Horty Kim

Part of my work at Otago Polytechnic is putting together workshops for Occupational Therapy students so they can learn horticulture skills which they in turn can teach patients as a form of therapy.What is Occupational Therapy?

In the past the workshops introduced the OT students to basic horticulture skills which have included :propagation techniques , creating an edible garden at the art school , and bonsai for beginners. James Sunderland contacted me at the end of last year and, again , asked if I would be willing to lead some workshops in 2008 and could we look at integrating a sustainability theme.Sure! I said. So this year the workshops will look at :

Vegetable gardening

Over the last few years I have created a vege garden at our Polygrow Nursery where we grow a variety of veg all year round.We will use this space to prep, plant and grow our 2008 crops. It really is so satisfying when I see students take home a lettuce or a bag of silver beet and I want the OT students to enjoy the fruits of their labour in a similar way.

Activity:

Composting

Worm Farming

Propagation

What I would like to do is use my blog or wiki to create resources and activities to help introduce and back up the practical sessions.

Ok so I bought a motorbike today…I have been looking at a few bikes over the last few weeks; Marauders ,Intruders ,Viagras , Magmas but i have decided on a Rebel which I pick up tomorrow!

Did not do much on wiki today but i am looking forward to putting in some time tomorrow and doing a bit mo vid with DBG staff.

Leigh ,Peta and I have a meeting tomorrow at $(code) to discuss the ins and outs of the proposed permaeculture course which will kick off late Feb.

I did add some more vids to blip and archive for Botanic Nomenclature.Enjoy

Cool jewel aka hortykim ovah and out

PS I hope Sunshine joins my motorbike gang

I just read leigh’s comment and was relieved and warmed by his response : )the following is leigh’ response)

agreed Horty This is a team effort, and I enjoy hanging at your place getting stuff done. You have heaps of stuff at hand and its just faster with you passing me stuf to chuck in hey.. the thing I worry about just a tad is that come the end of the project you might not be pro and indy with the wiki, which might lead to the thing either going dead, or breaking down with broken links and inconsistent formatting… now, I do have faith in what you say, that you will continue to use the wiki in your own work, and that you will eventually learn wiki – just as you have come to master this blog.. but now’s the time to learn hey..

That said, we are flying through it nice and quick tho, so lets keep charging along like this and get the bulk of it out of the way. Its not like come the end of the project we’ll go our separate ways or anything. We’ll keep hang’n out, emailing, blogging and asking each other questions..

This is a great outcome/plan.So onwards and forwards!

I have not done much for wiki this weekend but I did hear from a good old friend who I used to play music with…yah before i found horticulture I was gong to be a rock star.Check these out.

my HAUNTED STAGE

and when I was INSIDE OUT

Leigh should we look at starting to bulk up some wikipages for the perma culture course?

Could you create a wiki page for Propagation?

Ovah and out

Ok so Leigh and I got together for a couple hours yesterday and powered thru some more activities – this time we worked on the unit for hand tools.

Leigh questioned if when i worked beside him( ie he is at the keyboard and I am feeding biscuits to Mira ),if i am just leaving it up to him or just relaxing back while he does the work…. hmmm having worded it this way may be my perception of how the conversation went and Leigh may have a different take.Anyway ,I think ultimately it would be better for my wiki skills to do it myself and not rely on Leigh to flutter away on the keyboard for me, but ,on the other hand i very much see the team effort getting us closer to having the resources ready for use in Feb.It is also incredibly satisfying for Leigh to ask me for a certain photo , slideshare , vid or link and yup I got it so at some point in time I anticipated the need for specific support materials and created or sourced them.There is no I in team.To be continued…

I really enjoy working with Leigh when we are at my house as we really seem to power out for a couple of hours-there are still interruptions with texts,moby calls,making Leigh a weak coffee and twirling the cat on the office chair but other than that we tweaked the botanic nomenclature wiki and made a to do list which lead me to add some other stuff but instead of scribbling it on a scrap of paper I added it right to the wiki page with a view of removing each reminder as I do the task.This could work for me as I will be prompted to check pages regularly to make sure I have not missed anything or left any unsightly runonsentences on any wiki pages.This is our “To Wiki” list for a plant identification wiki
Support materials

List some really great books for plant id here.
Add some good links here.
Add example plant id projects here – how did the ones that Leigh and I scanned work out?We have permission to use these but student now lives in Taiwan,how can we secure this agreeement? Is verbal enough? Or should we send him consent release form to sign?
Change the name of this activity page to something like Trees shrubs and climbers – there’s nothing common about them… or whatever

We also put this mega picture of Linnaeus on the wiki for botanic nomenclature

Oh and leigh can you show me how to make this layout a bit mo pretty?

The following vid could be used for an activity in botanic nomenclature or plant identification, say ,maybe a lead into an activity for

Identify, label and present a range of amenity trees, shrubs and climbers.

Forty common amenity plant specimens are visually identified, collected , pressed and dried, and mounted neatly or photographed. Plants collected may include but are not limited to the NZHITO list;plant parts collected or photographed include – stem, foliage and flowers.

Plant labels should include – botanical, common and family names; identifying features; plant type; plant use; cultural requirements; date and site collected.

Plant Specimen or photographic collection includes at least five plants from each group – trees, shrubs, climbers, New Zealand native plants.

The next vid could introduce some bonus info on pronouncing botanic names , I say bonus cause it is not part of the performance criteria for this unit but what the $&@* let’s touch on this a bit.

And when I was searching for info on plant pronunciation I came across this awesome site! Check out the neat little vids too , the newspaper pots could be worth trying at our POLYGROW NURSERY.

The vid on weeds is good too

Finally before I ovah and out ,here are some more great tips on plant pronunciation

http://www.learn2grow.com/gardeningguides/generalgardening/basics/pronouncingnames.aspx

http://www.emmitsburg.net/gardens/articles/adams/2002/latin_for_gardeners.htm

And this one hits the nail on the head with the inclusion of this information

William Stearn, considered the authority on botanical Latin (his book Botanical Latin is the standard) states,

Stearns gives three basic principles for pronouncing scientific Latin: “The pronunciation of a word is determined by the sounds of the individual letters, the length (quantity) of the vowels, and the place of stress (accent )”.

Stearn’s points are fundamental and pretty easy to follow for proper pronunciation:

Well I must go nigh nigh but this is interesting

Ok so we grew a Monarch Butterfly.

We purchased a Swan plant with a MB chrysalis from THE RED BARN , Dunedin NZ just before Xmas and put it in the glasshouse with the tomatoes and my beloved gooseberry. I then tended the operation by watering the swan plant and not spraying anything on the tomatoes to control white fly or spraying my gooseberry for aphids:I usually use a low toxicity spray which contains garlic ,chilli and pyrethrums but opted to just spray the sap suckers off with a good spray with the hose(never water plants in the glasshouse during full sun).I just used water to control the pests ’cause I didn’t know what effect an insecticide would have on the chrysalis even though the garlic/chilli/pyrethrum control is the lesser of many evils.

Picture of healthy chrysalis here.

And since a video tells a thousand and one stories…here you go

Well, I kept an eye on our baby butterfly in the Pittsporum tree for quite a while ,I even got the binoculars out to make sure I was not imagining the odd flutter of wings in the Pitto.Yah ,it was still there so I made a Budhleia flower sandwhich on rye(yes I removed the crusts) and I left it in the garden in case our baby butterfly came back for a wee snack.And that is the story so far .Ovah and out!

Ok so now I have my motorcycle learner license and will now enjoy the experience of looking for a bike to buy... (hah just kiddin, I have to stick to a 250 cc for now and a budget).This is more what I need.I would love to have it before my birthday!

Leigh and I have been working on wiki at my place and i am so pleased with our progress and how skook the pages are starting to look.Check out our health and safety page!

And check out this h&s page too

Leigh and I worked on some weed stuff today and again I am just so pleased with how it is gelling.

To do list

You have the right to refuse unsafe work work

Add image to scenerio and video page

Remove/replace image of student using drill unsafely as there is a good chance I will be criticized for exposing poor workplace practise

Add one of the not so graphic safety videos for learners/more sensitive viewers , yah like dis one

I have added a CV to my user page but it needs a tidy up in terms of page lay out and again I need an image.

Use this video for weed’s library of resources and I have corrected the title.

Ask Leigh to transfer all vids to you tube – it is a shame to deprive youtube viewers of a hortykim education

And finally for today we could add this vid to the library of resources for weeds.Ovah and out

Check up on my next blog to see pictures of our new baby!

Ok so i have spent a few hours on flexi in between cleaning out the shed and a couple of visits from a friend and 3 family people.I have completed all the essential resources for health and safety but i still need to choose an interesting image for dis page,tidy up this activity and put a link to the answers on the resource page and complete the activities that fit the performance criteria.So then the health and safety wiki will be good to go but having said that I would like to think I will continue to add resources and activities as I find them. For example, at this time last year when I was first getting my head around the use of cool sites like Flickr ;Elena and I put together some awesome powerpoint presentations(Leigh gave us some great tutorials and started his patient construction of hortykim) for horty student hazard registers which have turned out to be a good example for other departments.I would also like to think I will continue to add more activities or others will as well.Even though i only have about 60 hours of paid wiki work left to go, I don’t think I will be able to help but periodically check in on the wiki pages we have developed.Oh jeez and speaking of resources for health and safety-I dare yah not to break out into a prickly sweat after seeing this!  Rightyoh if that doesn’t stop and make one think i don’t know what will? Be safe out there.Okeedokee I am about to go and do the first part of my motorcycle license so I can buy a wee 250 to get me round town.Then I can leave the big black beast at home a few days a week and Leigh can stop teasing me about my heavy carbon footprints,although,no one teased hortykim when we had to yank some cooky tourists out of the estuary at Tomahawk beach…Ovah and out! Possible image for H&S http://www.flickr.com/photos/hortykim/1817991942/Fix employyesAsk Martha to check wikis for spelling/grammar 

  Ok pitter patter back at er.We got back from Wanaka last night and I have spent the morning re self directing myself and starting a list for flexi and then a list for my life.I love lists. I also responded to Leigh’s broccoli questionsThis was my response:   

Hey ya,   Vegetables are very hungry and even if you have added a lot of nutrient when planting(compost,blood&bone or whatever you chose) you will need to apply a regular watering/fertilizing regime.I use Thrive.Buy two packets-one for promoting lush growth for first few weeks and then Thrive for promoting flower and fruit.It is cost effective and water soluable so you are then assisting any rainfall.If you prefer to stay organic there is an organic option which comes in a liquid concentrate. For your pests  I recommend Beta Bug – the active ingredients include garlic , chili and pyrethrins.Or you may want to try Neem oil.Or just good old dishwashing detergent and water. However, the trick here is repeat applications which is why many people don’t think these more organic options work.They work really well but you have to re apply every couple of days til the pests are are under control.                                        

 Let me know how ya grow                                                        

 hortykim 

P.S  There are some good sources of info for vege gardening or specific sites for particular veges like broccoli. One of my favourite books for one stop advice is THE YATES GARDENING GUIDE

Ok so I have been getting at least a couple of hours a day done on the wiki pages.Leigh and I caught up for an informal meeting on Tomahawk beach yesterday and discussed some good ideas for some more activities. I have spent a bit of time responding to comments about the language on some of the pages being a bit too elementsperformancecriteriay,so I am correcting this.I have also added some more video for botanic nomenclature and weeds.And I have been trying to work just on activities although I must admit i can kill a bit of time looking for existing resources on the innernet which i think are valuable.For example, the following sites on how to use dichotomous keys are fantastic!And another good example.A lot of the resources are american but in my opinion this is not an issue as the exercise is the goal and many plants featured in the interactive keys are found in New Zealand anyway.So don’t be hatin.I say this cause a common complaint among hortys can be that so many good reference books on plant identification have a northern hemisphere lean but hey just remember that spring is fall and summer is winter and don’t fall down the rabbit hole.Finally, have a go at these exercises and see how ya go!Oh yah and here are some activities for hand tools: Identify and use hand tools ,Safety equipment for safe use of hand tools and small machinery