Garden herbs used on Pi Day
Great to see our herbs being used more in Sodexo events! Check out the mint, lemon balm and basil used in the pie day recipes!
Cleaning Up and Replanting
This week with our new group of Incredible Edible-ers we decided the aeroponic needed a big cleanout. The students worked together to empty it and got their hand’s dirty scrubbing the debris.
Death by root rot – Learning from the aeroponics
This week we cleaned up the aeroponics, cutting back and removing dead leaves and updating the nutrient levels.
We were talking and learning more about root problems. With the aeroponic technology, we are lucky to see the roots as they grow, it gives us a great opportunity to learn about how to further care for sick plants.
Root rot occurs when the roots are too saturated in water and bacteria develops in the damp area, rot spreads, slowly killing the roots that water our plants. It was too late to save our purple basil plant but with a little TLC, we are now monitoring and cleaning up the roots of other plants. Check out our lemon balm that made a come back after its roots were struggling!
In the future we need to check on the roots of our plants every so often, just to cut back some of the harmful areas to ensure plentiful growth and survival!
Basil – Death by root rot
Before and after cleaning up the root system
Root Rot Symptoms:
Dying plants, Creeping black stems, Leaf Wilt, little plant growth, pale leaves
The rotting roots look very dark, fragile and mushy. The healthy roots are white or light green and stronger
How to fix it
- Pulling out the plant
- Using your hands, pulling out or cut out the dark mushy roots.
- Optional – Soap and rinsing the roots with gentle soap water
- If in a pot, change the soil completely or improve the drainage.
3 weeks of aeroponic growth : Update
About three weeks ago our aeroponic tower was installed with small shoots of veggies such as Pak Choy, Thai basil and even eggplant! Three weeks on and it’s just about overgrown. The rate at which these vegetables are growing is faster than we’ve ever seen on campus, clearly, this new technology creates an environment of nutrients, minerals and hydration that accelerates its growth.
Below is a side by side comparison to see this incredible growth.
Growing on the aeroponic is the following,
Dwarf Tomatoes, Red Giant Mustard, Nufar Basil, Black Leaf Pak Choy, Rocket, Marigold Tangerine Gem, Kyoto Minuza, Orange Mint, Dark Opal Basil, Mulato Chili, Tuscan Kale, Baby Eggplant, Chinese Capsicum, Leaf Lettuce Thai Basil, Mustard Greens, Ulam Raja, Lemon Balm and Butterhead Lettuce.
Let us know if you’d like to take some home or if you have any recipes you’d recommend!
Happy plants
Thanks to the person who added a smile to our aubergine plant in the hydroponics tower last week. Spreading joy through nature!
I never knew!
Tenisha 9AFi
During Incredible edible I learned about the composting process in our school as I took part in it one session, before this service I never knew how our school discarded excess leaves or plant based waste. Another thing I learnt was about weeding and how to differentiate plants from weeds. I really enjoyed this service and it was very fun to take part in.
Pure outdoors
Hanseol Kang (9FYA)
I had some enjoyable moments such as cutting down trees, watering plants and much more.
Well, now I know how to distinguish weeds from plants, some amazing techniques to cut down banana trees and a lot of different ways to water plants.
Not through coursework or anything. From pure outdoor experience.
P.s. cutting down trees was such a fun experience.
Always Fun!
Seoyeon Lauren Kim, Grade 10 Ava, FIB.:
As the first service since I came to this school, Incredible Edible was a very rewarding experience to me. I have learned many new things and skills not only about gardening and plants, but also have I learned many things about teamwork. Particularly I have experienced how important teamwork is as I could rely on our team. In many situations we didn’t know how to do certain tasks, but we always managed to find it out together. I certainly enjoyed going to our small garden at the transition between the maths block and the high school building every Thursday and to occasionally chop off a papaya tree, distinguish between weeds and plants and to clear the composts etc. Learning about new plants, how to garden new plants and how to take care of them was always fun and ‘incredible’! The few ‘edible’ treats, like the tea made of butterfly pea flowers that we picked ourselves, was very nice and refreshing to drink.
Deeper connections
Tsz Kei MOK Jasmine ,10HXi :
This is the first service I had at this UWC, Incredible Edible is truly an experience. It was an experience not many people could experience. We would gather after school, go down to the garden and start gardening. We learnt about how to distinguish different plants. We even used things we grew like Butterfly Pea flower to make a drink out of it. We don’t only grow plants to consume it, we grow them for the environment. Furthermore, I didn’t only learn about how plants grew, I learnt about teamwork and I developed friendships, made deeper connections with my fellow schoolmates. It is a lifetime experience to cut down a banana tree or just see plants grow in front of my eyes. I took away more than I expect from this service, and I would love to continue to learn after this experience.
Nature’s cycle
Yasheng Jiang(10HXi): This service is called “ Incredible Edible”. It is really incredible that we did so many things on the campus such as cutting down the banana tree and papaya tree, weeding the plants and composting the dead parts of the plant. There is a cycle in nature. When the plant is alive, it provides us with fruits and beauty. After it dies, it can give us natural fertilizer which is good for the plants’ health. The most unforgettable part is cutting down the banana tree and papaya tree. When we cut the banana tree. Everyone in the team cooperated with each other and successfully cut down most part of the banana tree. We didn’t know what to do at first, but we discussed it as a group and finally came out with an efficient way to cut down the tree. The second time, we dealt with the papaya tree. At that time, I knew that there is white milky liquid in the papayas. Although it looked a little bit weird of the liquid dripping on myself, I didn’t mind that. At last, I climbed up and picked the papayas down. The tree was put into the bin.