Come Gardening with Potty Potters

Potty Potters is a local voluntary group enabling kids to learn gardening skills at Paekākāriki School. And they need your help!

Potty Potters is a group of volunteers who grow plants in the nursery at the back of Paekākāriki School. We have two big sales per year – the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend and Labour Day weekend. We can also be contacted throughout the year if you’re after some plants.

We raise money to fund the school’s gardening curriculum on Wednesdays that is led by Raima Kingi, as the children learn about Papatūānuku Rongoa Maori, growing and preparing food, composting, worm farms and so much more. We also fund the winter soup co-ordinator, who facilitates a weekly provision of buns and home-made soup to all tamariki.

At Matariki we gifted native trees that tamariki planted in the school ngahere/ forest and are funding a feijoa hedge and a citrus orchard in the teina playground.

We would welcome more volunteers, especially over the coming months as we prepare for our 26 October plant sale. No prior gardening experience is necessary though we welcome knowledgeable gardeners too. Many of our volunteers have no connection to the school and some are from outside the village. 

We would love some help with the following:

  • Casual or committed help on Friday mornings 9.30am – 12pm, either in the potting shed or in the nursery
  • Additional help when needed – on a Wednesday, at the weekend and the plant sales
  • Handyperson skills to help with our shade houses and other tasks  
  • Pots – we need small size pots and the ones we grow tomato and strawberry seedlings in
  • Have you got special plants in your garden that we could take cuttings or root stock from? Or maybe self-sown or potted seedlings we could have? We are especially looking for natives, perennials, ground covers, climbing plants, ferns, and houseplants, but we will consider anything.
  • If you can’t make it to the nursery but would like to do some potting up at home from your own garden for us, we can deliver plants, pots and potting mix and then collect what you have grown
The plant pots we need

 Contact: Sally Heppenstall | [email protected] | 0212390872

Join our Facebook page: Paekākāriki Potty Potters Garden Group

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