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