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Monday 24 March 2014

Taster # 2

This time it was Mr Forman's class to take their learning outside and take part in our second Garden to Table 'Taster' Session. It was a lovely sunny Autumn day and Room 5 were all eager to get busy in the garden. They'd come well prepared in sunhats, gumboots and wearing old tops.

We had one team working alongside the talented Scott Wilson, building our four bay composting system. They worked hard together and managed to get most of the composting system put together in a short space of time. Well done guys! Great team work.




We had another team led by Mischa's mum, Vanessa, who worked on landscaping the herb spiral. Thanks to this group and with the help of Mr. Ladbrooke's class it's nearly ready for the finishing touches. Once it's been shaped, tidied up and the last bit of weeding has been done it can put it in green crop for the winter, reading for digging in in the spring.


Our last team worked with Joel's mum, Kylie, planting out our first crops - lettuce, beetroot, radishes and carrots and some herbs - Oregano, Thyme, Rosemary and Sage. We'll look forward to enjoying those in the coming weeks. To give the garden a splash of colour they also planted some Petunias and Pansies. 



After all our efforts in the garden it was off to the kitchen to make some Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls. The students were busy chopping and grating, mixing and rolling. Here are a few photos of Room 5 in action. 



And enjoying the fruits of our labours.




Room 5 were eager to keep going, so we kept on rolling until every last bit of filling had been used and we'd ran out of rice paper rolls. At the end we had a Spring Roll mountain! We couldn't eat them all, so the surplus went off to the staff room and the staff had extra morning tea. I had lots of teachers commenting on how delicious the Spring Rolls were. You rocked it Room 5! - you did an awesome job and it was great to see how much you enjoyed your time in the garden.

Monday 17 March 2014

Menz Shed come to school



I've been busy engaging with local community groups and a few weeks ago I went to visit our local Menz Shed to see if they might be able to give us a hand with some of the construction in our garden. After explaining what needed doing Ron Huntley and few of the other men very kindly offered to help out. We're very lucky to have the help of the Menz Shed. The members have a HUGE wealth of knowledge and we're in very capable hands. Ron, who is leading the project, has a massive 42 years of building experience under his tool belt - Wow!

Ron and Colin  arrived at school last week to start work on cutting down the raised beds and creating the pallet planters.



Ron came back on Friday to carry on with the job, and he brought Jim and Alan along with him. A few of the boys from the boys class joined the men and it was a good opportunity for the boys to learn some new skills. It tied in nicely with their learning about male role models and the type of work men do. Ron is a great teacher and it was lovely to see him taking the time to explain the job to the boys. It was great learning opportunity for the boys.











Our first 'taster' session.

We had a fab time the Friday before last, as we had our first 'taster' session in the garden and kitchen. The students had a ball landscaping the pile of soil that is going to become our herb spiral. Some students from Room 8 - 'The Muscle Team', as Miss O christened them, did some much needed weeding. The rest of the Room 8 kids and Room 16 students worked together to sieve and weed the soil. Here's a few photos of the team hard at it!




Once we'd tidied up and got cleaned up we heading off the kitchen to make flat-breads and dips. We made flat-Breads, Parsley Pesto, Beetroot Dip and Hummus - all from scratch. The students worked really well together and Room 8 students did a fantastic job of supporting our newest students. Once we'd prepared our lovely dips we headed back out to the garden to share the meal together. 




Wednesday 5 March 2014

Our garden is progressing..

I've been busy getting plans underway so that we can get some of the construction and landscaping happening in our garden. We are very lucky to have enlisted some help from local community groups and handy parents. 

Raised beds and pallet planters 

The Halswell Menz Shed will be coming along to school in the next couple of weeks to modify our raised beds, as we are finding them a bit high to work with. This will mean we will have double the number of garden beds and double the growing space, so it's a win, win situation! 

They will also be building some pallet planters for us, which will look something like the photo below, which I saw when I visited Lyttelton Main School garden. They will be put into place along the fence, so that we can brighten up that plain looking corrugated iron fence and utilise that sunny spot.




We're very lucky to have a good supply of pallets, which will be using for other projects, like creating insect hotels and building a composting system. Thanks very much Bidvest for supplying the pallets to us. It's very kind of you. 

If you are interested in finding out more about the Halswell Menz Shed click on the link. They are involved in all sorts of interesting projects. It's a great way to meet people, share ideas and learn new things. 


Greenhouse Fun


With the help of Jacqueline, the Garden to Table co-ordinator, and two handy Dad's - Reuben Hill and Hamish McDonald, we managed to put up our greenhouse. I'm glad that I had the help of an engineer and a builder/carpenter, as the instructions were pretty tricky to work out. We spent four hours putting the greenhouse up and it was great to see it out of the box and all ready to go. 








Before we had an opportunity to secure the greenhouse and strengthen it, the weather took a turn for the worst and gave the greenhouse a real hammering. This is what the greenhouse looked like when I got to school yesterday. I think most of the plastic sheets had disappeared over the neighbours fence (thanks for returning them) and the frame is a bit out of shape. All our hard work came to nothing! 






Never deterred we'll have another go and it'll soon by back into shape and with a bit of fixing up should be back and up running in no time. I did manage to get it upright yesterday and stack some of the pallets around it so fingers crossed it will be there when I go into school tomorrow. 

Thanks to Andy Moore from Paving Innovations, we'll soon have some paving slabs to put inside the greenhouse. Andy is a great guy and has very kindly offered to donate the pavers to our school garden. He'll also be donating some other pavers to construct a stepping stone path on our herb spiral. 

If you need to buy any paving stones go and see Andy, tell him you saw this advert here and he'll kindly give you a discount on your pavers. You can find him at 70 McTeigue Road, Halswell, Christchurch 8025 or give him a ring on (03) 349 3682/027 207 1130 / 027 204 9245






This year our school has joined the Garden to Table programme, which is a fabulous programme that sets out to change the way children approach and think about food. Students will have the opportunity to discover the pleasures of hands-on food education, through classes in a productive vegetable garden and a home-style kitchen classroom. Students will learn to build and maintain a garden according to organic principles, and to grow and harvest a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs. In the kitchen, students will prepare a range of delicious dishes made from the seasonal produce they’ve grown. After preparing the food the students can enjoy sharing the meal together. This is a time for students, teachers and volunteers to enjoy the fruits of their labour, and each other’s company and conversation. We are delighted to be a part of this programme and we are raring to go! This term we are running 3 ‘taster sessions’ with the New Entrant students and the Year 7/8’s and with a Year 4 class. We will also be holding some Working Bee’s to make our planter boxes, to create a herb spiral and to build compost bins. Our aim is for the programme to ‘grow and grow’ and to roll it out to the rest of the school in the future. 

How can you help? We’ll be holding garden Working Bee’s, so if you have any building experience, if you love landscaping or are a keen gardener we’d love to hear from you.  Next term we’ll be looking for volunteers to help out in the garden and with food preparation. or if you'd like to just come along and see what we’re up to we’d love to see you. 


Please feel free to contact me on suzanne.wood@oaklands.school.nz or give me a ring on 322 8735