Tahatai Kai Growers, Term 2, 2025
The term has started well in the new shadehouse, which is proving a great spot for our seedlings to grow. We are involved in a project to sow seedlings to donate to the Omanu Community Gardens, who in turn grow them to full size before donating them to the Tauranga Foodbank.
In this way our kai growers can use their gardening skills to make a meaningful contribution to their local community.
Another project which has been very successful is the NZ Monarch Butterfly Tagging Programme which we have been part of at Tahatai this year. It involved planting swan plants in an area for monarchs to lay their eggs, monitoring and redirecting stray caterpillars and then netting off the garden, so that the chrysalises could grow and eclose without the risk of becoming lunch for passing birds. Once the butterflies emerged, we very carefully attached a tiny sticker to their wing, using toothpicks. The tag number on the sticker was then entered online with information about the butterfly, the location and the conditions. In this way we are adding to a data bank in the hope of finding out more about NZ monarchs and their flight paths and overwintering locations. We tagged eight butterflies at Tahatai this year. Now we wait to see if anyone discovers them elsewhere on their travels.
Our artists have been busy and are working on a new sign for the fenced off garden area as well as updating some of the faded signage in the garden beds. Over the holidays, we are hoping to get a compost bay built from salvaged wood pallets. We are looking forward to being able to make our own compost to feed the garden beds.
Our broccoli and cauliflower are doing well from seed and we’ve created a tunnel for them, using bamboo stakes, offcuts of garden hose and netting to keep the pesky bugs out. It seems to be working well. The slug and snail traps are set too, and seem to be doing the trick.
We have had lots of harvests. Our gardeners love taking bags of produce home. This term it has been silverbeet, bok choy, spinach, radishes, spring onions, limes and a whole variety of herbs. Sometimes there is even enough for them to share in a kai cart at the front of the school at home time!
The orchard has had some love too. Our gardeners spent a full day weeding around the bases of the trees and adding rings of mulch around each one - no small feat! The lucky trees were fed with a brew of worm castings and rainwater too. The kai growers spotted lots of mycelium growing in the mulch pile which led to extensive discussions about how fungi are beneficial for the soil and allow trees to connect underground. We even came across a NZ Stinkhorn fungus in the grass! Some were more impressed with it than others, who found the smell very off putting.
Our worm farms are still extremely productive, and the rhubarb is benefitting greatly from the extra feed. We have borrowed some spare roof tiles which we have propped up with bamboo stakes around the plants as “rhubarb forcers”, and they already seem to be encouraging longer, thicker stems.
On the last gardening day of term, the weather was grey and blustery, so we took advantage of the opportunity to have a kawakawa tea party in the hall kitchen. We learned about the benefits of kawakawa and had some great chats with the students about what they learned this term in the gardens.
We are looking forward to seeing some more growth in our garden beds over the holidays, and excited about welcoming some new kai growers to join in our garden adventures for the term ahead.
