On Friday we spent the morning with our buddies planting in the garden.

The amazing people at Tui Garden products sent us a carton full of wonderful Zealandia plants.  We have planted lots of them but Mrs. C said it was still too cold to plant the tomatoes so we will put them into bigger pots and plant them in October.

Check out our daffodils

Planting the strawberries

Today we dug over the strawberry bed and added compost.  Next we replanted the strawberries.

Loved this tomato image from Lisa L

Have just bought cherry tomato seeds for us to plant and saw this image.   It is called Love my tomatoes.

What a cool kid's gardening site for schools

Check out this great site for information.  Wouldn't it be cool to have Irene Van Dyk visit Koraunui School.
http://www.coolkidsgrow.com/index.php

Shopping at Mitre 10

On Friday, Mrs C, Sophia, Lee and Claudia went to Mitre 10 in Upper Hutt to collect the garden starter pack from Tui the Tui School Garden competition.

Mitre 10 loves rugby too.

While we were at Mitre 10 we noticed they had all the Rugby World Cup flags over their door. We have made the country flags in class and they are hanging in Room 12. They had the Big Guy, Levi Vaoga holding a rugby ball with lots of All Blacks flags. He could probably hold all three of us at once.

Shopping at Mitre 10

We have collected half of the Garden Starter pack.

The children look for the correct spade.

We  had some fun at Mitre 10.

Planting Seeds with our buddy class. room 9 and Room 12

Today we were lucky to have received a pack of garden goodies from Tui Gardens and Mitre 10.  We made use of the seed raising mix to plant out carrot, rocket and marigold seeds.  The staff at the Mitre 10 garden centre told us that if we plant the marigolds with our veges, they will keep the bugs away from the veges for us.  We hope so!

Planting the Apples and Plums.

Mrs C went through the garden catalogues with us last term.  We decided it would be great to be able to pick apples and plums at school.  We then had to make sure that the trees we chose would pollinate each other.  Mrs C joked that she should bring her bees to school.  Some of us thought that would be a good idea but other children were scared of being stung.  We have made a collage of us planting the trees.

The new fruit trees arrive

As a school community we have decided to plant fruit and nut trees in the school grounds to provide fruit for our tamariki in the future.  Our caretaker, Mr Curtis sprayed the grass areas at the end of Term 2 to allow the new trees a good start in life when they arrived in Term 3.  We are thrilled with the plants we have received from Edible Gardens.  As they are bare rooted trees the children have learned about digging holes big enough to accomodate the roots and allow for growth of the root systems.  We had some exciting discoveries.  While we were digging the holes for our fruit trees, Liam noticed a large worm. There were lots of them and they were huge. Mr. Curtis said they bite but Mrs. C said not to believe that.

Look how big they are compared to Darrin-Rays hand.

Upside down Tomatoes

Here is an idea to try with the children over the summer. There is a seed swap at Great Start in Taita on Saturday 27th of August. Will update the time when I know it. Get your seeds and get some tomatoes or other seeds started at home for a lovely summer crop.

www.facebook.com/pages/Great-Start-Taita/123204021074817

www.basicgardentips.com/

We have been busy in the strawberry garden.

Room 9 and Room 12 weed and divide the strawberries on PhotoPeach

Room 2 and 14 buddy classes

Mrs. Jo and Whaea Luana had their classes in the garden this week digging over the bed and adding compost and blood and bone. They are getting ready to plant their seeds in a couple of weeks.

A visit to Room Three

Today Room Three shared their stories and writing about the seeds they have planted. Sam has made a fantastic bean biik and Toni has done some wonderful writing about their plants.

Room 3's Seeds

Room Three have been busy planting seeds and learning about how they grow. Their room is filled with a variety of seeds that the children have brought from home. The radishes are growing well and the beans are starting to poke through the soil in their pots.
Room Three are growing lots of plants on PhotoPeach