School Garden Planting

Today we had our fruit tree planting day and as a nice touch one of the teachers had brought some pansies to put around some of the older more established trees, we had our normal crew of year 4 kids in the Environmental group and also some older grade 6 helpers.

We were lucky in that its been pouring the past few days but the rain held off for pretty much the entire 2 hours we planted so here is what we put in the Orchard area:

1 x Royal Gala Apple Tree
1 x Golden Delicious Apple Tree
1 x Granny Smith Apple Tree
1 x Josephine Pear Tree
1 x Mariposa Plum Tree
1 x Satsuma Plum Tree
1 x Flavourcrest Peach Tree
1 x Preston Prolific Fig

We also planted in another area as feature trees;

1 x Moorpark Apricot
1 x Hick Fancy Red Mulberry

The soil was shocking, just pure clay probably pushed over to the site from building works years prior, so the school brought in a soil compost mix which we added to the soil. We staked with wooden stakes and stabilised the trees wit hot pink string, then raked over and added straw to the base of the trees

I have also included some pictures of the school veggie garden, it's looking awesome, some plant's I donated and notice they are growing so much better than my own in my veggie garden planted at pretty much the same time! Just that collective green gardening thumbs of the kids and their spirit that goes into gardening and planting I am sure makes them grow better.

They are using no chemicals on the garden so they are pretty much organic and just look incredibly healthy, so please enjoy I have loved working with this garden and hope we can continue to add more sustainable trees and area's for the kids to enjoy being around nature. :)

Winter 2012

I have been very remiss in updating my blog of late but very busy at my massage work, my Philosophy Course, book clubs and attending children's sports! I am also advising my sons Primary School - just as a help to the 2 teachers that run it on Environmental Studies. We have planted out the School veggie garden too with donations from many, although I do note the plants I donated are doing so much better tin the school garden than my own - I feel from community spirit of the children attending to the gardens! We have started a Worm farm from old re used boxes and started a compost and its all coming along well but tomorrow we plant a whole Orchard with 10 fruit trees, if the school allows I shall do a blog page on that also. Also been spending a lot of much deserved time in the garden, and loving it! We have 5 new veggie beds which we made with left over bricks that were stored in the paddock and wooden beams. They are all planted out we were able to fill with compost from the compost beds and only one sat a little low until a friend came over unasked and kindly gave us 6 bags of rotten down bunny poo that had turned into the most delicious compost!

So now all the veggie beds are fully planted out and we are growing this Winter: Rocket, Kale, Pak Choy, Bok Choy, Garlic, Potato's, Spinach, Carrots, Broad Beans, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Potato Onions, Snow Pea's and Red Onions. I may have missed a few things!

I have also added a Mulberry tree to the Orchard today, cannot wait to get some tasty berries, hoping I have planted far enough away from the washing line for those pesky birds that may decide to taste!

Will begin planting seeds in the glasshouses soon,you may remember we were planting in polystyrene boxes with glass sheets over the top. I stored these right next to my chicken run and apparently polystyrene is like chocolate to chickens as they have eaten the entire side to the box!

On that note 2 chickens are laying this year - YAY as we have had to buy eggs for months now, glad they are earning their keep again!

Thank you for reading hope you enjoy the pictures. :)