Our Tui Garden Challenge

Three months ago we started out with a back filled school pool  and a vision of creating "an edible impressionist garden that will explode with colour and flavour! By teaming a range of edible flowers that will  self seed and spread throughout our garden over time, with seasonal vegetables rotating through the seasons, and a hope to gradually add more young fruit trees."

Today signalled the close of Tui's School Garden Challenge, and we are amazed that 3 months has flown by. Have a look at our blogs below and view our video of what we got up to today in our Garden. WE think we have definitely achieved what we set out to...and much much more!

The journey is by no means over, and we hope that you will keep following our progress as we work toward the following:

• publish our "Warrior Garden Journey's" and place copies in our school library
• prepare seedlings and produce for the Monster market in November
• host our inaugural Giant Pumpkin Contest next year
• hatch a plan for developing an "a-mazing orchard" during autumn 2013

Appreciating our Teachers

 

Today was International Teacher Appreciation Day

...so we thought what better way to celebrate the last day of the Tui Garden Challenge
...than buy serving our Teachers a lunch that show cases our produce!

 From this huge bin of parsley, coriander, celery and spinach...

 ..a magazine worthy luncheon spread (actually our recipes were adapted from the current Cuisine Magazine): pita pockets (currently in the oven in this picture) to fill with felafel's bursting with coriander, topped with quinoa tabbouleh and shredded spinach, all smothered in our minty lemon yogurt sauce...a visual feast!

 Our spinach salad generously sprinkled with calendula petals...

 This Qunioa tabbouleh was a HUGE hit with everyone, as were our tasting platters with rocket & parsley pesto...

 Garden Warriors donned aprons & were stationed on "meet & greet"duty at the Garden gate...

 ...& positioned ready to serve their remaining Ginger beer, a rough yeasty brew that assaulted the pallet!

 Once our teachers had served themselves, our Warriors moved in keen to let their pallets explore the visually appealing array of green freshness...

 ...nothing was left unsampled

...with 2nd's and 3rd's being the rigour. Once the pita's and felafel's were devoured, Spinach leaves were plucked to wrap up every last remaining morsel.

This fresh green self service buffet, seems to strongly suggest that a "make your own sandwich bar" could be a very popular lunch time initiative?

The Last Day is upon us...

...& this means we are overdue to thank our sponsors, and meet some of the Warriors who have made it all possible...

 There really would be no garden with out this Warrior.

 

Every day without fail our Head Engineer would be one of the first through the gate, bringing with him a practical, and problem solving maturity quite beyond his years. This Warrior would always find him self a task, and set about figuring out how to execute it. Our Garden Facilitator has been quite astounded by his ability to manage a site, and has proudly watched his people & leadership skills develop extensively.

 These two Warriors have provided the muscle behind several of our garden projects, always willing to lend a hand. They have provided a lot of inspiration to our younger Warriors through their ability to immerse themselves in their tasks, and lead by example.

 Two more of our loveliest Warriors, who have turned up every day these last 3 months, providing leadership and kind encouragement too our younger Warriors. It has been a pleasure to have them on hand during our VERY busy garden sessions, knowing they could offer assistance where it was needed. With at least 40 Warriors turning up to most lunch sessions we couldn't have achieved what have with out the emergence of role models like these two.

 The journey of this beautiful Warrior in our Garden has made ti all wroth while. It has been a privilege to observe the personal growth this Warrior has achieved in the Garden. Every opportunity was embraced and explored thoroughly. Many of our Warriors have simply enjoyed having the opportunity to show case, & develop new skills, and work alongside their peers in a different setting.

 This year 2 Warrior is someone to watch... a regular at our garden sessions, we have been stunned by her maturity and natural leadership skills...in 20 years time we are going to be able to say, "hey, I went to school with her"...

 Meet one of our quieter Warriors, who has put a lot of background effort into the Garden. Single handily he has managed to recruit most of the boys in his class, and always gotten stuck into many of our building projects. There is a wise head on these shoulders, that has gained an impressive understanding of what motivates others.

Another of our "First through the gate" Warriors who has immersed himself in his tasks, and gained new respect form his peers through his hard work ethic

 This wee Warrior is proof that treasure can be found at the bottom of the garden...blossoming into another natural leader.

WE have all had a magical journey creating a garden for the Tui School Garden Challenge, and none of it could have taken place with out the kind & generous assistance of the following sponsors:

• Cory's Electrical: $300 Mitre 10 voucher
• Allwiredup Automation & Electrical: $300 (seedlings/fertilisers/seeds/plants etc)
• Westport North School PTA: $120 of compost mix
• NZ bulbs: $80 donation from purchases
• Avery's: our culvert towers
• Holcim & Paper 4 Trees
• Westreef: culvert off cuts & compost mix, dump access
• Awapuni Nurseries: extra generous bundle sizes
• Kings Seeds: complimentaryseeds & a discount of 20%
• Westport Mitre 10: hosting our Tui docket bucket & donating TLC plants
• Westflora Nursery: allowing us to pick your lemons
• Westport New World for all the polystyrene fish bins
• Our Principal & Deputy for seeds & lemons
• The Westport News: buy 5 get 1 free newspaper bundle deal
• Ferrier Family: weekly donations of miscellaneous consumables & sharing their mum
• McLaughlin Family: bags of sheep poop & lending their mum
• Smith Edge Family: for lending out their mum
• Moss-Roberts Family: for also lending us their mum
• Tui for starting us off on this amazing journey

A huge THANK YOU from the bottom of each and EVERY Garden Warrior's heart!

Creating Garden "BLING"...

 Today in our lunch Garden session our ever creative Garden Warriors let their creativity run amok in the creation of "Garden Bling!"

 

We intend to add these bling labels to tin cans of basil and coriander, they will be on sale at the Monster Market in November so reserve yours now as they are rather irresistible!

 

What kitchen window sill would not be enhanced by a tin of our BLING labelled herbs?

 The Garden Warriors have really embraced our Garden Art Days and completely engross themselves in their tasks.

 

We used bike spokes kindly donated and collected for us by Pete at Toyworld & Sports, copper wire off cuts kindly donated by MR Allwiredup, and assorted buttons from our lovely ladies at the Sallies, and assorted beads, Christmas cracker novelties & other miscellaneous junk up cycled from the bedroom floor of a couple of our Garden Warriors...

 Magpie bling was threaded on the copper wire and then hooked onto the tin can lids...

 Tin can lids were then attached to the "shepherds Hooks" we made from the bike spokes...total budget $0.00!

 Garden "Bling" sprouted up all over our garden...

Even our carrots got "blinged"!

3 Days to go...

 The count down is on, with still much to do in our Garden!

 

Today we had Garden Warriors scattered about the Garden on various missions, the cable drum planters received the colour treatment by this trio...

...planting tomorrow weather permitting?

 Our Arty Warriors made a start on up cycling our rescued sign...

 There will be a nice surprise to greet the Warriors on their next visit to the Garden.

 Lego Man lost his head over weeding...

 

Our Garden Facilitator has requested some "compostbots" strategically placed around her garden as this headless weeding business is fantastic,! You just pour all the weeds down "red lane" as you replace their head! So much more fun...No body even notices they are weeding!

 One of our most loyal Garden Warriors didn't mind getting himself into a corner and further Whetu te Weka proofing with the fridge shelving we "repurposed"

 These hardy Garden Warriors were fantastic and planted lots of marjoram to go wild and fill in the gaps!

Our Garden Facilitator was VERY impressed with how this crew worked unsupervised and stayed on task so cheerfully and productively...well done!

 Our chamomile tufts were happy to receive the weeding treatment from these cheerful Garden Warriors

 Plating, weaving and macrame skills were developed on this sculptural pea frame. Everyone enjoyed threading bottle lids at will.

Rumour has it that the bean frame across the way, got the "Christmas tree" treatment...

All in all a VERY productive afternoon in the Garden with our Garden Warriors, it was a pleasure having them for a whole afternoon as part of the Whole School "Move it Groove it" elective.

NO prisoners were taken in the creation of our Garden!

Room 10's afternoon garden visit

 Here is Room 10 visiting our garden, they have been great supporters of our Garden project. Everyday they collect all their apple cores, banana skins, paper, orange skin, pear cores, and sandwich crusts in a HUGE bucket to feed to Darth Vader & Lego man!

 This is Caleb showing us how to plant little baby seedlings: dig a little hole, then carefully place our plant, bury and water it!

These boys from Room 10 and 11 had a fantastic time planting out all the Rabi Kobi seedlings, we can't wait for them to grow so we can EAT them!
Well done room 10 & thank you for writing our blog today, it has been lots of fun!

Warriors launch Giant Pumpkin Competition



 This week our Garden Warriors launched our inaugural "Giant Pumpkin Competition"!

 

Can anyone recognise which Garden Warriors these two pumpkin cuties have grown into?

Our "Garden Facilitator" was rather delighted to find these in her archives, complete with subtly placed "Tui" bags as well!

Over the long weekend two of our most faithful Warrior Families prepared 16 Pumpkin Contest invitations, complete wtih seeds and growing tips.

 

A HUGE thank you goes out to Decor Greenworld in Tauranga, for generously sharing their magic seeds with us.

 

We have sent out invites with seeds to all the primary and preschools in the region. We have also sent some special invites to our local Rest home residents, Garden Centre, Mitre 10 and a couple of other local businesses.

 

It is our aim to create an "Event" to introduce our wider community to the magic that has been created in our Westport North School Garden. We are hoping for a bit of a Pumpkin themed Twilight Gala at the end of Term 1. Hot pumpkin soup will be on offer, as will toasted pumpkin seeds and other garden delights! WE endeavour to gain some sponsorship for prizes for the Largest, ugliest, best dressed, heaviest and smallest pumpkins...so keep logging into our blog for pumpkin progress reports!

 

Our Warrior's planted their special seeds on Friday... and now we need to put a few more seaweedy, composty initiatives into place, ready to feed our pumpkins! Our local nursery assures us they have just the right top secret fertiliser mix to be major players... we are however,not discounting the collective centuries of Gardening Experience our lovely Rest home Residents can bring to the competition!

A busy Friday with the Warriors

 Our Garden Warriors made the front page of "The Westport News" last week, putting in a plug for Westport North School's Monster Market in November. The Warriors are going to have a wonderful stand of assorted vegetable and flower seedlings on sale.

The North School Media Team also paid a visit to our Garden on Friday, putting together a report on the Warrior's efforts for their radio broadcast on Wednesday...be sure to tune in!

 It was business as usual this lunch time session, with Lego Policeman benefiting from Room 10's scrummy scraps!

Room 10 also made a special visit to the garden this afternoon, lets see if they can write us a blog tomorrow, sharing their experience?

 I want one of these flip top heads...soo much easier! & quicker

 A bunch of warriors got down and planted a spiral of spinach seedlings that they had raised from seeds...this garden is growing fantastically.

 

These Warriors discovered a wonderful amount of young worms  were moving in, and making the most of the addition of the mushroom compost. It is amazing to see this wonderful worm population having developed within a couple of months! The Force is strong with Mushroom Compost it seems Darth!

Another very enthusiastic bunch of Garden Warriors planted up a huge array of seeds ready for selling at the monster market.

Special pumpkin seeds were sown that contain the wonderful green pumpkin seeds for sprinkling on salads. Sunflowers with edible seeds were also sown as were a few gourds for a bit of artistic fun later in the term. A tray of lettuce seeds was planted, and coriander and basil too!

 

Now we just need the weather to settle down, October is whitebait mania in Westport, and usually means blustery winds, thunder storms, hail, fresh snow on the Mountains...basically all 4 season's in one day!

Eating seasonally with our Garden Warriors

Spring has encouraged an abundance of fresh produce in our Warrior Garden, so we thought we would share some recipe ideas ...in the hope that we will see you at our "open garden" afternoon this Friday, ready to purchase some of our bundles of tasty freshness!

We have rocket growing amidst our spinach, this mildly spicy little green is great mixed into your salad for an extra kick, or we highly recommend adding a few handfuls to our Parsley Pesto recipe (see our September Pesto Blog), we may even have some to sample as part of our open afternoon ...

 Our Rainbow Beet positively glows with colour, substitute it for spinach in a feta filo pie or lightly steam it, then arrange in artful wee dollops on a platter, & place under the grill briefly, sprinkled with grated Parmesan & roughly chopped pine nuts...delicious!

Mini feta filos make great lunch box additions and give a bit of "wow" factor presented as finger food at diner parties...and soo easy to whip up! Layer up 3 sheets of filo with olive oil, fold all 3 in half to produce 6 layers, brush quickly around your mini muffin pans with the same oil brush, cut the filo into 8 squares, push into aforementioned muffin pans. Quickly whisk together 2 eggs and half a block of feta crumbled, stir in lightly steamed & shredded beet or spinach. Place spoonfuls into filo lined mini muffin pans...cook at 180 C for 15 minutes!

I can smell them cooking...I think our Warriors need to try this next Wednesday when we have a WHOLE afternoon in the garden!

 Our Warriors will have bundles of "Herbal Salad Enhancers" on sale this Friday. Chop a handful of parsley and chives into your scrambled eggs, frittata or omelet this weekend for a flavour sensation.

Sprinkle your fresh salad or coleslaw with another handful... & don't hold back on the coriander if you're a Thai curry fan or nasi goreng nut!

With a few herbs in the garden and an egg, you'll always have a meal idea!

 Our Warriors have Calendula in bloom around the garden and violas underway, these hot splashes of colour not only keep our bees happy but look great sprinkled over salads & coleslaw ...they are also great for getting the Barbecue conversation flowing!

This beautiful rainbow mix of radish is quick and easy to grow, look out for them at our "garden open afternoon" this Friday as they will definitely be featuring in our "Herbal Salad Enhancer" packs!

You will need to get in quick as the Warriors have been gnawing on these the last few weeks...so feel free to pop them in lunch boxes & sprinkle liberally through salads & coleslaw (see our Warrior Coleslaw recipe in Septembers blogs)!

I think we URGENTLY need to get some more radish seeds in the ground to keep our Garden Warriors "Fired up"!

 

It looks like we are really going to have to hatch a plan for an out door Warrior Garden Kitchen this summer!

 

See you on Friday after school with your small change, the Warriors would love to show you around!

How does our Garden Grow...

Our 2 week school holiday break, really let us see just how much our garden was growing.

 Have a look at this quick video to see just what we have to eat in our garden and what we are looking forward to eating in the summer. There were many enquires made about when we would have lettuce ready to eat, it seems everyone can not wait to take home their salad gardens...

The sun is shining, the sun is shining...

 Indeed Mr Lego Compostbot, it was a very WET & blustery school holiday break!

 

 

 Despite this...Much had grown over the 2 week break & it was time to make the most of a sunny day...

 Weeds were our Garden Warriors main mission this lunch break, having sprouted up in every nook & cranny...

 Despite the threat of being engulfed by celery & cabbages our Garden Warriors set about their weed busting mission...

 Our Warriors are really enjoying working together & having their ideas both for the garden & how to tackle a task...listened to & actioned.

 WE seem to have a lot of self seeded puha coming up around our garden...we need an old coal range installed so we can have a "boil up!"...lets see what we can do over the summer...

 No stone was left un-turned by our weeding Warriors...

 Some of our lovely Warriors came up with a cunning plan to hide pea seeds under fizzy bottles cut in half...Whetu Te Weka really has developed a liking for sweet juicy pea shoots...

 These Garden Warriors are trialing bean seeds protected by bottomless tin cans...in the hope that Whetu Te Weka dosent' discover them until they are big enough to fiend for themselves...

There was evidence everywhere of where our hardy Garden Warriors had been...

 Time to reward all our hard work with a refreshing Warrior Ginger beer...

 There she blows...2 weeks under pressure will do that to you!

A toast to our wonderful Garden Warriors...another job well done!