Although the weather hasn’t always been on our side this term, we have made the most of it, getting some garden focused jobs done. It has been a good time to focus on composting, pest control and attracting beneficial insects to our gardens by building bug hotels.

This term too, our gardeners enjoyed digging for ‘treasure’ and wrapped up bundles of kūmara to take home to share with their families. We have planted butternut squash and lots of cauliflower and broccoli, and are hoping to win ‘the war on slugs’ by setting slug traps every week and coming up with new ways of keeping the pests at bay. Some keen gardeners have experimented with using foil, copper and salt, to see which was most effective, copper tape on offcuts of PVC pipe was the clear winner. Wool mulch mats upcycled from old wool blankets seem to be working well too!

The soil and plants are being fed regularly with organic fertiliser from our now super-productive worm farm. Our compost bin is busily doing its magic, with regular top-ups of sawdust from the hard materials room and biodegradables from classroom bins.

Josh, the park ranger from Mauao, has popped in to visit and check on our seedlings to see when they will be ready to return to the maunga. We are looking at organising a trip to plant them out next term.

We took advantage of one rainy Wednesday to make carrot seed tape with strips of newspaper, to direct plant carrots which won’t need thinning later on.

The strips have since been planted in the garden beds and are beginning to sprout. We also tested out our strawberry popping corn - a tasty snack on a grey day!

Our shadehouse is very productive at MMI and we are continuing the mission to keep a supply of seedlings going, by sowing seeds every fortnight, to ensure that what we harvest can be replaced with more seedlings for the next round.

Meanwhile we are busy collecting seed from our own garden; cosmos, calendula, fennel and coriander. Our gardeners are learning how to save the seed in paper envelopes and store them in a polystyrene tub in the garden shed, to keep them viable for the planting season ahead.

Thanks to Ms Barr, we have also planted some spring bulbs outside the school kitchen, so we should have some great colour there in spring!