Gardens@Home

Welcome to 2018

Week 5:

Today we painted a heap of plastic milk bottles and juice bottles with undercoat so when we paint the designs on them, the paint will stick better. We are going to make a bottle garden on the fence outside the office. 

We also went on an insect hunt, looking for the good and bad insects in the garden. 

Holiday challenges:

We have a couple of holiday tasks to keep students busy in the holidays

Gardens@Home Holiday Challenge

To make a collection of as many different types of seeds as you can. It is a good idea to store them in a shoe box so they don’t get damaged.

Whenever you go out and about maybe for a walk in the neighbourhood or when you are on holiday keep your eyes open for different seeds and add them to your collection.

Next term we’ll have a look at them and discuss the different ways seeds spread themselves in the environment.

We will also  make a collage artwork out of our collection.

Also An Insect study: Called Whats My Bug. YOU all have a copy of this in your Eco Action Books.

Week 3

Today we Started to look at the Science Behind Gardening Link We talked about photo synthesis and how gardeners have to act like scientists when growing a good garden.

Reminder 

Can all students remember to collect 2-3 litre plastic containers please and bring them along to Room 20 for storage. We will be making a bottle garden for the area outside the office to brighten it up.

Term 1 Week 2

Week 2 : Today we had a tour of the gardens at school to see what they were growing.  Everything is growing with abundance and many crops are ready for harvesting.

2017

Term 4 : This term the focus is getting on top of our gardens at home. This is  the time of the year that gardening is  most rewarding as the plants grow well.  Students have been keeping a diary of their gardens at home. (Please send in photographs for the blog of your wonderful gardens.) 

Braydens Veges

Brayden's Garden

Olivia's Garden is flourishing

Renee's new flower garden

Juliette and Amelie' sGarden

Isabella's garden

Rosies New Garden :  At Rosie's house they have been building new raised garden beds. Have a look to see the process  Coming Still Not able to make link. Mrs D is problem solving

Growth Experiments:   Over the five weeks of term 4 we are conducting growth experiments on radishes to see the effect of sunlight on plant growth.

Growth  Experiments:

Plants need  __water_______,  ___ sunlight______, ___nutrients_____and air__ to grow.

We have noticed that sometimes seedlings get very elongated stems when they grow.

Why is this?

Aim: To experiment how plant growth is affected by sunlight.

We are going to grow plants in 3 different light conditions. Full Sun, Filtered Light. Darkness (Covered )

(In the Full sun we are going to also have one covered and one uncovered box.)

Hypothesis: I think that the samples will grow at different rates.

The sample in the dark will …….

The sample in the filtered light will…..

The sample in the full sunlight will….

The sample that is uncovered in the sunlight ….

Materials:

Radish Seeds

Plant boxes (Covers)

Vegetable potting Mix

Water

Method:

1. Put  vegetable potting mix into plant boxes.
2. Plant seeds : use a ruler to make a line in the soil 5-6 mm deep
3. Put seeds into the channel 1cm apart
4. Gently cover up seeds with the soil
5. Water seeds( check daily)
6. Put them 1. Under the table. 2. On the bench. 3 and 4 outside.
7. Observe  5 days, 12 days, 19 days

Results

Sample	Observation 1  5 days	Observation 2   12 days	Observation 3   19 days
Dark covered	Germination complete Stems 2-4 cm long 2 Yellow/ green leaves Stems mostly straight	Gemination complete Stems 5-7 cm long 2 Yellow/ green leaves Stems elongated and bendy	Gemmination complete Stems 9-11 cm long 2 Yellow/ green leaves Stems elongated and bendy
Filtered light covered	Germination complete Stems 3-5 cm long 2 green leaves Stems vary between straight and bent	Germination complete Stems 5-9 cm long 2 green leaves Stems vary between straight and bent	Germination complete Stems 9-13 cm long 2 green leaves Stems vary between straight and bent
Full sunlight covered	Germination incomplete 2 sprouted Stems 1 cm A little green	Germination incomplete no living plants	Germination incomplete no living plants Seeds did not germinate
Full sunlight  uncovered	Germination complete Stems 1 cm 2 green leaves Stems straight	Germination complete Stems 2-5 cm 2 green leaves Stems straight Red  tinges near roots on some	Germination complete Stems 4-8 4 green leaves Stems straight Red tinges near roots on most

Conclusion:

What do you think has happened?

Which plants grew the best and why?

What does this mean to us as gardeners?

What happened to the seeds in the full sun and covered?

5Days

                                           dark           filtered         full sun         full sun

                                     clear cover   clear cover    Clear cover    No cover

12 days

                                          dark            filtered         full sun        full sun

                                     clear cover   clear cover    Clear cover    No cover

      

19 Days

                                              dark                 filtered                  full sun

                                           clear cover          clear cover         No cover

      

Term 3:   We also Visited Oderings Garden centre where we had a tour of the various glass houses and observed the process by which seeds are planted and raised ready for sale. We had a go at planting some seedlings out and were able to take home a tray for our gardens at home.

 Term 3 started with the group constructing the gardens for school. The students were in groups and they proceeded through the design process to develop garden spaces around the school.  Final designs that were accepted were a pallet garden positioned outside  Rm 16 and17 and bottle garden on the fence outside the office area. Both are flower gardens and flourishing.

Term 2 week 6:   Today we visited Bo Smith on Huntsbury Ave.  Bo is a keen gardner and he makes all his own compost.  We learnt about how to hot compost and checked out how hot a compost heap can get using a thermometer.  He has a chipper to chop the weeds and other garden waste so it breaks down quicker.

Bo uses a shredder to chop the things
he puts in the compost smaller to make
it decompose faster.

The Worm farm. 

Thanks for letting us visit your garden
Bo and Teaching us about compost.

Week 5-7 
Where have  The weeks gone. Lately we have had a look at worms and researched about them. We have a worm house in Rm 15 where we are observing how worm mix the soil. WE have also bee designing our garden containers for around the school and will be presenting these to Mr C SHORTLY.
Rosie has made a great garden at home. Check out these photos.

Week 4
Seeds - This weeks task is to explore the neighbourhood for seeds and make a collection of different seeds. Think about how the seeds disperse themselves. Please Bring these along for next weeks lesson. Lets see if we can get as many different types of seeds as possible

Next week. We will also look at sprouting a bean seed to look at the process more closely.

We will also continue to designing our gardens.
This link  will take you to a site that shows what plants will grow in a Christchurch environment.
Week 3
Share your garden design with your family. Check and see if it is acheivable.
Week 1
Welcome to Gardens@Home.
Please contact Catherine Dalley if you have any expertise in the gardening field. My email is catherined@stmartins.school.nz

We have many fun learning experiences planned for the year but most importantly the goal of this programme is for the students to have a go at making their own garden at home. To enable this to happen and be successful the students will require a degree of supervision and encouragement at home to make sure they stay safe at all times as well as it being a rewarding experience. The students need access to garden space or containers to garden in.

In our first session we will be finding out what they know about gardening and what they want to learn throughout the year. We will also go over some safety aspects that they need to be aware of.

Please read over the information on Staying Safe in the Garden. This hand out will be in the students book. Please sign it when you have read it.

In summary
1. Check that your child is up to date with their Tetanus vaccinations.
2. Whenever working with compost it is advised that a mask and gloves are worn and the soil is damp to avoid air born particles.
3. Supervise your child when garden tools are being used and foot ware should always be worn in the garden. Gloves are advised.

Keep an eye on the blog as we will use this as a record of our programme and also a method of communication.

I am very excited to be going on this gardening journey with your child.  It seems a funny time of year to be starting a garden but there is much planning to be done and preparation for the growing season later in the year. The nurturing of plants can be a very rewarding experience and I hope to give the children life skills for many years to come.

Kiaora
Catherine Dalley