Term 2 2026 in the Mount Maunganui Intermediate Gardens

We were incredibly happy to start our garden sessions back up in Week 2 of Term 2. This was all thanks to the fantastic support from our school and our local community. Everyone is so keen to see this programme continue as an important part of our students' hands-on learning, and we are deeply grateful to have our hands back in the soil. 

Term 2 has been all about recycling resources, sowing and planting, and harvesting delicious garden rewards. Our intermediate gardeners did some great upcycling to solve our pest control issues and despite the cooler weather, the energy in our outdoor classroom was warm, busy, and full of creativity.

Cleaning the Shade House and Upcycling Scrap

We started the term with a clean-up inside our school shade house. We carefully sorted through our old gear, washing and reusing old seed pots. We added these to our replanting seedling trays and filled them with fresh soil to sprout our new winter brassicas.

To keep the garden thriving, we try to keep to a seed-sowing schedule, planting new seeds on a constant rotation every two weeks. This ensures a steady supply of young vegetables for our own beds. It also leaves us with plenty of extra seedlings to share with other local schools that do not have their own irrigated shade houses. The students learned the delicate art of pricking out the crowded tiny seedlings, carefully moving them into individual spots so they can grow into strong, healthy plants.

Unwelcome visitors

Out in the main garden beds, we ran into a common winter problem: (very) hungry white butterfly caterpillars feasting on the leaves of our young vegetables. Using long pieces of bamboo, pieces of an old garden hose found discarded on the roadside, and an old mosquito net, we built a custom net cover - a brilliant zero waste solution. The hose pieces acted as perfect flexible connectors for the bamboo frame, and the old netting kept the pests away completely. It was a masterclass in upcycling!

Digging Up Black Gold and Jumbo Garlic

Our soil got a royal treatment this term thanks to our compost bins. The students rolled up their sleeves to dig out our mature compost heap. They carefully sifted through the piles to separate the large scraps, leaving behind an incredibly fine, rich, black compost. We proudly call this "black gold" and worked hard to spread it across the garden beds to feed our winter crops.

We had fun harvesting our jumbo elephant garlic. It was so big that one clove is the size of a whole bulb of regular garlic!  This saves a lot of time peeling. The students dug up massive, beautiful bulbs that had been growing secretly beneath the soil. We tied them up and left them to cure and dry out in the garden shed for a few weeks to let the flavors deepen.

A Garlic Bread Feast

Once the garlic was perfectly dry, it was time for our favourite part of the programme: cooking! We chopped up the fragrant jumbo garlic cloves and mixed them with butter and a big handful of fresh, finely chopped herbs, picked straight from our garden plots. We spread the garlic and herb mixture generously onto bread and baked it until it was golden and crunchy. The homemade garlic bread went down an absolute treat with the hungry gardeners! 

To make sure the cycle continues, the students saved the extra garlic cloves from our harvest and planted them right back into the freshly composted beds. They are already starting to poke their green shoots through the soil, promising an even greater crop for the school next year.

Overhauling our Berry Patch and Learning from our Mistakes

The berry patch received a full winter renovation. After clearing out the weeds, we boosted the soil with our fresh compost. Students lifted the strawberry plants and carefully separated the older parent plants from the new, healthy runners. We replanted these young runners into raised rows and tucked them in under a thick layer of natural wool mulch to protect the roots from winter cold.

This term we direct-sowed a fresh batch of carrot seeds into the garden beds. Our experimental giant sand tub from Term 1 wasn' t successful as we hadn’t allowed for enough drainage. 

When life gives us lemons…

Fresh lemonade was a highlight this term. We used giant lemons from our lemon tree.  Our tree had some giant lemons this season following a heavy pruning last year. Students picked the best lemons, ‘massaged’ them,  squeezed the fruit, added sugar, and used a SodaStream to add fizzy water, providing a delicious fresh source of Vitamin C to help ward off winter colds.  It got some high accolades : “That was the best lemonade I’ve ever tasted”!!!

NZ Garden Bird Survey

On our last gardening day this term we took part in the NZ garden bird survey, an annual event that our gardeners take part in as part of our environmental programme. It’s always surprising to see the number of birds in our gardens when we stop and take the time to look.

Looking Ahead 

We are looking forward to another term in the gardens and are happy to welcome Whaea Clare back to the gardens, as she fills in for Maeve who will be  away for the first four weeks of term.