It's so frosty but the gardens still grow

It has been soooo cold recently but yes the School gardens still grow.  Students have been busy at Fenwick School, digging, planting and weeding the emerging garlic this week.

Weeding the garlic

Celebrating the Tui products gifted to their school. Thanks Tui

 Hanging the bird feeder

 Digging in the autumn leaves

Pembroke School students have been helping make 'thank you tin' that we will use for the upcoming School Garden's Fundraiser.

students potted up some brassica seeds to take back to their classrooms

Waitaki Valley School are planting some more garlic to harvest when school returns after the summer holidays.  They got to use some of their Tui mix so generously given by Tui to our North Otago Schools.  Thanks Tui.  Students used the mix when planting their black currant plant gifted by the Waitaki Community Gardens.

Planting the garlic





Preparing the soil for some brassica seedlings raised in the glasshouse at the community Garden's

































Planting some broccoli seeds and I'll take it to the glasshouse at the Community Gardens for some warm time

Thanks Tui

St Joseph's School have been busy planting seedlings we raised in the Waitaki Community Garden's glasshouse.  They also planted pea seeds and will to continuous planting of them over the next few weeks to see which ones do best.
Suzi, St Joseph's School Garden Co-ordinator shows the student's how to prepare the soil for sewing the pea seeds

 Planting the peas

Planting the seedlings

Our exciting news is that there is an upcoming Fundraiser for School Gardens in the Waitaki District.  It is an eving with two guest Speakers.  It is on Friday 4th September at St Kevins School Auditorium tickets are $20 and goes towards funding my role as School Garden's Co-ordinator.

Tickets are available at Health 2000, Kurow Museum and Information enter

Some nice things happening at Waitaki Valley School

Waitaki Valley School Garden Club students have been busy in recent weeks with bird feeders, seed tape and sign making.

 Some nice sign's being painted with the help of Ella McKelvey

 Sure to scare some birds away

New Garlic sign post

 But of special note is the project that Room 4 student Kelvin is doing.  He has been working towards Project Gold and has raised these Kowhai seeds as part of the DOC local regeneration project in the Waitaki Valley.  Well done Kelvin your Kowhai seedlings look so healthy and they will be a great addition to your local native regeneration project. :)

Also some garlic planting has been happening

Making the rows and planting the bulbs

Great team work

The idea behind some later garlic planting is that the garlic will be ready to harvest next year when the students return to school from the summer holidays

Students have recently started working on a Bee Calander.  Learning about bees and getting to know their seasonal needs and activites

 Agatha draws her bee and tells us that some parents buy honey and give it to children when they are unwell

Great start to the Bee Calander, we started with early spring activites

 Resources and felts.  We learnt Bee's have 4 wings, 6 legs like many other insects

Winter activites

Despite the cold weather all out Garden Clubs are still buzzing with activites.  Bird feeders have still been popular.  Children at Waitaki Valley School had fun mixing the bird seed and dripping and placing the mixture into cookie cutters.

Students also got to practice and learn plaiting for the bird feeders

Hearts, angels and pine cones.  Chrissy from the Kurow vet donated some plastic scoops that have been a great mold fro the bird feeders.  Thanks Chrissy.

Also Students at Pembroke School had a turn at plaiting and stringing up the bird feeders

A lovely visit from Carol and Hannah

It is so nice to have mums and their children come to help in the school garden

Even wee pre-schoolers who come along to Garden Club get to be involved and try out some of the tasks

Making seed tape has also been a popular winter activity.  Students at Kurow made some seed tape of leeks and carrot

Pembroke students also made some seed tape

These Students set up this seed tape station with rocks to stop the wind blowing it away

Pembroke school garden is looking good with recent bok choy and garlic plantings and we noticed some bird damage so the children placed this spinning flower to deter the birds from the new seedlings.

The Community Gardens had a wonderful visit from a group of Home Schoolers.  We were so thrilled to hear that every family had a garden at home.  We toured the garden, had games, worked through stations of seed bombs, worm farms and compost.  The afternoon was finished up with delicious pizzas from the dragon wood fired clay pizza oven.
One creative task that we mastered that day was making a paper pocket.  A great easy pocket to make that can be used to share seedlings or seeds.  Here is a step by step recipe to make you own paper pocket.
A standard newspaper sheet can be ripped into thirds.

Take your  piece of paper and fold over a top edge towards you

Flip/turn over your piece of paper

Flod in your first side of your pocket

Fold in your second side of your pocket

Flip /turn over your nearly done pocket, fold in the bottom edges of your pocket to make it easy to slide it into the top edge of your pocket

Slide the folded edge into the top edge of your pocket

Flip/turn over you pocket and lift the top of your initial fold and place the the underneath edge inside it

And there you go

Good luck with giving it a go