The seedlings are growing...

Our seedlings are growing so well! Some of them are a bit short of space, so today we repotted them as they are not quite big enough to survive in the garden yet, as it is still so dry.

Our labels worked well: we could all collect up the plants each of us had planted and see what had grown from those little seeds. We talked about treating the plants gently so that we didn't snap their stalks, and tucking their roots 'into bed' so that they didn't get dried out.

What's good to eat in the garden?

Just before we finished this afternoon, we went to have a look at what had been growing in the garden... And found peas, beans and green tomatoes! We left the tomatoes to ripen, but we all got to try the peas and beans: fresh, crunchy and sweet!

Look at the garden now!

Oops... We forgot to take the iPad out for photos this afternoon.... But after an afternoon of planting, we have just about planted all our plants, and now we just need the rain!

Our seedlings are growing well up at the tree nursery, so hopefully it won't be long before we can plant them too...

Seed planting afternoon

Last week it was pretty hot out at the vege patch, so we decided that if it was the same this week, we would stay in the shade and start some new seeds growing.... So that's what we did!

We talked about how to set up our pots, and how deep to plant the seeds (about as deep as the seed size), and then we chose from photos which plants we would like to grow, matched them up with the right seed packet, and planted away...

We also made little labels from old milk bottles, with our names and the names of the seeds we had planted.

The seeds will live up under the tree nursery while they germinate, as the trees get watered every day, and the water will drip down onto the seeds.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Elaine
Date: Monday, March 18, 2013
Subject: Blog
To: Becky Hancock-Sims <becky@ahuroa.school.nz>

First Day Planting!

Welcome to our first day of planting for 2013.

With 5 keen gardeners from Sanderson Whanau, we got to work on planting from a choice of nasturtium, sunflower, snow pea, courgette, or tomato plants.

We talked about what the plants needed to survive, especially in this hot, dry weather, and how to handle them gently. As the soil is so dry and clumpy, we have used potting mix in the planting hole, to give the plants a better start. As soon as a plant was planted, the children did a great jobs of giving it a good water... And we must remember to do that every day!