Garden News Term 4

 Hello Everyone,

We are looking forward to a busy and fun term in the garden.

Our plants are growing really well in the warm weather and the rain here and there has definitely helped. Our potatoes have all sprouted well, we have some beautiful looking cabbages on the way and the children are already enjoying the Broad beans straight from the plants. The nasturtiums are definitely making the most of it out there!

On Thursday Ali and Rod from Coromandel Pure Honey in Pauanui (https://www.coropurehoney.co.nz/) will be here at school talking to rooms 6-9 about bees. We are hoping to establish a beehive at school soon so this will be a great learning opportunity for

the children.

This term we are also working on setting up our Electric Garden.

A group of students from room 6 are learning all about how to use it and set it up in the correct location. They will then share their knowledge with others so that we can all use it and look after it. The device will provide us with readings about the air and soil temperature, the soil moisture, and the sunshine in the garden. This will add scientific data and knowledge into the children’s decision making about when to plant particular plants, when to water and how to care for their plants.

We have been the lucky recipients of two donations of seeds recently, one from the Organic Shop in Thames and one from the Morgan-Bevan family. Thanks so much, these are greatly appreciated. Thanks also to all the people who supported the Facebook promotion for seeds run by the Organic Shop. 

Some room 8 children have already sown some of the seeds and are starting them off in their warm classroom.

Brendon, our caretaker, has replaced some of the roofing on the pool changing rooms. There is some clear roofing left over, we are hoping to build some type of plastic house for our garden with it.

If anyone has any ideas about what to build or has any wood that they could donate for the

building please let us know.

Room 2 and Room 8 are learning more about the environment this month. Room 2 has scheduled a visit from Doug Ashby, our local lizard expert. Doug will share his knowledge about lizards and will give room 2 some advice about the lizard garden that they are creating. 

October is Save Kiwi month and room 8 has arranged a visit from 

Thames Coast Kiwi Care, the students will learn about making pest trackers so that they can find out what kind of animal pests are in our neighbourhood.

Last year Luke Hollis, Diego Marquez- Bernal, Luke Cryer, and Dylan Bloor ran a Bake-Off here at school. They raised some money to put towards developing our Native Garden. This spring we have purchased some beautiful native trees with these funds. Thanks, boys for your awesome efforts we look forward to watching your trees grow.

The TREEmendous Education Programme is currently running a competition for schools who wish to add to their outdoor learning areas. We will be putting together our application soon, we are thinking of asking for funds to support the set up of our beehives and perhaps the plastic house. Any ideas are welcome, applications close on 30th November.

 Applying for TREEmendous – TREEmendous Education Programme

As we get into this term we will harvest and cook the last of the crops we currently have in our garden. We will build up our garden beds with lots of compost and organic matter to help keep the moisture in our soil over the summer. We have been fortunate to receive some funding for an irrigation system for our garden and our wonderful garden volunteer Tony Winter will help us to install it before the end of the year. This will be a great help for keeping our plants going over summer.

The children will grow the pumpkin seeds that have been donated to us ready to plant towards the end of the term. Hopefully, over summer our gardens will be covered by pumpkin vines and we will come back to school next year with pumpkins to harvest!

This term we are also looking at increasing the number of bee-friendly plants we have in our garden. Room 4 and 5 children will be learning how to grow geraniums from cuttings. Marion Vivian has kindly offered to donate some daisy cuttings for us to grow, a great way to share plants! The children will also be growing some blue and yellow flowering plants from seed, as they have learned that bees like these colours.

Thanks for all your support and wonderful donations to our garden, helpers and visitors are always welcome.

Looking forward to seeing you all in the garden,

Claire Nankivell