Kia ora my name is Leela Woodgate, I have joined PiPS this year to work with Te Manawa ō Pāpāmoa School to establish their school gardens. What a busy term one we have had! Some students from Mataatua who were keen to get involved had the opportunity to do some garden planning and drew up some designs from which we have had this amazing design created for us:

We have also learned about soil and the role worms play in creating healthy soil. It was fun comparing earthworms to composting worms and looking at all the other creepy crawlies that live in compost and worm farms. We have set up a rotating compost bin and are working towards having responsible compost monitors who will be in charge of collecting food scraps at kai times and putting them into the compost bin.

We are so grateful for DC Builders who kindly donated their time and resources to build us 16 raised garden beds. We have already started propagating herbs and alpine strawberries and have sowed a bunch of seeds so when we have the garden beds filled next term, we will be ready to plant straight into them!

Kaimanawa from Takitimu have shown a real interest in insects and bugs, some students chose to build bug hotels to house the creatures they find on their way to school and everyone got to look at a bunch of bugs that I found around my house; spiders, slaters, cockroaches, grasshoppers, worms…! Takitimu are responsible for monitoring the sentinel garden that is an initiative of TMBC, this is a kiwifruit bin kindly filled with soil from Te Puke Landscapes that has a variety of plants that act as trap plants for unwanted or invasive species. We will closely monitor the plants each week and will report to NZ biosecurity should we find anything unusual.