Carrots, Strawberries and More

This is what we do at gardening group in Papatoetoe Central School. Gardening takes place in Room 18 or in the garden at break 1 or 2. The teacher is Miss Rands-Trevor. We plant strawberries, silver beet, potatoes, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, lettuce, snow peas, lettuce and much more.

We planted carrot and snow peas seeds last term. Firstly, we dig a hole the size of your pinky and then we put the seeds in the holes and we cover the seeds with the soil. We water the seeds with the hose and we wait for them to grow. When they have grown, we can take some of the fruit or vegetables home.

We pull out the weeds so they don’t affect the plants or damage them. We also plant flowers in the beautiful garden to bring the bees. When we get to the garden we rake the leaves out of the way. Everyone in the group has journals to record what we do and we have lists of things that we could plant and when.

So that is what we do at gardening. I like gardening because we get to take the fruit or vegetables home. Danica enjoys gardening because it’s really fun to plant some seeds. Gaylene loves finding and tasting the red, ripe strawberries when we go down to the garden.

By Joanna L, Danica C and Gaylene E.

Recycling in Auckland City

Auckland City Council have just started a new campaign to help residents learn how to recycle properly. They have enlisted the help of a computer animation team to create a series of ads around the correct way to recycle.
Plastic and Tin Can are the stars of the Council's new "Make the Most of Waste"  animated characters who make their debt in "Intruder". Plastic and Tin Can plan to help you recycle right and teach us what can and can't go in our recycle bins.
The Council aim to educate people about waste in order to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfills each year.  They have the aspirational goal of having Auckland waste free by 2040. The Council claim that of the 160kgs of waste each household on average sends to landfill each year 65% of it could have been avoided or recycled and put to better use.

It is really great to see the Council thinking outside the box to find ways to engage the community in taking responsibility for our environment. These cute and likeable animated characters are sure to be a marketing hit for the local government and a positive for the environment, too.

Auckland Council has an aspirational goal of zero waste by 2040. That means by recycling, composting food waste, re-using items and preventing waste in the first place, we'll be on target to send as little as possible to landfill. This will save valuable raw resources and energy, and help us achieve our goal of making Auckland the world's most liveable city.
We're heading in the right direction – but we can still do more. The average Auckland household sends about 160kg of rubbish to landfill every year. Of this, 65 per cent could have been avoided or put to better use. That's a waste of good waste, right?
The Waste Management and Minimisation Plan is our first region-wide plan for tackling waste. It's a blueprint for reducing the amount of waste we send to landfills. While the plan's vision is zero waste by 2040, it also includes three key medium term targets:

• reduce domestic kerbside rubbish (per person, per year) to landfill by 30 per cent by 2018
• reduce total waste to landfill (per person, per year) to landfill by 30 per cent by 2027
• reduce council's in-house waste by 30 per cent by 2018.

- See more at: http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/environmentwaste/rubbishrecycling/Pages/ourmission.html#sthash.It8n2XLp.dpuf

Auckland Council has an aspirational goal of zero waste by 2040. That means by recycling, composting food waste, re-using items and preventing waste in the first place, we'll be on target to send as little as possible to landfill. This will save valuable raw resources and energy, and help us achieve our goal of making Auckland the world's most liveable city.
We're heading in the right direction – but we can still do more. The average Auckland household sends about 160kg of rubbish to landfill every year. Of this, 65 per cent could have been avoided or put to better use. That's a waste of good waste, right?
The Waste Management and Minimisation Plan is our first region-wide plan for tackling waste. It's a blueprint for reducing the amount of waste we send to landfills. While the plan's vision is zero waste by 2040, it also includes three key medium term targets:

• reduce domestic kerbside rubbish (per person, per year) to landfill by 30 per cent by 2018
• reduce total waste to landfill (per person, per year) to landfill by 30 per cent by 2027
• reduce council's in-house waste by 30 per cent by 2018.

- See more at: http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/environmentwaste/rubbishrecycling/Pages/ourmission.html#sthash.It8n2XLp.dpuf

Auckland Council has an aspirational goal of zero waste by 2040. That means by recycling, composting food waste, re-using items and preventing waste in the first place, we'll be on target to send as little as possible to landfill. This will save valuable raw resources and energy, and help us achieve our goal of making Auckland the world's most liveable city.
We're heading in the right direction – but we can still do more. The average Auckland household sends about 160kg of rubbish to landfill every year. Of this, 65 per cent could have been avoided or put to better use. That's a waste of good waste, right?
The Waste Management and Minimisation Plan is our first region-wide plan for tackling waste. It's a blueprint for reducing the amount of waste we send to landfills. While the plan's vision is zero waste by 2040, it also includes three key medium term targets:

• reduce domestic kerbside rubbish (per person, per year) to landfill by 30 per cent by 2018
• reduce total waste to landfill (per person, per year) to landfill by 30 per cent by 2027
• reduce council's in-house waste by 30 per cent by 2018.

- See more at: http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/environmentwaste/rubbishrecycling/Pages/ourmission.html#sthash.It8n2XLp.dpuf

Spring

It was quiet in the garden last week. We were mainly weeding the gardens and pulling out silverbeet plants. We are going to plant many spring plants, including oregano, capsicum, radicchio, squash and cabbage as well as marigold, phlox and celosia flowers. Our potatoes are growing well and are already quite tall.

Amber V.

News from the Gardening Group

In the garden over the holiday, all of the plants have grown huge. Our spinach is nearly as tall as me! We had to spend some time clearing up and pulling out the plants which were finished. We filled a whole bin really fast.
We’ve taken a lot of vegetables home last term like spinach, silver beet, capsicum, lettuce, bok choy, spring onions, butter beans and sugar snap peas. After cleaning up the garden, we took home cauliflower, celery, lettuce and carrots. I took the largest one. I didn’t even know carrots grew that big! We still have spring onions, celery and spinach to harvest, too. You should eat 5+ a day to stay healthy.
Now the garden has some space, Mr Deed is going to show us how to plant and care for strawberries. Strawberries are so yum. Soon, we are also going to be planting some potatoes. We are going to stack the potatoes high up.
You should join the Gardening group. It is really fun and it’s the only time to get dirty and messy at breaks.  You get a Gardening Journal to colour things in and keep track of what you have grown, what you have harvested and what else you could to grow.

Stay healthy and be healthy,
Nandani Kumar, Year 4

Harvest!

Well we have had some fun in the garden lately! After the holiday our garden had grown so much! We have been enjoying cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, bok choy, spinach, silverbeet and radishes for the last few weeks.
Some of our gardeners made this info page for you to read about our radishes. I absolutely love to see the kids so into their veggies and being so proud of their very own garden.

The PCS gardeners have also been busy planting as once the cabbage and cauliflowers were harvested our garden suddenly looked very bare! The kids really love seeing these tiny seedlings grow into beautiful plants which they are able to take home and share with their families.

Water- Our Precious Resource

When it comes to saving water, a little change in lifestyle can make a big impact.

Tips for Saving Water in the Home:

• Turn the tap off after you wet your toothbrush
• Rinse your razor in the sink rather than the running tap
• When washing dishes by hand, fill a sink rather than letting the tap run
• Take showers instead of bath (and even takes shorter showers!)
• Only run the dishwasher and washing machine when they are full
• Run a sink to rinse vegetables instead of leaving the tap on.

Tips for Saving Water in the Garden:

• Keep an eye out for leaky taps- including hoses and pipes
• When the kids want to cool off, run the sprinkler on a dry patch of lawn
• Avoid outdoor water toys that require constant water flow
• Use an outside broom to sweep the yard or patio instead of the hose
• Water dry spots by hand instead of running a sprinkler system
• Leave the lawn clippings on the grass to keep moisture in and the ground cooler

There's a a great website called Water Use it Wisely full of practical ideas on how to be more water aware.
http://wateruseitwisely.com/100-ways-to-conserve/

Lovely Lettuce

More ideas from the Gardening Group. This time Amber Le and Jenny have used the iPads to tell us all about gourmet lettuce.

Thanks, girls! We are going to pick some of these lovely lettuces when we head out to the garden tomorrow afternoon.