School Gardening Partnership 2024

July Update

The students of Castlecliff school have come away with a fantastic broccoli harvest! Ready to be cooked up at home, and some lovely parsley garnish. We’re impressed with their efforts and you can tell the students are stoked about what they’ve achieved as well.

The students are learning about establishing and caring for a worm farm – great skills. You can also see that there’s a certain seaside theme showing in their garden space to represent their proximity to the coast. From brilliant blue colours with driftwood and pumice, to the unique use of potting up seedlings in a boat, and the scarecrows dressed in life-vests.

Getting Going

Castlecliff School has several well-loved garden beds from previous years of getting kids stuck into gardening. They started off strong by reinvigorating the soil in their garden boxes with fresh compost. We also supplied a protective, polythene grow-tunnel to protect their new vegetable seedlings from bugs and nasty weather!

“We are excited to be part of this new partnership. We are a low decile school trying to teach life skills while also providing vegetables to our whanau.” – Sarah, Castlecliff School Partnership Coordinator

School Vege Challenge 2023

Harvest Time & Judging

Castlecliff School have done so well with their coastal-themed garden! Planter boxes painted a vibrant blue with shells and driftwood art amongst it all. The plants really stood out as well. Healthy plants and a good harvest. Lots of broccoli this year. The children loves to show off their produce and looked so proud of what they’d done in the gardens. Keep it up!

Mid Challenge Update

There’s a great team environment at Castlecliff school with extensive gardens positioned right in the middle of the school, providing the students plenty of opportunity to get involved. A beach theme has even been implemented with wonderful, bright colours! The great positioning of the gardens has meant they’ve been kept well weeded! A significant amount of their plants are grown from seed. They’re thriving and look very healthy.

Getting Going

We have been growing vegetables this year with the support of Springvale Garden Centre. The kids have really enjoyed the experience and learning about and eating different varieties of vegetables. We have also been able to regularly send vegetables home for the whānau. We would like to continue this journey but will need support to do so. The kids are excited about the challenge of this project.