Shelley's potting visit with Berger Whanau

Shelley came for another visit today, with more seedlings ready to pot. This time it was Berger's turn to move the seedlings on to root trainers, and again, we had some really good team work, setting up the pots, ferrying seedlings around the groups, and planting.

We have now used up our root trainer space, so next potting sessions will include moving some of the larger seedlings into bags.

And more!

Planting nasturtium seeds

We have been meaning to plant our last packet of nasturtium seeds into pots, for the last 3 weeks, but have always run out of time, so today it is our focus! 

We were very lucky to have Samuel's mum Olivia with us, so we split into 2 groups, and took it in turns to plant the seeds from the packet, and also to look around the nasturtium plants in the garden to see if we could find any fresh seeds...which we did!

The packet seeds were dry, brown and crinkly, and the fresh seeds were green, shiny and quite smooth. We planted them all and put them up in the tree nursery for the holidays, and we are looking forward to seeing whether they will all grow.

Searching for fence making materials

We noticed today that the corner of our garden was getting trampled by children running across it as they came round the corner of the classroom, and one of the nasturtiums was getting snapped off. So we decided to see if we could make a fence from materials around school...

Making our fence

We found sticks and flax leaves and thought we might be able to weave a fence...

It was hard work getting the sticks into the ground, but we finally managed that, and then everyone helped to weave and tie the flax leaves around the sticks.

We were pretty pleased with the result!

Hopefully now the nasturtium can grow back up.

Lots of seedling potting going on...

Shelley came for a visit today, to help us get started potting our new seedlings into root trainers. 

Great team work went on, firstly filling the root trainers and setting them up in their frames, and then planting the seedlings.

...with Turnwald Whanau

Planting time for strawberries

Winter time is a good time for planting strawberry plants, so we all helped to plant some wild strawberry plants that Becky had brought from home. We talked about the little baby plants that they make, and how they can spread across the garden, making more and more plants... And strawberries! So we gave them plenty of space.

Borage and nasturtium

The borage and nasturtium seeds that we had planted in pots last term are now big enough to plant, so we paired up and chose spots to plant them in the garden.

We can eat these flowers, but they are also great for attracting the bees.

Lexi and the snail!

The last of the weeds...

Since the last time we weeded, of course more have popped up, so today we had a real push to get rid of the last of them...and we had a cunning plan to try and put the weeds off in future!

Sand for pathways

We collected some sand from the sand pit in buckets....remembering not to fill them up to the top, as they get REALLY heavy!

Forming the paths

We tipped the sand along the old pathways and smoothed it down....hopefully that will put the weeds off from growing there any more!

On the hunt for kiwi food

After some of us had been to the kiwi release this morning, we thought it would be fun to have a hunt around school to see what sort of 'edible garden' we have here that would be good for kiwis, so we took some little clear plastic cups with us up the bank, and after a chat about where we thought bugs might hide, went on a bug search...