February in the Garden

It's been a hot start to the school year, but our students have all put in a great effort despite the heat.

The first week we took a look around the garden to see what plants we could identify, and one that was growing strong was mint! We learnt that mint stems are square, and did you know apart from making a refreshing drink, hot or cold, mint is good for an upset tummy or for helping relieve headaches? It can even help with concentration, just what we need at school on hot days! If you haven’t tried it out already, here is the recipe.

Mint tea

1 cup of mint leaves

4 cups of boiling water

Optional sweetener of choice ( We like local honey - the bees who made our honey probably foraged from our plants at the school! )

Students in grades 1/2 Jack, 1/2 Skye and Foundation, went through rigorous testing to see how well they could handle a wheelbarrow. Congratulations to all the students who earned their wheelbarrow license!

Grades F- 2 have also been busy seeding and watching the progress of their seeds turning into seedlings. We were keen to get some things in the garden ready for winter and have been able to plant out some of the seedlings grown from seed this week.

And what better way to round off a great month than with poo week!

All grades have been getting better acquainted with our delightful dung. Grades 3 - 6 have been toiling hard in our raised beds the last few weeks, removing old soil into the chicken yard so the chickens can improve it for us. Then during poo week, they mixed compost with manure and refilled the old beds, ready for planting.

They have also started conducting experiments. Each class has mixed four separate pots of compost and manure from either cows, chickens, horses or sheep. They have planted a root vegetable, leafy green and a flower in each, to see which number 2 comes out number 1! Stay tuned for the results.

Our 1/2 students planted some of their seedlings out into our new beds while our Foundation students coloured in animal signs to put in our experiment pots. Some of our students also learnt about some of the unique things you can do with manure, like making paper and lighting fires! Crazy. Who knew?

If anyone has access to sheep or cow manure, we'd love to hear from you as we have plenty more beds to do. You can email me at Daniel.Halliday@education.vic.gov.au

We would also like to get more seedlings going, so if you have any old seedling punnets, please drop them in to the garden center and we'll make good use of them.

It's been a fun start to the year and a big thank you to all of the students who are happily helping out in the garden. I'm looking forward to seeing just how much you can accomplish in the garden this year.

Dan

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