hydroponic experiment

Bloopers FUNNY!

October 13

Here are a few pics to show the gardens after the two week holidays. As you can see the warmer weather is working a treat!

The beans and sunflowers have really shot up! Sadly they won't be any where near ready to harvest by the time the competition ends (in a couple of weeks!) but we hope that you can all see that our garden is going to provide lots of fresh, healthy food for our kids.

The Peru-Peru spuds have really taken off!

Looks like the keen gardeners will be planting lots of peas, lettuce and herbs when they get back to school on Monday!

September 28

Our herb wall is doing marvellously well! It is evident that the bottles hold the warmth which has enabled these herbs to get a really good root system going! A number of local families donated different herb seedlings and we even planted spring onions in there as well. It will be a living salad - great for healthy sammies.

During the end of last term our fabulous teacher aide Julie offered to help a few of our pupils enter in the Parmco competition where they chose to cook a different dish each week for three weeks. The first dish was a plate of scrumptious Thai Fish Cakes with a light salad and and a tangy dressing.

The second week was an ever-so-delicious Marrakesh Chicken on Cous-Cous.

And the final week was a Perfect Pav!

In each of these dishes was an item or items from our garden, herbs mainly, and they used our                          chicken's eggs for the pavlova. 

September 14

The weather is finally starting to warm up here! You may remember our great little hot-house we built out of recycled fizzy drink bottles last year. Our strawberries and tomatoes loved it so we are doing the same this year. Here is Meghshyam with our strawberries from last year and the space in behind for our tomato seedlings.

The children have also been busy utilising the wonderful, nutrient rich worm tea and the castings. The tea is watered down so the vegetables don't get burned by the potent brew. The use of worm tea and castings is so beneficial for our plants, they are so strong and green, perfect for healthy veg in a couple of months time.

Mrs Young has been busy all year overseeing the hatching and rearing of chickens/hens. We have a group of dedicated girls who love looking after the chickens in the mornings. They make sure their cage is clean and tidy, ensuring they have clean water and clearing the eggs. We have hatched 4 broods this year so far and we have some layers, some 'teenagers' and a batch of newly hatched chickens. The children are so very lucky to have this opportunity! We had a beautiful rooster that we could't bear to part with but as we have neighbours we thought it best to find a loving home for him, one of the wee girls who looks after the chickens talked her mum and dad into letting him come home with her! YAY for him.

We recently had a phone call from a school further south who had heard about our chicken rearing programme and were wanting to buy some from us to go in their new Hen House they had just built. We were very excited to hear that another school is going to be showing their children what great pets/food providers/garbage disposals chickens can be! We happily supplied them with some chickens. Also each week we make and sell egg sandwiches to our pupils. The only cost is the bread and spread. We harvest parsley and boil up the most beautiful tasting eggs! YUM!

Having chickens, worm farms, a recycling programme and a garden really cuts down on waste! The children know how to separate the food scraps - some for the chickens, some for the green-cone and some for the worm farms. When we have new chickens in the brood box we take out the soiled paper liner and place it in the worm farm. The chook poo is taken out and dug into the soil. The green cone uses solar generated heat to break down its waste and feeds the soil directly around it (making for the biggest, juiciest strawberries around!!

Our Green-house has been a phenomenal success! The growth rate of the seedlings is mind boggling and they are all strong and healthy! We had planted heaps of sunflowers, too many for our wee school so the boys decided (with Mrs Young's permission of course) to plant some plants out round the community. By the Opua Car ferry they planted flower and vege seedlings and down the road from the school along the bank they have planted some sunflowers and beans. It feels nice to share with the community.