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!



PROBLEM SOLVERS

While creating our edible garden we've encountered a few problems along the way. But this hasn't detered us - we don't give up that easily!

We just asked the kids to find a solution and they did ! 

PROBLEM  1

There's not enough light for the vegetables to grow !  

 

What can we do ???

"Our Dad loves to chop down trees. He can help!" volunteered  Jaimee & Brad

 

 

Problem solved thanks to the time and efforts of Myles and Moody.

Thanks guys - you can have the first vegies we grow!  

 

PROBLEM 2

It's too muddy and Mrs Obren wont let us

back in the classroom !

What can we do ???

We had lots of suggestions for this problem from bringing gumboots to not going back inside the classroom!  Thanks to Jazmine and Leo for their great idea of putting down bark chips. And a HUGE thanks to Mr Rear (Ms Richardson's better half) for donating mega bark chips.. 

 Problem solved!

PROBLEM 3

The cute little bunnies think our vegies are their dinner !

 

What happened to our beautiful celery plants?

 

 

                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

What can we do ???

We had loads of suggestions and I think all of them would work.

"Shoot them!"   

 "Catch them."  

"Train them not to eat vegies."  

"Keep a guard dog!" 

"We can have them as pets."

"Keep the rabbits out with a fence."

A  FENCE  IT  WAS  . . .



That's better, now they're safe from Peter Rabbit! 

 

 

  Thanks Mr T you made a great bunny-proof fence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM 4

THE  POSSUMS  ARE  THINKING  ABOUT  DINNING  OUT  ON  OUR  GOODIES! 

They haven't had a nibble yet but we think they are probably waiting for the vegies to grow bigger so they can have a real feast . . .

What will we do ??? 

Watch out possums we are watching you

 and we have a plan !