Garden Club

Plant Spotlight & Seed Giveaway: Nasturtium

Get ready to elevate your garden plot because this week’s seed giveaway features a true garden superhero: the vibrant, unstoppable nasturtium! Often affectionately called nasteria, these cheerful blooms are much more than just a pretty face. In the backyard ecosystem, they serve as ultimate security detail by acting as a decoy trap crop, luring pesky aphids away from your prized veggies while rolling out a red carpet for friendly bees and pollinators.

Even better, they offer a delicious bite! Packed with high levels of Vitamin C and antioxidants, both the velvety leaves and colourful petals bring a zesty, peppery kick to summer salads. You can even pickle the green seed pods to create homemade wild capers. Pick up your free seed packet at our next meeting to bring brilliant colour, natural pest control, and a kick of flavour directly to your garden!

Seville Orange Tree

Speaking of garden highlights, our Seville orange tree is putting on an absolute show! Thanks to the recent stretch of warm, sunny weather and a steady watering routine, it has burst into a stunning wave of lush, exceptional new growth. Bright green leafy shoots are popping up all over, signalling a super happy tree that’s soaking up the seasonal sunshine and storing up energy for future blooms.

Soil Magic in the Sweet Potato Patch

Our sweet potato patch is getting a massive upgrade thanks to some clever soil-building! We’ve been layering raw organic materials; shredded paper, fresh coffee grounds, fallen leaves, twigs, and a touch of wood ashdirectly onto the bed. Over time, those simple ingredients have broken down into rich, dark, living soil. This deep, fertile base gives our sweet potatoes the perfect loose, nutrient-dense environment to stretch out and produce a bumper crop this season.

The Great Lemon Germination Experiment

Thanks to a generous batch of fresh lemons from Mrs. Gabbe’s husband, we’ve kicked off an exciting club experiment! After harvesting the seeds, we decided to test our green thumbs by planting all the seeds from a single lemon into one pot to track the overall germination success rate. We’ve snapped our "before" photos, given the pot a cozy spot in the sun, and are keeping it well-watered. We'll be watching closely over the next month for those first green sprouts to pop up, so stay tuned for updates!

When is the Garden Club?

Garden Club happens on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, right after the gates open. We meet at the bubblers on the Churchill Avenue side of the school.

Garden Club is completely FREE to join! It's a great opportunity to learn to be a lateral thinker with limited resources, get first pick after a harvest, and see some fascinating creatures.

The information shared here is based on our experiences and knowledge, but we are not gardening experts. Think of it as friendly advice from one garden lover to another. Please remember that all gardening activities should be done with adult supervision and that you're responsible for your own safety and decisions.