Our Edible Garden

As well as working on our vegie patch at home we have been busy establishing one at school. We had a working bee a few weeks ago to clear out the few plants in the courtyard garden and get it ready for planting. The folks at the community garden came to give us some pointers and steer us in the right direction as we are aiming for an edible garden with a bit of permaculture thrown in.

So far everything that we've planted has grown and is looking healthy so the kids are very happy. We have some compost bins and a worm farm and have set up a garden club for the interested kids to do a bit in their lunch break. It's early days yet but the aim is to get it up and running and have the kids (and teachers) using it for lessons and making it part of their everyday school life. It's amazing how keen the littlest kids are to have a go and plant some seedlings, they have been so excited. Oldest fishes prep class have been growing things from seed as part of their science lessons and then planting them into the garden .

It's made the fishes very keen to get into the vegie patch at home and plant some seeds, so we have done a bit of maintenance work on it and have things starting to flower now. they have planted seeds, planted seedlings and watched them all grow. It's become part of their day now to go down to the patch in the afternoon and check on the plants and give them a water.

The pictures above are of the awesome mural that the students did on the wall to brighten the garden up. The grade sixes and seven designed the mural with one of our clever, artistic parents at school and then painted it on Friday. All the kids got to come out of class and do a part of it so the whole school was involved. The older kids partnered up with the smallest kids and gave them some help which was lovely to see. The older grades are really wonderful with the littlies and were so good with them.

The kids that were part of the design team stayed for the duration and saw it finished and they were so proud of themselves.

Does your local school have an edible garden or some great artwork?