School Programs
The Edible School Gardens Programs usually run for a 12 month
period. Year 5 and/or Year 6 initially take on the program and
learn about permaculture and design, and from this information
the students come up with individual permaculture garden
designs. From these designs we
decide on a final design -
the overall process is student-driven, with adult guidance.
The students/school source as many donations of materials and
goods for the upcoming garden 'set up' day. On the set up
day many parents/grandparents/teachers and students participate
in the setting-up of the "no dig" garden and permaculture
design. Participation of the greater school community is
not only helpful, it is also one of the few areas of school life
where parents, family friends, grandparents, can actively
participate in a child's school life in a fun way, enjoy the
beginning and understand what the child is talking about when
they come home with progress updates and the like...
The garden is completed in a day. 2 weeks later, students
are planting up the garden with herbs and seedlings of salads and
vegetables. The students learn about organic methods of
pest control and fertilization. They also enjoy, each week,
tasting the food from the garden.
Each term a chef joins the students for a
"cook-up" of the food from the garden - it's a
taste sensation!
We have had many chefs come and join the students, (the
likes of Matt Golinski & Katrina Ryan to name but a few) not
only do the students get to enjoy the fruit of their labours,
they also learn how to cook and prepare the various vegetables,
giving them not only enjoyment, but the value of how important
salads and vegetables are in our life and future health. We
even eat off arrowroot leaves so that there are no disposables
used, therefore the children are also being made very aware of
how disposable our current society is and the damage that can
cause, that need not happen. The leaves then go into the
compost.
We also have Harvest days which are celebration
days - days to celebrate the good food we have grown. These
events may include dancers and music, as well as the beautiful
food. Again, we try to include the local community in these
days, it may be in the form of local musicians, artists, dancers,
even family members who have particular cultural experience to
impart, whatever is relevant to the local community in the school
in question.
The students are constantly learning about the different methods
of growing food organically, composting, worm farms and fun, the
list goes on & on, and we hope that you will read further to
see what other schools have learned, experienced, and personally
profited from their exposure to an edible school garden...
The Edible School Gardens program is not a free service and
schools are required to source funding to pay for the
program.
Cost of a basic 12 month program, based on teaching students in
the school garden once a fortnight is: $11,146 (once a fortnight
for a 12 month period) or, on a weekly basis: $16,186 (for the 12
month period), which includes the basic set-up. Costings may vary
depending on how many donations of goods are sourced for the
project, obviously the more donations of products and of course
old fashioned cold hard cash for the project, the better it is
for the school. (prices 2008)
About The Edible School Garden Program
A brief overview of a once a week 12 month program
The program is initially best suited to years 5 or 6 students rather than younger students as we need to create a permaculture design for your school garden and this is too hard for most younger children to grasp.
Once a design is completed, we will source as much second hand
material as possible to reduce our impact on the environment and
to reduce costs.
Then we have a Community day, it SET UP day, thats when all
classes are involved, plus teachers, parents, grandparents and
friends, its our garden make over day basically, where that
boring batch of grass gets turned into a productive attractive
garden. It is a very busy day but very
rewarding. Our no dig gardens, herb spirals, arches, worm
farms, compost systems will all be set up, depending on
design. The garden area is approx 10m x 10m size.
Up to this stage we have taken whole classes at a time. Now
that we have our garden at a working stage, we need to consider
safety and the fact that most students have never had a vegetable
garden, so our class sizes go down to 7 students every 1/2
hour. If there are parent or teacher volunteers this number
can be increased.
The garden needs to settle for a couple of weeks then we start
plant, usually around 300 seedlings on the first day.
Time to plant our vegie gardens out.
Learn and experience correct techniques for planting seeds,
seedlings, plants and herbs, and the after care.
Then each week there are many jobs to be done besides planting
and caring for our salads, vegetables and herbs, and of course
Fun!
Other activities include
- planting
- tasting food
- learning about the health benefits of fresh food
- making connections between the food they are growing, and occasionally cooking with it (invite chefs to work with the students)
- making compost and creating green waste teams to collect food waste within your school
- feeding the worms and using worm castings and liquid.
- using compost in their garden system.
- making liquid manures and compost teas.
- learning natural pest
control.
- growing mulch and harvesting it.
- seed saving
- propogating
- respecting nature.
- learn about food miles
- have Harvest celebration feast with local chefs, dancers and musicians (where available).
- promoting the eating of fresh nutritious food as fun, tasty and enjoyable
- pest prevention
- waterwise gardening
- how gardening is a positive response to climate change and greenhouse effect
- Brix test your food
- understand how pH and Brix equipment work
As you can see, our Edible School Garden Program is more than
just growing vegetables.