Visiting the Soup Kitchen, 10 July 2013

It was wonderful to be a part of the dedicated group of Green Team enthusiasts visiting the Soup Kitchen on Tory Street. The students asked insightful, thoughtful questions and really appreciated the chance to help others in the community. We have been delivering our garden produce for the past two terms and it was lovely to form a relationship with the people who work there and find out a little more about the people who use the Soup Kitchen and why and what kinds of vegetables we should grow that would be most useful to them. Here is a report from some of the students who came along: 

Delivering our produce to the Soup Kitchen

By Lauren D, Catharina VH and Paige M A small group of us drove down to the soup kitchen in Tory Street, Wellington on Tuesday. We talked to Nikki the Community engagement Manager and to Sister Josefia. We found that they don’t only serve food, they help people who are going through hard situations in their lives. They also help them to feel appreciated. Nikki showed us around and we had lunch in the dinning room. We learnt that they do have soup every morning for breakfast because that has been the tradition since the Soup Kitchen opened in 1907 by Suzanne Aubert and it provides all the nutrition you need to get through the day. We took some of our garden produce in for the chefs and they really appreciated it, especially the herbs because they are expensive! It made us feel really good to be helping the community and we can’t wait to take them some more healthy vegies. 

To find out more about the Soup Kitchen - www.soupkitchen.org.nz

12th September

At a full school assembly, some of the senior members of the Green Team presented an update on the progress they had been making in the Edible Gardens and some of the activities they had been involved 

in.

18th September

This week there was several projects on the go!

During the early stages of the Tui School Garden Challenge, Lauren researched and designed a system of collecting the rainwater to use on the gardens.  

• We sourced a barrel and have spoken with the caretaker and plumber to see how we can connect it into the downpipe.  It is going to be located next to the edible gardens so it is convenient.  The caretaker has attached a tap near the base of the barrel to release the water from. 
• Mr Huggie the Scarecrow has been finished and given a home.
• The seed potatoes that have been sprouting have now been planted in the potato patch (where Mr Huggie now resides)

The Rainwater Collector

Preparing the barrel for painting.  We want it to be bright and colourful

My Huggie has been given his own classroom!

Furrows are made and the seed potatoes planted

25th September

The beans we planted in our newspaper seedling containers are now ready to be planted out in the garden.  We found a spare piece of fencing to use as a bean frame.









During the holidays......... 

Look at how much the plants have grown.  It's going to be time to start harvesting soon!

16 October

This is the first week back after the holidays and the enthusiasm to get back in the gardens is obvious. 

We gave the gardens a good dose of seaweed tea, weeded, started painting the rainwater collection barrel. and did some emergency remedial work on Mr Huggie (he had gone a bit floppy).

Fixing Mr Huggie

Tending to the gardens after the holidays

The rainwater collection barrel is now decorated and ready to be installed into the downpipe.  Note the tap on the bottom.  This is so we can easily tap into our grey water supply!

21 August

Brennan, one of the keen members of the green team braved the mighty Makara coast in the weekend and sourced a fine array of seaweed to make Seaweed Tea.  

We had read that it was like rocket fuel for plants and thought that as we are surrounded by coastlines we could source just enough for our gardening needs.    

When it was brought to school we put it into a big black bin and covered it with water.  The Seaweed Tea is meant to brew for at least a week before we can start adding it to the seedlings, & the worm farm and the compost bins.  The remaining seaweed will be spread around under trees as an excellent mulch.

Now to tackle an identified issue!  It would seem that we have a few VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLARS!

With a bit of research, we found this recipe for Garlic Fire Spray from http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/organic-garden-pest-control.html

Garlic fire spray

• 2-3 garlic bulbs (about 6-10 cloves per bulb)

• 6 large or 12 smaller hot chilli peppers (any variety will do, or if unavailable try 1-2 tablespoon hot chilli powder)
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 3 squirts of liquid detergent (approximately 1 dessertspoonful)
• 7 cups water. (Use about 2-3 cups in the blender, and top up with the rest later)

Put the whole lot into a blender and vitamize well, then strain through muslin, a coffee filter or similar. Pour what you need into a spray bottle for use and keep the rest in jars with lids on in a cupboard or on a shelf somewhere, well labeled.

The caterpillars are not going to like the taste of this!

28 August

This week our plan was to:

• Start painting river rocks to use as cheerful plant identifiers
• Use our Seaweed Tea on the seedlings, and worm farm
• Weed and aerate the soil 

Decorating the River Rocks

In the weekend, Callan from the Gardening Gang went and sourced some rocks from a river bed. 

Resenes in Thorndon Quay kindly donated an array of gorgeous coloured testpots for us to paint the rocks with- Thanks Resenes!

Painting the rocks attracted a lot of interest

Our plan is to let them dry and then next week write the names of the plants on them and varnish them.  They will look great in the gardens!

Using the Seaweed Tea

The tea has been brewing for a week now so it was ready to be used.

It was a bit smelly but not as bad as we thought it would be.

We generously doused the seedling in the gardens (which are definitely growing) and added some to the worm farm.

We then topped up the bin of seaweed with more water to replenish our supplies. 

Egg shells around the spinach

One of the members of the Green Team brought in some eggshells.  We scattered these around our plants to deter caterpillars and other garden pests.  They will also add calcium to the soil which helps the plants grow fast.  

We are also going to put a container in the staffroom for all the used coffee grinds.  

With a combination of the calcium from the eggs, the high nitrogen content from the coffee grinds, and the potassium, iodine, silica and other trace elements from the seaweed we are either going to create amazing edibles or kill them all with kindness...... watch this space! 

We gave the gardens a good working over too.  The potato patch is just waiting for some potatoes to be planted!

Look at all these enthusiastic helpers - thanks everyone, it was great to have you all involved.... see you next week!

Tuesday 11 September

Over the last couple of weeks we have been busy accessorising and nurturing our gardens and planning for further planting and ways to be more sustainable.

We have now finished our rock labels and placed them in the gardens - they are so colourful and fun.

The good folk at the local Firestone Tyres, and Ablaze Landscaping Supplies  gave us some old tyres and a bale of pea straw to create our raised strawberry beds.

We filled up the tyres with TUI Strawberry Mix and some of the rich casting from the work farm.  We then transplanted the strawberries from their pottles and covered them with pea straw.  This will keep them warm and clean.

We have been continuing to treat our seedlings to weekly doses of seaweed tea.  The brew is getting pretty smelly but this doesn't deter our keen gardeners!

After the Fathers Day Breakfast we had a huge amount of egg shells.  We have crushed them all up and  drying them.  Some have already been scattered around the plants to deter pests and provide calcium into the soil.

BWC Put up Weta Houses

Today the BWC put up Weta Houses in Khandallah Park

Week 2

• Our planned shopping trip our local to Mitre 10 in Crofton Downs
• Preparing the soil and planting our seedlings

Our Mitre 10 Shopping Trip

We had been eagerly anticipating our shopping trip to Mitre 10.  We needed to purchase a few items to get us started.  What a wonderful surprise we got when just before we were about to leave, we opened the Starter Pack which had arrived from TUI and found a VERY generous voucher entitling us to all sorts of gardening essentials.

When we arrived at Mitre 10 - Crofton Downs we were very excited.  

With our background research, and the enthusiastic assistance we received from the Garden Centre Attendant, we were able to make some informed choices about what seedlings to plant now, what seeds to raise, and what we may need to give our gardens the best start.

For our initial plantings we decided to get:
Broccoli
Cabbages
Lettuces
Spinach
Garlic
Peas

We also purchases the following seeds to raise in seed raising mix:
Carrots
Radishes
Beans &
Seed Potatoes

Thanks TUI & Mitre 10...... you made our day!

Let the Tui School Garden Challenge begin!

Last term the members of the Gardening Gang and many other children embraced the period of Matariki by celebrating Papatuanuku (earth mother)  and preparing and conditioning the soil in the gardens ready for the first of the spring planting.... and of course in preparation for the Tui School Garden Challenge!

Since the competition started three weeks ago, the members of the Green Team and many enthusiastic supporters have been busy gathering inspiration, ideas and valuable local knowledge for our garden project.

We have a strong commitment to nurturing our environment and this competition has given us the opportunity to really look at our Environmental Pledge and ensure that we are still honouring it..... the great news is YES we are, but there is always more we can do!

 Khandallah School Environmental Pledge

Week One

• We spent time in the ICT suite researching ideas from the TUI website http://www.tuigarden.co.nz and other relevant sources. 
• We topped up our raised garden beds with nutrious worm wee from our worm farm

 Using the TUI planting calendar we were able to work out which plants were suitable to grow at this time of the year and most importantly.... what would grow in Wellington!

Busy gathering ideas 

We also found  www.easy-veg.co.nz and http://www.ghorganics.com  which were useful for researching the concept of companion planting.
 

A water saving concept which was researched

Some broken hoops we think we could
use to support growing beans

Other bits and pieces that may come in handy...
We'll just tuck them away in our garden shed
for safe keeping!

Edible plants

Today we discovered some edible plants in the garden left over from 12 months ago! We tried some parsley, spring onion and there was even a raddish! Two of the girls cleaned out the worm farm as there was lots of rubbish in there.
Next week we will use the worm wees and worm compost to feed the new gardens before we plant.

Happy Matariki!