Richard Higgins Blog

More progress in the Horticulture Block with construction started on our new SHADE HOUSE. This is a big step forward! For the last few years we have been out in the garden exposed to all of the elements. and to be honest it has been a bit hard to keep everything organized with no central, sheltered hub for our activity. This shade house will not only give us more space to work, with work benches and storage. But it will also let us start growing hundreds if not thousands of native trees.  I recently read that emissions from a medium sized car, 20,000 km per year will be offset by 18 native trees and shrubs by the time they reach 50! So as you can see there is much work to be done. I am really excited about all of the new and exciting opportunities that this build will offer our students and community. I also want to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU to Chris Serfontein and his year 12 & 13 Wood Work students who are in charge of this build. It is great to see departments working together...

Last week my esteemed colleague and friend Matua Dion and I travelled north from Kawakawa to Coopers Beach to attend a Permaculture Food Forest design course. Permaculture is a holistic way of looking at sustainability and design. It is very complicated and it is very simple. It is a way of gardening and it is a way of life. I became interested in Permaculture a few years ago it has been a very fulfilling and rewarding journey of learning, growing and making new friends, also eating lots of strawberries. In many ways a food forest is the ultimate in permaculture design, if you are wondering what a food forest is? It is a forest that is created to produce food, improve soil and create a more sustainable way of being. The course we went to on Friday gave us an insight about how to get started on the food forest journey. The morning was spent in the classroom learning some of the basics about the permaculture philosophy and the science behind the principles. The afternoon was spent gettin...

There has been many exciting things happening at Bay of Islands College this week, from Prefect Award ceremonies to Athletics Day. But while all the fuss and excitement was going on at the front of the school, out the back, in the Horticulture Block possibly the most exciting thing to ever happen HAPPENED! Our Level 1 Environmental Sustainability Management students took the first step in composting the green waste produced from the healthy lunches!  Why is this so exciting? Well for the last 3 years since I have been a teacher at Bay of Islands College I have been involved in different aspects of our waste management at school, from Paper Recycling and Rubbish Audits, Waste Free Galas and Action Plans. But no matter how hard we tried we it was hard to stop the rising tide of plastic waste that kept coming from the tuck shop. But in 2021 we have a new awesome initiative  to provide our students with fresh healthy kai every day. Now this is the exciting part! Every week our stu...

On Saturday I received a call from Whaea Annette asking me if her friend could drop a load of wood chips at the Horticulture Block, as you can see by the photo, the answer was a resounding YES! Wood chips come in handy in an organic garden as the have multiple uses. We have big plans for this load, the majority will be used for mulch and sheet mulching. Mulch is a protective layer of organic matter (wood chips) that you can put around the base of trees and shrubs. Mulch insulates and warms the soil, locks moisture in and adds nutrients, all the while suppressing weeds, AMAZING!! 🌲🌴 Sheet Mulching is the process of layering many layers of organic material (lawn clippings, cardboard, compost, manure, leaves....basically anything that has been alive!) You layer all this material on the ground where you want a garden, and then let nature do its thing. Over time everything will decompose and leave the soil rich and full of nutrients and micro-organisms.  We have never tried this in th...

Comfrey is the bees knees when it comes to organic fertilizer or as Noah put it "Its like steroids for plants". I read about this wonderous plant last year and brought some to grow in our garden to see if we could reap some of the organic goodness on offer! Comfrey is a 'Dynamic Accumulator' which means it sends its roots deep down into the ground and brings up all the nutrients from down below and stores them in its leaves.  Comfrey also has many medicinal properties and can be used to treat ailments such as sprains, burns, bruises and joint inflammation. I even read somewhere that it was used in medieval times to help with broken bones. Today our Level 2 Students Noah and Thomas took the first steps in making comfrey tea which we will use to boost our plant growth. Comfrey is  especially rich in potassium. Here is the recipe we used for Comfrey Tea. About 80 Comfrey Leaves ( broken up & put in a bucket ) Fill the bucket with water Wait 2 or so weeks ( you will k...

  Year 11 Environmental Sustainability Management students are currently working on the standard 'Design a Landscape Plan that reflects user requirements' We have chosen to redesign the Horticulture block. This kaupapa requires students to think carefully about this environment and landscape. Students will focus on the natural patterns that already exist, for example water flow, shade, light and seasonal change. We will find ways in which we can work in harmony with nature and maximise the production of healthy kai, reduce our waste, create places for learning and reflection as well as places of beauty and peace.  Today we discussed Annuals, Perennials and  Deciduous Trees.