What's+Happening+in+the+Vege+Plots?

Here we will keep you updated with progress on our vege plots.

Week 3, Term Two 2011 We have had some exciting news, one is that Placemakers, Huntly have supplied us with the timber to build 4 raised beds and two is that Mrs Ratana has said we can build the beds in our own area behind Room 10/11. So we are off to a great start and the Enviro team are busy thinking of design ideas for the gardens.

Week 4, Term Two 2011 This morning we looked at the site where we are going to build our gardens and have also found a pile of broken concrete that will be awesome to use to build extra gardens like a herb garden, strawberry beds, maybe even a pond? We are learning to use scale diagrams when designing our vegetable gardens and are thinking creatively about what to include. We are working with Mr V after morning tea to start putting the beds together, I hope we are skilled at using a hammer and nails!



As you can see we worked really hard today to build the beds. We had to work as a team and we showed great skill with a hammer. Now the beds are finished and we need to let the wood dry and then we can paint/decorate them.

Week 5, Term Two 2011 Today was a messy day, literally! We put the first coat of paint on the vege beds. It was an undercoat of white to help protect the wood and provide us with the background to paint our designs on. We are busy designing what the sides of the beds will look like. One of the beds is going to be decorated with the handprints of each child at Kimihia School so we hope they don't mind getting their hands dirty!

Week 7, Term Two 2011 Today we got to decorate the vegetable beds and they look awesome. The whole school came through and got their hand painted to leave their print on one of the beds and the envirokids decorated the other three.

Week 8, Term Two 2011 This week we have learnt about Compost and discussed ways we can collect the compost ingredients from around our school. We are going to get special buckets that we will put in each classroom to collect their fruit/vege waste and an envirokid will collect and empty these each day into the compost bins. We are also going to have compost monitors each week that have to turn the compost.

TERM THREE 2011 Week 2, Term Three 2011 The beds are in place and some workers are putting some soil for us over the weekend. We will then need to add compost and some blood and bone to give the topsoil a boost!

Week 4, Term Three 2011 The fence posts went in over the weekend. Click on the pdf file to read about Liam and Amy's recount of the day.

Week 6, Term Three 2011 Today we sowed lots of different seeds into punnets/pots and trays. We learnt all about handling seed mix carefully, how to sow seeds and we also talked about the different types of vegetables and what you can do with each type and which types are from the same family, such as Pak Choi and Cabbage; Chillies and Peppers.

Week 8, Term Three 2011 Today we planted the seedlings we got from Zealandia Plants into our garden beds.

Week 9, Term Three 2011 Today we got alot done in the vegetable gardens. Last friday our fence was finished and the compost bins built. Today we sowed more seeds into punnets, sowed seeds into the garden beds in all the gaps, added our bagged up leaves to the compost bins and chopped up some green weeds to put on top of the green pile. We cut up plastic bottles to make a protective sleeve for the seedlings that weren't looking too good in the garden.

Week 2, Term Four, 2011 This week we are turning the compost, tying up the tomatoes and with all this sunshine we need to make sure we keep watering the garden! We ate our first radish today that we had grown ourselves. For some of us this was a first time tasting a radish.

Week 5, Term Four, 2011 We have been very busy over the last few weeks, weeding and watering our vegetables and this week we harvested rainbow beet, radish, celery, peas, broad beans, beetroot and lettuce and boy did we have a feast. We made some homemade bread to accompany all the yummy vegetables. The two favourites were the fresh raw peas and the roasted beetroot chunks which were roasted in olive oil and fresh chives, parsley and thyme.

On Friday Kaleesha, Katelynn and Connor accompanyed Mrs Roberts to the Huntly Community Board Garden Competition Prize Giving and we got 1st in the Children's Vegetable Garden and 3rd in the School/Community Category. We won $70 worth of Mitre 10 vouchers!! We are going to purchase two forks to make compost turning and garden digging that bit easier.