The Gardens are Going Off!

Thanks to the considerable efforts of students during the last week of 2021 our gardens are thriving. We weeded, moved compost and planted in the torrential rain and now we can see the fruits of our labour. It is great to see kids interacting with the plants, eating beans as they appear, finding new vegetables emerging and noting the insect life amongst the plants. We found a huge Wēta upon the beans yesterday! We are continuing to water and care for the plants too and the summer warmth is definitely a bonus. We are planning to do some cooking with the produce too. Watch this space!

Positive Purpose Environment Group

Our Positive Purpose Environment group had a productive day yesterday. 

During lockdown, we weren't able to get into the school premises. That meant the shade house, and all the wonderful things inside, couldn't be maintained. We have tidied it up and things are back on track! We now have some great new shade house specialists being trained up. He tino pai! 

Our gardens are also looking much more lively, and are now home to many different science projects that are part of our new cycle of Inquiry. 

We have also carried out some maintenance on our whare at bottom grass. A team of students have re-cladded the roof and front wall with timber, palm fronds and toi toi. Feel free to check it out and have a peek inside next time you're around!

We're also preparing some different types of fertiliser to be used on our gardens and for our investigations. We've heard seaweed is a great fertiliser, so we're chopping it up and getting it on our gardens!

Exciting stuff - ka mau te wehi!

The Winter Garden.

We have been planting a whole lot of new vegetables in the garden over the last week or so.  Cabbages, Kale, Kohlrabi (that sounds poetic) and many other goodies.  We have had to water because it has been so dry and warm.

Please help us out!  Bring in some seaweed, straw or anything that will keep the moisture around the plants and the weeds down.  Feel free to participate in our gardens; they belong to all of us!
Plant seedling if you see a space, help us weed and then when all the hard work comes to fruition, help us harvest.

Enviro Group Wrap up for Zealandia

                                              Wow, what an amazing leak!

Last week we showed Karin Stillberg from Zealandia around the school site and she was pretty impressed by all of the work we have done.  She has asked that we write an article for the Zealandia magazine December issue about the journey we have been on.  Zach and the team have drummed something up so keep an eye out for their article.
We found it satisfying to explain to Karin the many different things we have been involved in and how it all fits together as we look towards a sustainable future.
It's true though that the work never stops!  We have taken on clearing the bank of Old Man's Beard, a massive job.  Thanks to our Weeding Warriors for not being overcome or daunted by this task.

The Beetroot Harvest!                                    

These guys are not the Weeding Warriors but the Beetroot Harvesters.  The Weeding Warriors were weeding of course.

Garden Student Council Group

 We started looking at what we need to do to help the school gardens. The first things we identified were watering the gardens and weeding. We set to straightaway! We will set up a roster to make sure that the gardens are watered regularly.

Thanks Andy for making the Garden Beds! Thanks Chester for helping Him!

Chester and his dad Andy have spent a lot of time over the holidays working on the gardens.  They are made of beautiful Macrocarpa which looks and smells amazing! There has been an incredible transformation from the wonky crooked beds to the new look; something you might find in 'House and Garden'.

It has been a huge job and we would all like to thank them for the amazing work.

The gardens themselves have some resilient plants still growing despite the autumnal conditions they have been subjected to.  We are hoping to fill the garden beds with topsoil and

Making a Contribution - Student Council

 This week we got into our new Student Council groups, with the new leaders. The leaders all did a quick presentation about what they thought was important about the role and what they thought they could bring to it. Then we got to work, sorting out priorities for the term and rosters as to who would do what jobs, or brainstorming what the priorities for the group should be.

The groups are:
 - Library
 - ICT
 - PALs
 - Gardens
 - Compost
 - Trapping
 - Outdoor classroom
 - Choir
 - Social

If you have any skills or tools that you would like to share with the students to help with any of these groups, please let John, Gabrielle or Hamish know.

Lizard Garden

Lizard Garden

No, This is not a lizard but a lizard gardener!

You may have noticed at the Awa road entrance to the school some delightful new plantings.  A small but enthusiastic group including two students (thanks Zach and Joanie) spent a sunny Sunday morning, setting boulders and driftwood artistically and putting in grasses and small shrubs.  We have created a habitat which Lizards will love!  Geckos and Skinks are regulars on the hillside anyway but will now have a purpose built, sunbaked piece of prime real estate in which they can warm their cold blooded skins.

We hope that they will thrive and proliferate in this environment but we need to make sure that we look after it.  It is not an area for playing in!  Please help us make the lizards feel at home and the new plants grow unhindered.

A special and MASSIVE thank you to Joakim from Te Motu Kairangi who lead the planting and brought in a number of his own plants.  Joakim and his group are doing amazing work all over the peninsular.  Keep an eye out for them and join them on one of their planting missions if you are feeling inspired.

Thanks also to Brian Thomas of the Wellington City Council who continues to support us with our environmental projects.  Awesome work Brian!

Compost Bins.

The next time you see these pallets they will be transformed by students (pictured) and their friends, into compost bins.

We have decided to build a compost heap at school.

The bottom will be some pallets and on the side too.

What we will put in it:  Food scraps, soil, paper, seaweed, leaves, and grass clippings.  In fact we will be able to out in anything which is organic!

This compost heap will be in the left corner of bottom grass.

If you would like to be involved we would appreciate people bringing in things we have listed above.  You could also bring in a spare adult who might be interested in helping building.  If you have one of those please get them to contact John via email or just drop in.

If you can bring in grass clippings, poo (not dog or cat poo) and leaves, in the next 2 weeks, please do because we will have a compost day  on Friday of week three.

We won’t  put all our scraps into the compost as the worms need some too.

We have had a look at a few designs like this one:

When it is built please do not touch unless you are putting the things of the list above inside it.

By Josie, Meg, Emma and Louise

What's Growing in the Garden?

All this hot weather is good for growing Zucchinis!

Or are they Marrows? Wait, I just thought of a joke-

When does a Zucchini become a Marrow? If you don’t pick them; until toMarrow.

It has been exciting to see things growing in our new garden.  The peas have been popular because they are delicious.  There are some beans too and of course these Zucchinis/Marrows.

What shall we do with them?  Leave a comment with your suggestions.

Planting for Our School Gardens

Planting For Our School Gardens

For our inquiry we decided to do planting.

We planted Lettuce, Carrots and Parsley. Some of the lettuce has sprouted it took 6-8 days for them to sprout. We were very excited when they sprouted!

Before we planted them we needed to do our research, like how long it would take.

We made 20 newspaper pots 4 of them had seedlings in them.

We were very excited when they sprouted!

We water the plants twice a day and change the newspaper once every two days.

Then we found out after the long weekend that 1 more had sprouted.

Lettuce	Carrots	Parsley
6-10 days	3 weeks	3-4 weeks

 By Josie, Emma S, Danni, Emma M

Gardens in Newtown

Today some kids went with John to some gardens in Newtown and got some inspiration for the gardens we are going to build at school. By Gretel

Here is a movie about our trip:

Going to the gardens from Matariki on Vimeo.

Our Gardens

Our gardens are growing really well. There are flowers on the tomato plants and the peas are starting to grow. 
Thanks for helping to take care of our gardens.