Gardening Club

Today we started a new strawberry patch in an old bathtub. We will separate the babies in the old strawberry garden (that we planted last year) and plant them in our new one. Mīharo! We also checked in on our worm farms.

Making a new worm farm.

Kaitiakitanga in our pā harakeke.

Today we shifted compost, shovellewd mulch, and cleared a pathway behind the pā harakeke. Tū meke!

Today we repotted some strawberry plants as our garden is full! We took our plants with us to plant at home.

Today we did lots of jobs in the māra!

We planted some kākano (seeds).

We checked our strawberry garden and ate some strawberries. Tino reka!

And we watered our kūmara garden, it has grown so much!

Today we planted a kūmara in a big bin. We wonder what will happen?

This week for gardening club we planted a strawberry garden! Yum!

This week we continued with our awesome compost making and started a new garden bed.

This week we turned our compost and started a new one. We found heaps of noke (worms).

This week we continued with our compost making and we harvested jerusalem artichokes - like finding treasure!

This week we revisited our compost. The level had gone down a lot, and the bad smell told us it had too much nitrogen/green, so we added some more layers, included heaps of carbon/brown. We continue to gather fallen leaves as they are great carbon for the compost.

Today we made compost! The kids had a great time gathering lots of different materials to layer up and make into a batch of ‘compost on the go’. Next week we will check if we made a good enough ‘home’ for the worms to move into, and add some more layers. We have built this compost in a black plastic compost bin, directly on top of a garden bed so that the nutrients from the brewing compost can benefit the garden as it is processed. We will turn it along the garden bed every few weeks to 1. Aerate it, and 2. disturb any unwanted rodents that might be tempted to make it “home sweet home.”

Nadia giving us an introduction and digging up the weeds where the compost bin will sit.

Starting with a layer of carbon - leaves and straw.

More leaves...

Now for a layer of nitrogen - food scraps and weeds.

Chopping the food scraps into smaller pieces so they break down faster.

More chopping and then adding a carbon layer - shredded paper.

More layers...

A layer of coffee grounds (nitrogen) and finally more leaves and straw on top.

Today we harvesting the hue! The vines had died back which meant they were ready to be harvested. We will put them somewhere ventilated to dry. We listened to the story of Hinepūtehue and said a karakia before cutting them from the vine.

Today we spent some time caring for our pā harakeke. We pulled out all the weeds and the garden volunteers followed up by adding a layer of mulch. We also gathered leaves for the compost which was heaps of fun!

This week we harvested kumara! It was so much fun digging for kumara in the māra, each one felt like finding a treasure! Some were huge and some were tiny. Nadia let us each take one home to cook and eat with our whānau. Yum!

Today we planted swan plants. We had to find suitable places in the māra, clear the weeds, dig a small hole for each plant and then fill the soil back in around the plant. Finally we gave our plants some water. The butterflies and caterpillars will be happy!

For our first gardening club of the year we helped to move supplies for our vege pod to the deck of Whānau Koromiko.  We shovelled a lot of compost into whellbarrows to fill th epod with good soil. We found lots of worms which is great for our garden. We found 2 big hue growing in our hue patch. This is exciting! We need to find a way to hold them off the ground while they continue to grow.

Today we planted our "magic hue" seedlings that Whaea Lara gave us. We had to build the garden bed before we could plant them. First we laid cardboard on the ground and built a wall of stones around the edge. Next we added a layer of straw. Finally we added our soil.

Today we checked out the new garden beds, did soem watering, tasted broad beans and planted seeds.

Today we planted some more puku in our pā harakeke and we turned the compost in our new compost bins for the first time. We met some students from Garin College who were visiting to do  some learning about gardening and compost.

Cutting down the fennel plants (they're a weed in the garden).

Watering the plants and checking the temperature of the compost.

17/7/23

Today members of Whānau Harakeke took part in a composting workshop. We helped to build the new compost system and first bin of compost. We layered wood chips, lots of food scraps, grass clippings, leaves, sawdust and cardboard to make a giant compost cake. We learned all about what is needed to make good compost. We're looking forward to making lots more compost for our gardens so we can grow yummy, nutrient rich kai. 

Tinipere and Ruby joined Whaea Suzy on a composting workshop. They had fun making compost in a jar!

8/6/23

Today we had 23 tamariki at gardening club! We shifted and spread mulch, pulled weeds, watered the garden, tasted some plants and mage comfrey tea (it's good food for th eplants). We learned that fennel is not a good plant to have in the garden as it doesn't like to grow alongside other plants and takes over.

11/5/23

Today we helped with layering the "compost cake", we harevsted harakeke, and we shifted mulch for the gardens.

23/3/23

Today we planted seedlings, watered the gardens, planted seeds and collected sunflower seeds!

 28/2/23

We had a great turn out at gardening club today. We dug holes, watered the garden and played in the sprinkler.

3/11/22

Spring has sprung in the gardens! There are lots of flowers and everything is growing like crazy! Including the weeds. Today we cleared a garden bed of weeds and planted some seedlings. Isobel, Magdalen and Dua brought their seedlings to show us how much they had grown in a week!

27/10/22

Isobel, Rachel, Dua and Magdalin brought a bag of Little Gardens to Gardening Club today. We had lots of fun setting them up. The girls took them back to their classroom to look after. We also watered the garden and Magdalin found a carrot!

20/10/22

Today we started to grow the seeds in our huge box of Little Gardens!

22/9/22

Today we gratefully received a vege pod and little gardens from New World. These will be a great project in Term 4, providing even more veges for our school and community. We also had fun planting the rocket seedlings that we started from seed earlier in the term. 

15/9/22

More weeding, collecting compost and watering the garden. Today we shared our ideas on why our garden is so important to us and our community. 

1/9/22

Today we did some weeding, some watering and we cleared the strings off the frames because they were rotten. Our rocket seeds have grown into seedlings and they'll be ready to plant in the garden soon! Some of us had fun finding worms and looking for slaters. It was Whaea Sylv's last day with us, we will miss her!

11/8/22

Today we planted rocket seeds. First we filled our trays with soil, then we carefully made 6 holes just a fingernail deep and put a seed in each, carefully covering them with soil. Finally we watered our seeds. We wonder when they will start to sprout. We also planted flowers, weeded the floor of the shed, enjoyed the sunshine, and the boys had a game of hide and seek.

30/6/22

Today we planted flowers around the edge of the kumara garden. We enjoyed digging holes and watering.

30/6/22

Today we planted flowers around the edge of a garden bed and flattened cardboard boxes to lay on the garden.

5/5/22

Today Whaea Sylv had lots of jobs for us in the garden. We picked and peeled the corn, pulled out dead plants, raked up leaves, dug up dahlia tubers and we even found a giant kumara!

10/2/22

Today we made planter boxes that we will plant seeds in and take back to our classrooms to look after. There was lots of loud banging with hammers! 

29/11/21

Today we helped Martin to collect mulch for the garden and we also planted some sunflower seeds. It will be fun to watch them grow! We checked our seedlings from last week and they had already grown bigger.

22/11/21

Our very first session of Gardening Club! The tamariki helped Sylv and Martin plant seedlings in the garden. We learned about soil, compost and worms.