School Gardening Partnership 2024

October Update

Back in August, it was reported the students had been learning about the wonders of Calendulas. Today they have a flourishing garden full of these useful plants, with plenty more projects on the horizon for various herbs and flowers.

“At the moment, the girls are enjoying the fruits of their labour in planting and looking after their strawberries. We divided the strawberry plants you delivered between our four houses and the hunt is on to see who can grow the biggest.”

– Sister Mary Catherine, St. Dominic’s College Partnership Coordinator

August Update

“We have been harvesting mostly salad and herbs and learning about the many things you can do with calendulas.

The girls have been keeping their plots tidy and are happy that most of their strawberries survived.”

– Sister Mary Catherine, St. Dominic’s College Partnership Coordinator

Some very lovely looking greens. We’re pleased to celebrate the success they’ve had in their gardens.

The students of St Dominic’s are thinking ahead for their spring gardening adventure where they plan to cover their strawberries with netting to protect from the birds. They’ll also be growing fresh seedlings to replenish their garden beds, including seeds harvested from their own lettuces!

June Update – Strawberry Season

One of the things we really look forward to each year is strawberries. It’s one of the best plants to encourage younger people into the garden too. To get them started, we supplied a couple bundles of strawberry plants, strawberry potting mix, fertiliser and pots for planting into. It was wonderful to see how so many students got stuck in.

“Some photos of the girls planting their strawberries. They planted mostly into their garden beds, but there is one team who is doing containers on a sunny wall as their garden patch tends to get more shade. The strawberries are a great idea – even our less enthusiastic gardeners got a bit excited and involved.” – Sister Mary Catherine, St. Dominic’s College Partnership Coordinator

May Update

Strawberry season will be upon us in the next couple of months. We’ve reached out to see how everyone is doing and if they’re looking to include strawberries in their gardening plan.

“The girls are super excited about the prospect of planting and growing strawberries. We have mostly been working on weeding and working in compost.” – Sister Mary Catherine, St. Dominic’s College Partnership Coordinator

The students at St Dominic’s College have been progressing nicely. While working hard tending to the weeds and general maintenance of gardening, they’ve reaped the rewards from their vegetable yields!

March – Getting Going

“We would love to participate in the programme, as the students enjoyed the competition last year and made a lot of progress in their garden.”
Sister Mary Catherine, St. Dominic’s College Partnership Coordinator

St Dominic’s College requested a starter pack containing the following;
– Bulk Garden Mix
– Zealandia Vegetable Seedlings

Brydie paid a visit to deliver the starter pack and coach them through setting up a worm farm that had been donated to the school.

School Vege Challenge 2023

Harvest Time & Judging

All I can is immaculate! Not a weed in sight. A well-presented garden area and all plants grown from seed – a marvellous feat. The girls also love to plant flowers amongst the garden so it’s very colourful and pretty, and highly beneficial for companion planting. They have put a lot of effort into the garden with the recent instalment since our last visit of a vertical garden on the fence.

Mid Challenge Update

St Dominic’s School were new to the competition this year and started from a clean slate. Their progress has been wonderful and we’re stoked to see so many of the students participating voluntarily. Plenty of their vegetables have been grown from seed and they’ve taken companion planting into consideration to help boost compatible crops. The benefits have shown through!
Their next steps explore building some form of windbreak to protect their plants from the prevailing wind.

Getting Going

We are very much hoping to participate in the challenge as we try to inculcate a love for nature and healthy recreational activities in our pupils. In the past we participated in a fruit tree project – pupils now enjoy the fruits cultivated by their older siblings. We have three staff members who are willing to assist the pupils and we are hoping to make it a part of our interhouse competitions. We have 53 girls in Forms 1-7 (Years 7 to 13) who will all participate. We have a few girls who are already enthusiastic and have vegetable gardens of their own at home, we are hoping that the challenge will give them the opportunity to share their knowledge with the others in their House and get some more girls enthusiastic about gardening.

The girls had fun getting their garden going and are taking a keen interest in its progress.

In the end our principal decided against the interhouse competition, and we opened participation on a voluntary basis. We still got about 28 girls participating. Parents within the parish have been great in devoting their time to help us build additional garden beds from recycled materials so that we can keep all the girls involved.  We have shared some other seeds with them to take home and do a little bit of independent gardening as well. It is nice to hear them report back enthusiastically from time to time.