TUI GARDEN CHALLENGE JUDGING

 

We had a fantastic day today. The children got to show off their gardening talents and knowledge to the Tui Garden Challenge Judge, Tracey Dee.

For being a finalist we were presented with loads of goodies from TUI.  Including a flash certificate, beautiful TUI books and loads of gardening equipment - a shovel, spade, fork, weed sprayer, secateurs, loppers, garden fertilizer and a nectar bird feeder. THANKS TUI .

Tracey was extremely impressed at what we had achieved and how much the children knew about their garden. Judging results will be released on 19th November - How exciting !!

Our birdbath has become the centre of attention since we planted it out.  (Sorry birds!)

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Phoebe's keeping an eye on Tracey, making sure she doesn't miss a thing!

Yes Miss there's lots of worms in here!

DID YOU KNOW THAT ONLY 12 SCHOOLS

OUT OF 400 WERE CHOSEN AS A FINALIST ?!

(And only 2 of those were in Northland.)

 

Happy faces everywhere !

WELL  DONE .

A BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED !

P.S. The jobs not finished yet . . . our garden is just beginning . . . stay tuned!

WE DON'T WANT TO SKITE BUT . . .

LOOK AT THE EMAIL WE GOT TODAY !!

 

 

 

THE JOURNEY HAS JUST BEGUN !!

Before  .  .  .                                                                                           After

 

Wow! Look how far we have come but we have only just scratched the surface!

 

The competition may be over but thanks to the Tui Garden Comp we have been inspired to keep developing our sustainable garden and we are looking forward to harvesting our fruit and vegies all through summer.

 

Our main objective was to encourage the children to take ownership of their garden . . .  and they did !  We are very proud to see the children taking care of the plants, watering and weeding everyday.  And we love it when the children show off their garden to visitors - they even know the names of all the plants !

 

HAVE A LOOK AT THE RESULTS SO FAR . . .

 

Ella-Rose's beautiful beans             Kirk & Johno's radishes.        Pearl's sunflower is as big as her ! 

 

   WHAT  GREAT  PROGRESS  SO  FAR . . . keep watching!



WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH BAMBOO ?

Kimberley our caretaker is always looking for great ideas for the garden and we thought this was a really cool idea.  We reused humongous bamboo stalks to plant a horizontal garden on our fence. (Well we've done the vertical bottle garden why not try horizontal ?!)

Everybody wanted to help. . .  Gill had the giant bamboo plants, Mr T  and Room 3 children took no time at all to chop them down and Mr Obren got to use his new 'Renovator' to cut the holes in the bamboo!

That left Room 1 & 3 children to hang them up and plant them out. We planted lettuce, parsley and lots of flowers like lobelia, pansies and asylum to brighten up our fence.  The plants are just beginning to settle in and we can't wait until they grow and cascade down our fence.

WEE WORMS ARE WEEING IN STYLE !

Thanks to Room 3 and their fantastic teachers Mr T and Mrs Naylor, our worms are no longer confined to their little prototype worm farms.  The children have designed and built luxury accommodation for the little wrigglers.

Just take one donated bathtub (Thanks to the Shepherds) and some planks of wood and hey presto we've got ourselves a worm farm.
Check out the results. . .

 

 

 

  

 

Our worms are doing their thing while the garden is reaping the benefits. Fantastic effort! Well done Room 3.

 

 

POSSUM BUSTERS ! !

We told you that we had a plan,

but you didn't listen - did you possums ?!

Our boys (and some girls!) are very keen possum hunters. As soon as the bus pulls up in the morning they are sprinting to the garden to check the traps.

And they soon learnt

that if you open the cage door

the possum will be up a tree

before you can count one, two, three !!

 

 



4 down 100 to go !

Many thanks to the Shepherd family for 'doing the deed'.

We are pleased the fur is being used to make lots of knitted winter warmers.

 

 

FABULOUS ARTWORK

 

Room 3 decided to brighten up the garden and encourage the bees to visit.

They studied disections of flowers, fruit and vegetables

and have created these fantastic works of art ! 

 

 

 



WOW !

VERY IMPRESSIVE  ! !

THANKS  ROOM 3

WINTERLESS NORTH

"Miss, our plants are dying!!"

"What's happened?"

"Why are the leaves all brown?"

Just when we thought we had it under control an unwelcome visitor took us by suprise. No it wasn't the Health and Safety Inspector and it wasn't MAF, it was an annoying little fella called MR JACK FROST!

 

 

 

HOW  SAD  DO  THESE  PLANTS LOOK ?!

 



A LEARNING  OPPORTUNITY

Well that was a huge learning curve for us all. The children have worked out how and why they need to protect their young vegies from the frost. They also found out that the frost definitely loves tomatoes, capsicum, courgettes, potatoes and beans the best. And they noticed that the thicker leaves like cauliflower, brocolli or cabbages are better equipped to cope with the frost.

So we checked out our handy dandy TUI NZ Kid's Garden Guide and we learnt a new word. . . 'cloche'.


Manu is much happier that his capsicum
 is safe from Jack Frost!

The kids are very proud of their tunnel cloche.

OUR PLANTS ARE BUSY GROWING!

We just keep on rocking it in the garden! 

 

Tyres placed  CHECK

Compost in  CHECK

Potting mix in  CHECK

Plants planted  CHECK

Trees chopped  CHECK

Tyres painted  CHECK
Paper laid down  CHECK

Bark chips down  CHECK

Rabbit fence up  CHECK

Possum cage set  CHECK
Plants growing  CHECK

Queue photo montage . . .

 

 

 

 

 

OKAY PLANTS YOUR GARDEN IS LOOKING GREAT.

 

GROW PLANTS GROW DO YOUR THING ! ! !

PLANNING

Not only have the children been busy outside in the garden they have also been busy inside the classroom doing the planning and research about all these plants we are growing. They have done some excellent planning and sketching of how they want their garden to grow.

Jazmine has a very organised garden plan.

 

I like the grape vine idea Ingrid.

Melissa's Magic planting plan.

Phoebe has colour coordinated her garden!



Fabulous strawberry flowers Ingrid.

 Leila's sunflower and of course it's
Rocking Reece Mastin Courgettes!



We will have a feast when Jude's garden grows!

 



Puti's broad bean and corn extravaganza!

Nice cauliflower Travis.
I'll make the cheese sauce to go with it!




 

RECYCLING BOTTLES

They are a great addition to the garden.

We have been learning about lots of ways to recycle things in our garden. Our first challenge was to build a verticle garden re-using plastic drink bottles. Children from Room 2 and 3 studied the steps on You Tube and learnt all about how to stack and plant the bottles and where drainage holes were needed. Thanks kids you did a great job . . . with no teacher help!

 

Thanks Jeul for showing us what to do.

Great knot tying Patrick & Travis!

Awesome team work :-)

Looking good!

 

Our next challenge involves corks and bamboo. 

Now that's got to be interesting - watch this space!