PATHWAYS HORTICULTURE PROGRAM

A big thank you to Stewart who demonstrated to the Horticulture students how to prune the apple trees in our kitchen garden safely and carefully. This method is known as espalier. It is an ancient method to shape trees to allow them to grow flat against a fence or wall. In our case against a wire frame. This will maximise the amount of fruit on the trees and improve the shape of our apple trees. Left unpruned our apple trees would grow too tall making it difficult to collect any fruit at the top of branches. 

The Horticulture group have been busy this Tuesday harvesting vegetables and herbs from the kitchen garden near the cottage. Students brought lots of lettuce, spinach, kale, fennel, oregano, parsley, and coriander into the Home Economics room. We made a delicious Greek salad for staff and gave Lower Juniors lettuce to try. 

The group learned how to build a garden bed and plant seasonal vegetables. The young fruit trees are fruiting. Planting flowers such as alyssum and marigolds next to vegetables in the garden beds helps with pollination. Students mulched the beds well to add nutrients to the soil and keep it moist. They have developed a lovely garden that is thriving.