the focus for our creative writing - stories, poems, cartoons and even a play script all starring beetroot." Myah & Sophie

Orchard

"The Orchard now has lots of fruit trees and flowers that we are growing. Things like daffodils, peach trees, lemon trees and apple trees. We also have a fig and a nectarine. Our goal is to grow fruit that tamariki can eat and cook with at school - for this we need people to stop picking it when it's not ripe." Stella

Peas

"It was a suprise to see all the peas because they were hidden in the bush. They were fresh, crunchy and bursty in my mouth. I liked showing other kids and sharing them out." Khloe.

Titiro Whakamua - Looking Ahead

Extending our mara nui

The long term idea is that this garden will help to feed our school community. We would love to build a deck onto our Rainbow Room to open up this space as a community hub.

Titiro Whakamuri - Looking Back

Our Orchard

We’ve had a plan for a little while to plant a wee orchard at our school.

In 2022, Kaitiaki Karen and some green fingered enviro kids planted fruit trees near our Seaview Road entryway. We initially planted mandarins, apples, peach and fig and then raised some other citrus in pots which were planted later.

We are enjoying nurturing these trees and can’t wait to see our tamariki enjoying the fruit.

Thank you to the Birchwood School Parents Team for donating the money to us to get our idea off the ground from their fundraising effort.

Tomato Party

Last year, we had a bazillion tomatoes in our veggie garden, the fantastic green team alongside Kaitiaki Karen used these tomatoes to make a yummy pasta sauce and today was the day to have a tomato pasta party!

As you can see, there were some pretty happy customers and kids were coming back for seconds!

Thank you to the seniors and Kaitiaki Karen who did the hard mahi of preparing everything for us to enjoy!

Little Garden

Seaview hub have been growing seedlings and "little garden" pots. Last year they transplanted them into our school veggie gardens and Kaitiaki Karen helped them.

Ngā mihi nui to New World Stoke for donating extra little garden pots to our school. Our tamariki are loving getting their hands dirty in the māra/garden

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