Hydroponics Feedback

I have just seen the photo in the blog spot newsletter. The plants look awesome and the children are to be congratulated on their effort and success.
I notice Ashley said the strawberries would die over winter in the hydroponics. This will only happen is the system is turned off.
That being the case new strawberry plants would need to be purchased and installed. Strawberries produce their best crop in the 2nd and 3rd year so by keeping the hydroponics going a bigger crop should be produced next season. The plant take up less nutrients in the winter months so would need less frequent attention.
I would be happy to come out and talk to the overseers of the project if the is what you would like.
They children have done a great job and they should be very proud of their success.

Best regards
John

Working Bee

On Friday the 19th of November we had our annual working bee. At the working bee we wanted to get achieved; turning over the playground bark, putting in the sink by the glass house, putting in the herb garden, making the frame for the shade house, doing up the P.E shed and last but not least separating the plastic bags into big and small and ripped and not ripped. We separated the plastic bags so we could use them at a later time for the new shade house.
Most of the time I was doing the herb garden with the herbalists. It started to look really cool except there weren't any plants yet. The reason we are doing the herb garden is so we can use the herbs in the kitchen for our Bon Apiti Healthy Lunch Programme, learn to propagate plants and to sell to the Apiti community.
I was also separating the bags for awhile.
Once I had finished that I helped dig over the playground. We were digging over the play ground so we would have nice soft ground for the new bark to go on. We were having a great time doing all the work. When I was working I had a look round and saw everyone doing their part to help.

PLANTING TIME

With the glass house in place it was time to set it up ready for growing.

Work

At the moment we are making the parts to put in the glass house. We have started putting it together in the glass house. Mr and Mrs Dearlove and Mr Sandford have been helping with this.

It's ready to go ...

We ordered our gullies and all of the equipment to set up our glasshouse. It was constructed in the school holidays and is ready to go.
Mr Sandford has been a great help. He has suggested that we set up two systems. It is a huge learning curve for us all!! We will get together on Thursday to finalise our plan and begin to put the systems into place.

Green house

We have contacted Manawatu Hydroponics.
They are going to send us a quote.
He said it will be best to have the luttuces on the sunny side and the capsicum and tomatoes on the not so sunny side. We are going to have a two piece gully.

Our design

It is going to be 12 feet long, 90cm wide and 3 levels high. For now we are just going to have it 1 level high but the wood will still be the same height.

On the first level there will be stawberries on one side and lettuces on the other side.