Maheno School Garden Club

Term 1 at Maheno School Garden Club has been a bustling bee hive of activity. We arrived back at school after the summer holidays to discover our garden was overgrown with weeds! This term, a dedicated group of students have chosen to participate in garden club during lunch time and 20 minutes of class time. We kicked off in February with a big working bee that involved heaps of weeding and tidying up the toolshed.

“We learned to pull out roots when you weed.” –Charlie

Weeding and composting raised garden beds

 “We learned that if you plant something after you weed, the weeds won’t grow back.” --Ainsley

So we’ve planted kale, leafy winter greens, broccoli, and rocket in some of the beds that became overgrown with weeds over summer holidays.

We’ve also harvested one of the compost bins...then, we massaged Maheno’s black gold into the raised garden beds to replenish the nutrients in the soil. 

“I learned you can’t put onion and citrus in the compost because the worms don’t like them.” --Brooke

In between the weeding, tidying, and planting, we’ve done a bit of taste testing also. 
“I learned that pansies and calendula flowers are edible.” –Oscar

The orchard of fruit trees Maheno planted last year are flourishing with green foliage are looking healthy after their first season in the ground. 

“We helped the trees grow and gave them food (horse pooh and sawdust).” –Ruby Jean

Here is a photo of Maheno School Garden Club and the new signs they have designed for their compost bins so people know which compost bin to feed and which one is resting.

Overall, Kids Growing at Maheno School is off to a great start in Term 1. We are working with Sophia to weed, compost, and plant out our garden beds with winter crops. We would like to thank the ANZ Staff Foundation for their support and making Kids Growing possible at our school this year. 2017 Kids Growing will be a year to remember!

 

Maheno School Garden Club is proudly supported by:

 

Glenavy School Room 2 Garden Blog

Glenavy School has been learning about gardening. First we learned about the story of a seed and how a potato grows. Everybody planted some potatoes and within a week or two they were already sprouting.

 On our second week, we did garden maintenance and weeded before planting carrots and kale. We learned about germination. Germination is when a seed starts growing its roots and its shoots.

 

On our third week together, we read the fairy tale Jack and the Bean Stalk. Then, every student planted a bean in a jar. Each student has a hypothesis about how tall their bean will grow and how long it takes to germinate.  Each bean was planted in wet tissue inside a glass jar and placed in a sunny spot. It took 2 weeks for the beans to sprout. Some of them are rotting and some of them have grown to the top of the jar. 

 

On the fourth week, we learned about which parts of the plant we eat. Depending on the vegetable, we eat roots, leaves, flowers, tubers, and stalks.  We made a collage with photos of different vegetables for each part of the plant that we eat.

On the fifth week, we did a bug hunt and searched for biodiversity in the garden. Overall, we had a lot of fun gardening with Sophia and we hope she can come back soon. We learned about growing vegetables, went on a bug hunt, and had fun too! Thanks Miss B and Room 2!

Oamaru North School garden club

Oamaru North pupils have been really enjoying hte Kids Growing programme. They are expecting a new school to be built very soon, so we have planted in small concrete tubs and boy have this grown!!

Omelette making and enjoying the garden greens

Omelettes on crackers!

Blamy winter gardening

At Waitaki Valley School we got the garlic planted after the shortest day, We often call it Late Harvest Garlic, so it will be ready in time for the students to harvest it when they return from their summer holidays.

We saved the best and biggest cloves from the garlic they grew here last year. Katie sure in impressed with the big seed garlic.

Maheno School's Garden is booming into spring!

Nearly every week, going to school garden clubs is the highlight. The kids have so much energy, enthusiasm and passion to grow their gardens, it is positively contagious! If you ever think you need a pick-me-up to brighten your week, I would definitely recommend volunteering at your local school garden.

Maheno School has been working to develop and grow their garden area over the past year, and they are already seeing great results! Thanks to a volunteer dad, we have this awesome new tool shed and propagation area for growing our seedlings! "We just chucked everything out of the shed, reorganised everything, cleared the bench to make rooms for seedlings, hosed out the tool shed, and swept," said Organisation Team Leader Gemma. Seedlings planted include trays of pumpkins, broccoli, snow peas, tomatoes, and spuds.

Planting Team: Gemma, James & Hunter

Maheno School received a grant from the North Otago Tree Planting Association to start their fruit orchard, so students have planted a variety of trees including 5 feijoas, apples, and peaches. To help the trees grow, "we added compost and leaves as mulch," said Planting Team Leader Case. Here is a Lil Digger moving compost to the trees:

Here is a photo of the Maheno Garden Club

And our awesome parent helper Nikki with her daughter:

And here is the Supersonic Planting Team... it takes team work to make the dream work!

We are currently looking for volunteers who can help us water the garden over the summer months, so if you live near Maheno School and can help, please get in touch with the school principal Ryan Fraser.

The Life Cycle

In the Kids growing programme students have been learning about the plant life cycle. Tracing the growth of a seed on cards, students have been able to map out and some groups even acted out the cycle.

Preparing for Spring

Many of the School Gardens are preparing for spring, weeding and clearing the beds for the big plant out. Every 2nd year the supplier of Mitre 10 give generously to our North Otago Schools and kindys.

Papakio School have put in new raised garden beds.Topped up with soil and compost awaiting a spring planting.

Duntroon School's room 4 have been blogging about their compost making and their worm farm. It has sparked the attention of a North Island school principal who is keen to find out their recipe for success.

 Fenwick School one rainy day opted to learn the compost song on the ukulele.

Oamaru North School has enjoyed learning about bees and has planted bee food in their school garden.