It seems hard to believe that it is nearly a year since The Growing Unit was opened at Tamaki Primary School and the first seedlings were put into their little bags to be looked after by a group of children until they were ready to be planted out in their permanent positions.
Now that day had come so off we went in a bus: two teachers, several mothers, two Rotarians and a group of very excited and thus noisy children to a farm in Clevedon, an Auckland Council chosen site. There we were joined by a group from Accor Hotels, some of the boys who had helped with the plumbing work of The Unit at the school and an advisor from the Council...
After morning tea and a safety talk and dressed in gumboots it was down the hill to the planting site. It was quite a steep hill and so very very wet and muddy with a stream at the bottom. It did occur to me that we would very soon have a few wet and dirty children but they were very careful and although their gumboots were quite muddy as were the bottoms of their pants there was only one person who had obviously sat in an inappropriate place and that person was not a child! I did catch one boy trying to make the water go over the top of his gumboots without actually going in the stream (which was forbidden) but he gave up the challenge before it happened.
Everyone worked hard enjoying the beautiful surroundings on a gorgeous day. Approximately 600 trees were planted in record time, 253 of those were from Tamaki School.
The farmer, his wife and helpers looked after us really well providing lunch and morning tea, a chair for those of us who were struggling a bit, a walking stick (well actually a length of polyethylene pipe but it worked) and later a ride back up the hill on a quad bike! I had thought that the bus would be quieter going back to school but I have to report that it was definitely not!
In the meantime the Growing Unit remains empty while we wait for the next lot of seedlings to arrive and for the experienced children to teach some new ones how to look after little trees.
