HOLY NAME SCHOOL GARDEN NEWS

Hello everyone and welcome to the HNS garden.

With the emergence of winter crops, including dwarf beans and dwarf sugar snap peas, there has been much cause for happiness, excitement, interest, curiosity and physical activity in the garden. 

This germination stage of seeds has also instigated the garden chore of threading string through garden stakes, from one end of a garden bed to the other end of a garden bed.  This will ensure that the bean and pea plants can entwine themselves around the string and climb, growing tall and strong as they reach for the warm sunlight to produce a bountiful harvest.  Their growth is monitored daily, under the watchful eyes of the HNS “Garden Curators”.

Collecting nasturtium seeds is always a great treasure hunt. The students are very excited to take the seeds home with them to plant in their own gardens, knowing that once they plant one seed, they will always have these plants.

The students constantly search for snails and other garden bugs, even in the compost bins. This activity creates a wonderful social opportunity for many conversations with like-minded friends.

Planting lettuce seeds to stagger our crop of a fresh harvest for the Forster Community Kitchen has been a new and interesting activity for the students to participate in. 

The students are also improving their method of planting seedlings into a garden bed, especially how to dig a hole for them - not too deep, not too wide.  They are also learning how to gently place soil and mulch around a seedling - just like a cosy warm blanket. 

As it always is in our garden, the same questions are frequently asked concerning the plants - “How long before the plants will grow?”, “How long before they grow beans or peas?”, “How long before we can harvest them?”  and “Can we harvest something to take over to the Community Kitchen today?”  The garden is a great teacher of patience!

… And so it was when the students planted more silverbeet seedlings, just in time before the seedlings were watered with an afternoon shower of light rain. 

The students still enjoy distributing coffee grinds and eggshells around the plants so that they will grow to produce a bountiful harvest. Thank you for sending these into our garden. We all appreciate your concern shown for our garden.

When the sun is shining and warm, with no cold southerly wind blowing and the students are attending to their plants, the garden is especially peaceful and calm, echoing only tones of friendship and happy vibes. These are the days when the garden is an even more special place, where everyone and everything thrives in the stillness and beauty of its sanctuary.

Until we meet next time in the garden, stay warm and well, remembering “A garden is a friend you can visit anytime.”

Kind regards,

Mrs Jackie Amato

Learning Support Assistant/Garden Supervisor