The School Garden Page

THE GARDEN

September is a busy month in a temperate garden, and grade ¾ students have been busy sowing seeds to plant, add to the seedling stall and share. 

Students have explored the principle of “Integrate rather than segregate” in the context of garden design, the reason we have created an orchard inside the chicken coop and how this practice is mutually beneficial to the earth, chickens and people. This is the sixth unit in the Permaculture in Primary School (PIPS) curriculum. The final principle for Term 3 is “Use small and slow solutions.”

• Foodies have enjoyed cooking with the current glut of eggs, making mini herb quiches, rhubarb muffins and cauliflower patties, all popular with students, staff and volunteers.
• Green thumbs have built and installed native bee hotels in the Edible Space, to provide shelter for these solitary insects. Native bees are “buzz pollinators.” 
• Recyclers continue to feed and maintain the worm farms and chicken coop, actively contributing to the closed loop system, where nothing is wasted.

These rich activities wouldn’t be possible without the ongoing hands-on support of family and community volunteers, thank you! 

CHANGE OF SEASON

September is Poorneet (tadpole) season in the Wadawurrung calendar, where we notice air temperatures are rising, the ground is still cold

• The pied currawong is calling
• Wattles continue to blossom
• The deciduous trees are starting to blossom
• Yam daisies are starting to flower

Days and nights are of equal length

THE GREENHOUSE

The greenhouse has begun housing newly sown seeds from Grade 5 students who have begun work on “The Tomato Project.” Seeds saved by Grade 6 and deposited in the Seed Bank, have been withdrawn by Grade 5 students to produce tomato seedlings for our community. The BHPS tomato seedlings are very popular, this year we have over 25 different varieties of tomatoes!

Kookaburra Cackle (in picture) is new to our seed bank, an Australian bred dwarf tomato.

Grade ¾ PIPS students have sown hundreds of other seeds that will soon appear on the seedling stall!

SEEDLING STALL

The Seedling Stall has slowed down over the last two months, but work hasn’t! Volunteers, staff, parents, students and community have been busy preserving the large amount of local citrus and other fruits and vegetables into kasuandi, pickles, relish, marmalade and chutney. These are now available for purchase from school. Please bring cash.

Seedlings are $2 each, Worm Juice $4 per bottle.

CHICKENS

The chickens now have names, thanks to a very democratic selection by students.

• White Wyandotte – “Cream Puff”
• Buff leghorn – “Ginger”
• Blue Partridge leghorn – “Storm”
• Spotty Ancona – “Panda” and “Freckles”
• Black Leghorn – “Luna” “Midnight” “Raven” “Tuk Tuk” and “Magpie”

The hens have begun laying, so we now have a regular supply of pullet eggs, and students have added collecting eggs as a part of coop maintenance.

Surplus eggs, those not used in student cooking activities are available for purchase from the office foyer at $4 per dozen.

GARDEN MAINTENANCE

The second Saturday of each month at 2pm is allocated to garden maintenance, usually only a 2 hour commitment, or whatever time you can spare to help out. It’s very rewarding and lots of fun to work alongside families, students, teachers and volunteers to keep the school garden at its best. The next date is Saturday October 12th..  at 2pm. 

After school garden club is Tuesday from 3.15-4.30pm. We share a light afternoon tea, sometimes cook and then it’s on to garden related tasks. Last week we installed more fruit trees against chicken coop and made garden signage.

SCHOOL HOLIDAY FUN!