Tunnelhouse shelving

Our tunnel house is filling up fast! We have 50 'spud in a buckets' from our Spud challenge that we are still protecting from the elements and quite a few plants ready to sell. Today Robbie has been working on some shelving to help manage our space. 

The Vocabulary of gardening - PRICKING

Through our gardening, we’ve learnt a lot of new vocabulary, including germination, vermicast, chitting, mast, and today’s new word: pricking.

We discovered that pricking is the process of gently moving a newly germinated seedling into its own space, giving it room to grow. This can be done using something as simple as a small stick. We carefully held the seedling, eased the stick in near its roots, and gently lifted it out, trying not to disturb the roots too much. The plant was then placed into a new pot and gently pressed down to secure it.

Today, we practised this technique with tomato plants, which we hope will be available to our community soon.

Beech Tree Mast?

In Room 5 we have been learning about the Beech mast. This summer, the South Island beech forests will have the biggest seed drop in seven years. When all these tiny seeds fall, they give rats. stoats and other predators lots of food. This means there will be too many rats and stoats running around, which is bad news for our special native animals.

To help, the Department of Conservation (DOC) will be doing extra predator control to protect these animals.

In our new school garden, we have made our very own predator trapand installed a new Timms possum trap. This helps us learn about looking after our environment and protecting our native species, just like DOC is doing in the forests.

Room 3 

Today Room 3 took their learning outside into the garden, planting their sprouted snap peas. These seedlings have been carefully nurtured in the warmth of our classroom and were finally ready to be transplanted. It was also the perfect chance to explore how to build teepees and wigwams as structures for the peas to climb. The garden was buzzing with teamwork, sharing, and great conversations. Ka pai, Room 3!

Tani the taniwha 

Tani the Garden Guardian
By Lawrence Area School, with a little help from ChatGPT

In the heart of the new garden at Lawrence Area School, something magical stirred. Among the newly planted veggies and blooming flowers stood a mighty rock sculpture. His name was Tani the Taniwha, and he had been made with care and creativity by the tamariki of the school.

Tani wasn’t just any taniwha—his body was crafted from special stones that shimmered with meaning. Smooth blue stones showed the rain that nourishes the garden. Whirling patterns in grey rocks represented the wild wind that rushed through the leaves. Twinkling white stones reminded everyone of the guiding stars above. Green stones curled like ferns, showing growing plants and lush foliage.

But Tani had a job to do.

By day, he sat proudly watching over the garden, soaking in the sunlight and listening to the laughter of children. But by night, when the stars began to shine and the garden grew quiet, Tani came to life.

With a low rumble and a shake of his rocky tail, Tani stretched and blinked his glowing stone eyes.

“Time to guard my garden,” he whispered to the wind.

He padded silently through the rows of silverbeet and peas, his stone claws gently pressing into the soft soil. When he heard the munch of a bad caterpillar, Tani gave a little growl, and the naughty pest wriggled away in fright.

When a group of aphids tried to sneak onto the broad bean plants, Tani huffed a puff of wind-stone breath, and the tiny green invaders were blown away like dust.

Even the sneaky grass grub couldn’t hide. Tani’s nose, made from a speckled stone of moss and magic, could sniff them out under the earth. He stomped and shuffled until they scurried off to find a new home far from the school garden.

Tani didn’t mind the friendly insects like bees or butterflies—he let them dance safely in the sun. He knew they were helpers, just like the students who had built him.

Each morning, as the sun rose over Lawrence, Tani returned to his spot near the path, looking like a still, silent sculpture once more. The tamariki would run up and say, “Good morning, Tani!” and give him a pat on his stony nose.

And if you look closely, just as the dew begins to dry, you might see a tiny trail of bug footprints leading away, and maybe—just maybe—a sparkle in Tani’s eye.

Because every garden needs a guardian, and at Lawrence Area School, we have Tani.

Adding colour to our garden 

Today we were finally able to install our very first art project in the garden. As part of our Matariki celebrations, every student painted a stone to represent something meaningful to them. From our youngest five-year-olds to our oldest students at eighteen, everyone contributed — and the end result is truly stunning. 

Thanks again

A huge thanks to Julie and Tony Patrick from the Lawrence Four Square for their donation of crates to our garden. Also a huge thanks to the community members who have given us pots, tools and plants. 

PEas... 

The best way to plant peas is to get 50 hands working to tuck them into their new garden bed. 

three less possums

Exciting news from the LAS Community Garden this week after catching 3 possums! They were trapped under one of our small fruit trees. Possums are a serious pest in our area, particularly on farms and in gardens, so we’ll continue to manage them responsibly whenever possible.

THanks 

A huge thanks to the community members who have popped in to school to drop off plant pots and tools, we really appreciate all your support. 

MOrrifieldTunnelhouse

Today on a crisp -5 degrees  morning Leigh and Richard from Morrifield Tunnelhouses came to install our new tunnelhouse. With the support of Robbie the tunnelhouse build was seamless. A huge thanks to   Fonterra for their generosity towards our tunnelhouse. 2pm this afternoon the temperature was 12 degrees outside and 19 in the tunnelhouse. #lasgarden2025 

Feeding worms 

Today, Room 3 became real-life superheroes! Instead of letting leftover lunch-box food end up in the Balclutha landfill, they collected it and fed it to the worms in our brand-new worm farm. We hope this small step in reducing our school’s food waste will help inspire bigger changes in the world around us. 

Worm Farm (PAMU NOKE)

Our garden plan includes both a compost bin and a worm farm to help reduce the large amount of food waste our school currently sends to landfill each week. Today, we moved our newly acquired worms into their new ‘farm’. Despite the chilly weather, the worms were surprisingly active! Their new home is well insulated, and in time, we’ll be able to collect nutrient-rich worm leachate and castings to fertilise our garden. A big thank you to the generous community members who donated the bath and to the kind gardeners who shared their worms with us. 

THe Bug House  

Today was all about beneficial bugs as we built a new whare (house) for our insect friends. The children had spent time researching which bugs are helpful in the garden and what kinds of habitats they prefer. After scavenging and collecting suitable materials, we put together what we believe is a five-star hotel for these tiny garden helpers. Highlights for the students included using the drill and hunting for materials. 

Designing for bugs 

Today, the children began designing bug houses. They started by researching the types of habitats that our New Zealand bugs prefer, then moved on to planning their designs. Along the way, they discovered some fascinating facts:

• Lacewings eat aphids, caterpillars, and white butterflies.

• Solitary bees like to nest in small gaps.

• Ladybugs live among sticks and love eating aphids.

• Moths are excellent pollinators.

• Parasitic wasps help by killing aphids.

• Earwigs often live in old bricks and are beneficial for gardens.

• Hoverflies good for garden, eat decaying plants and animals

Ground-Prep

Some very exciting ground-work going on today in preparation for our next garden installment. 

VegePod strawberries

Today Room 3 took their mathematics learning out of the classroom when they planted strawberry plants in our Fern Fuel vege pods. 

Our new strawberry bed

Room 3 and 5 did some buddy gardening this week in the new strawberry bed which has been built with recycled materials by Robbie. The bed is huge and fitted 70 strawberry plants in it. We were also able to pot up many more plants that we will be able to share with the community in Spring. A huge thanks to the generosity of the Waitahuna farmers who gave us the load of sheep manure for our garden beds. 

Shade house

This week Robbie our caretaker has been busy constructing the shade-house. The shade house is a place for us to pot up our seeds and also a space for us to harden off and propogate plants out of the elements. Robbie has been a superstar at creating our projects using recycled materials or items that would otherwise go to land-fill. 

Time to design

This week, our students have been busy designing the shade-house for our school garden. This versatile space will serve multiple purposes — it will act as a potting shed with workbenches for the children, as well as a sheltered area to protect young plants while they harden off, safe from the elements. 

Compost bins

Today Year 7 & 8 were able to see all their plans come to fruition. After a term of learning the ins and outs of how matter decomposes, the students set to work creating a plan for a compost bin. A major motivation is reducing the waste in our school, which can be garden waste, paper and card or food scraps.

Today the pupils were able to add brown (carbon) and green matter to the first bin. 

We are proud of the progress we have made on the first stage of our garden project and look forward to sharing more of our journey with you soon.

Pumpkins to share

Today, our school-grown pumpkins were chopped and shared with the community - each bundle accompanied by a hand-illustrated pumpkin soup recipe created by our students.

Any pumpkins that were past their best were added to a mix of green and brown materials, kicking off our first batch of compost in our new compost bin, thanks to the efforts of our Year 7 & 8 students for their research and to Robbie for his construction skills.

We’re proud of the progress we’ve made on the first stage of our garden project and look forward to sharing more of our journey with you soon.

Kai for kapa haka

The satisfaction of providing pumpkins and carrots from our school garden for the Kapa Haka Exchange