After two successful years of encouraging our children to get out into the garden and grow their own food, we’re ready to kick off the School Vege Challenge for 2023.

The primary goal of the competition is to offer an introduction to gardening as a life skill for children and young people. Gardening is a way of providing food and a source of recreation with positive benefits to mental health through connecting with the outside environment.

Changes for 2023

We have added a seed-sowing and growing category to the judging criteria. Be sure to check this out.

Criteria for entry

To be eligible to enter the School Vege Challenge, your school must:

• Be a Primary, Intermediate or Secondary school or kura (yrs 1-13).
• Be within 20km of the Whanganui city limits.

The goods to get you started

The competition pack includes resources that schools can use to teach their students how to grow vegetables. Everything you need for a great garden! The starter kit for each school is as follows:

• 5x Yates Seed Packets
• 1x Yates Natures Way Organic Citrus, Veggie & Ornamental Spray
• 1x Yates Black Magic Seed Raising Mix 35L
• 3x Egmont Commercial Seed Raising Trays
• 8x Zealandia Vegetable Punnets
• 1x Eastown Timber Planter Boxes
• 6x Tui Vegetable Mix 40L
• 1x Tui Quash
• 1x Ican Organic Vegetable Food.

NZME and Springvale Garden Centre would like to thank our sponsors for help with the Starter Kits and prizes:

• Yates NZ
• Zealandia Horticulture
• Eastown Timber
• Tui Garden Products
• Egmont Commercial
• Ican