Around Our School
11/9 Green Team News
As third term comes to an end, we would like to share with you some of the great things we have been doing in Brendan’s Garden.
We started the term with some planting of seeds. We learnt about what seeds need to germinate (by the way germinate means begin to grow).
Seeds will only germinate if the temperature is warm enough, so on the 14th July we planted some corn and zucchini seeds in mini greenhouses and placed the greenhouses in a sunny place.
The corn seeds germinated first, after about 3 weeks. The zucchini seeds took longer, about 6 weeks and many of the seeds have not yet germinated. Hopefully now the weather is warmer we will see more sprouts. Look at the before and after photos to see the amazing growth.
Our next exciting event was cooking and eating the pumpkins we had grown. Every class was given a tray of cooked pumpkin and most students tried it. Many students thought it tasted delicious. Some of the seeds from the pumpkins were collected and dried, so they could be planted later in the year.
As winter was coming to an end, it was time to prepare the garden beds for planting in spring. The first task was to harvest the produce that was still in the garden beds. It was like a treasure hunt searching for the potatoes in the ground. As you can see, we found lots and lots and we all loved it.
Next we had to pull out all the weeds in the garden beds. This was fun but some of the weeds were very stubborn and were hard to pull out. Mrs Coggin then fertilised the beds with some stinky stuff called Dynamic Lifter. This is a special type of food for the soil and it will help our future crops grow.
The last part of preparing the garden beds for spring was covering them all with sugar cane mulch. Mulch is a great way to protect the soil from drying out and it also adds more nutrients to the soil as it breaks down or decomposes. We all helped with the mulching and as they say, 'Many hands make light work'!
Our final task for the day was planting pumpkin seeds. Every member of the Green Team was given a little pot to fill with potting mix. We then made a shallow hole with our finger and put some pumpkin seeds in it. After covering the seeds with more potting mix, we watered the pots. It took about 4 weeks for the first pumpkin seeds to germinate. In October we will plant the pumpkin seedlings in Brendan’s Garden.
The next time the Green Team met was Book Week dress up day. After admiring the flowering daffodil bulbs that we planted last term and the fruit trees in blossom, we discussed herbs. Herbs are a great way to add flavour to our food and they also have many health benefits. Some of the team knew the names of lots of herbs. We all planted different herb seeds in a small pot. These are the names of some herbs we planted; parsley, thyme, sage, basil, dill, coriander and tarragon. The first herb seeds to germinate are coriander, thyme and dill.
Next term we look forward to filling the garden beds with the seedlings we have grown and nurturing them until they are ready to be harvested. There is always something to be done in Brendan’s Garden and we love working as a team to keep Brendan’s Garden productive. We are proud of the work we do and believe there is nothing quite like growing, harvesting and eating things that are home grown. Stay tuned for more Green Team news in Term Four.
Tillerkite
Thank you so much for having the Kangaroo group visit this morning, the children had a wonderful time and it was lovely to see so many of the children from last year. Please find attached some drawings of what the children loved about their visit!
