Countdown to spring at Cannons Creek School

What a beautiful morning! Earlier in the week we experienced very cold, wet days and this morning we had the heaviest frost so far this year! Our broad beans were bent over because of the cold and the water in the bath had frozen! This doesn’t often happen here. But heavy frost meant wonderful sunshine and blue skies!

There was lots to do and I decided today to rotate teams so they got to have a go at different tasks. The girls were keener to do the hard digging jobs than some of the the boys at first! (Go girls!). Later there were hard working boys as well who never complained and got on with the job.

Annabel, Juliet and Elizabeth did a lot of work today. They put stakes around the broad beans and string to keep them in place. We won’t use wind cloth this time so that there is a lot of air moving through the crop. We hope this will avoid the rust that covered our broad beans last year.

Next job for Team Annabel was to plant pink Hollyhocks along the back fence, these will grow tall, and also a swan plant as well to bring in the monarch butterflies. We saw two monarchs today flying around our garden. They were a beautiful sight. Feeding all the plants in the dome as well as the hollyhocks was next up. They used worm tea mixed with water to feed them and give an extra boost. Later Annabel planted the fennel that we have been given, in a good spot that gets a lot of sun.

Manaro, Atia and Krimzin dug a trench for us by the feijoas that were planted last week. They were shown how to do it and then filled it with sand from the kindy. It gets wet here and we don’t want the feijoas to rot so we need to drain the water away. It now feeds into our other drain. When they were finished they cleaned their tools and got on with the next job - to put the last of the mulch around the garden where the hebes are. It’s looking good now. They were hoping to see our resident skink but he was too shy.

Elizabeth and Krimzin cut back the mustard which is flowering. We are a bit late cutting it down but we will leave it so that it can rot into the ground and feed the soil. In the meantime it will stay on top of the soil (as a mulch) to protect the soil.

Shaun, Charlotte and Ms Pau’u really had fun with their task. They were asked to do a second coat of paint on what will be our bug hotel. Shaun and Charlotte had to sand the surface first. The bug hotel is looking so colourful. Shaun and Charlotte worked without complaining and had such a good attitude.

Kristin, Brooke, TJ Joy and Shayla worked on the compost. It hasn’t been turned in a long time because of holidays and wet weather. They chopped up the big pieces of carrot and turned everything over.

Jak, E.J. had to dig a trench in a raised garden. Last year the school study was on ANZAC and we had looked at trenches dug by soldiers in World War 1. We didn’t dig as deep as the soldiers but at least two spade depths deep. The boys were learning about another way to compost - trench composting, which is digging a trench in the garden and filling it with fruit, bits of paper and vege scraps. They also added Tui Sheep Pellets which our plants will love!

Later Jak and Manaro came back to do more work and back fill the compost trench, clean out the buckets and water the feijoas. Atia, Manaro and Krimzin also did some painting with Brooke, Joy and Shayla after lunch. Our panels are truly looking very colourful.

We had such a delicious lunch lots of people went back for seconds. It was a vegetable soup with lentils, split peas and yummy corn bread which was good. Our harvest was potatoes, cabbage, parsley, herbs and celery. Jinnaea and others in the kitchen are keen to try and make this soup at home so they took home some chopped parsley. Click here for the recipe >

Tui & Garden to Table

We are excited to be supporting Garden To Table as our school programme again this year. Garden to Table is a trust, which runs a gardening and cooking programme in schools across New Zealand. As participants in the Garden to Table programme, seven to 10 year-old children spend time in a productive vege garden and home-style kitchen each week. There they learn skills that will last them a lifetime, and discover just how much fun it is to grow and cook their own seasonal vegetables and fruits.

Tui is providing starter packs to each of the new schools, and seasonal packs during the year.

Click here for more inspiration from Garden to Table schools >