School Gardening Partnership 2024

“Would like to get the vege garden going. Have moved the beds so they are in the sun. Children will be taught to look after and nurture the garden. They can learn about different types of vegetables and what they can be used for. “

School Vege Challenge 2023

Harvest Time & Judging

This year the gardens have struggled after a theft of vegetables. Last year the gardens were moved to combat this but may not have selected the right spot as the location is in full shade and out of immediate sight from the students. There was also a time factor as the teachers were very busy and were unable to prioritise time towards the challenge and garden as a whole.
We spoke about how we can help Churton School to strategise moving forward. Plans are being made to shift the location of the garden again and there are goals to build this as a community outreach and get more of the school involved.

Mid Challenge Update

Churton School has been facing some challenges, but continue to be optimistic and advance in building the gardens back up. They haven’t had any success at this stage in seed growing but are going to give it another shot. What they’ve done so far is a work in progress but they’re off to a strong start again! The students are enjoying the process.

Getting Going

This year I (Brianna Hobson) am going to be the teacher involved in leading the environmental leadership team at Churton School. I know that the group of senior students who participated in this really enjoyed growing vegetables last year and upcoming students are excited to do the same. It was a great opportunity for them to learn more about growing, gardening, and cooking and I look forward to helping the students spread these messages throughout the school!

We are really enjoying being out in the garden as part of this challenge. It has been a busy start to the year and some of our senior students are putting in a lot extra time to effort to tending to our new vegetable patch!

School Vege Challenge 2022

Harvest Time & Judging

Unfortunately, the week prior to judging, Churton had some overnight “visitors” who decimated the garden. All the plants that were ready for harvest were taken. What you can see below is the subsequent plantings coming on.

Kia kaha, Churton. Keep growing your veggies.

Mid Challenge Update

I knew they had a couple of challenges with their garden at the start of the competition – I had spotted the principal, Andrew Spence getting a few replacement vege seedlings instore one day not long after we had dropped off the starter kits.

Andrew is an enthusiastic guy so I knew any challenges would have been worked through and I was looking forward to seeing what was happening.

Approaching the school gardens, I spotted a sea of white. The gardening team has constructed full garden covers of bug netting over both their vege boxes.

It’s proving very effective as a way to stop the white butterflies getting to their broccoli and other brassicas. The kids have learnt that the white butterflies lay eggs which turn into caterpillars that eat the vegetables.

Initially the plants had been eaten but then they have grown nice new fresh leaves now they are growing under the tee pees of bug netting.

There is great learning in this.

I spotted some swan plant seedlings in their vegetable beds. I asked about those – Andrew explained they thought that would be a bit of fun to grow swan plants and have monarch caterpillars.

I like that, he has hit on one of the essences of the vege challenge; ‘to have fun’.

He said they have learnt that monarch caterpillars are fussy and only eat the swan plants and sometimes pumpkin.

One of the days they found slugs in the garden and one boy squeezed it between his fingers.

‘The garden needs to be sustainable’ they explained – they’re right. Too much garden that doesn’t get looked after is disheartening.

‘We have got it about right’ they said, ‘though we would like to add a third vegetable bed.’

Good work Churton, the kids are learning about growing things and interacting with nature.

I’m looking forward to seeing the garden again in a couple of months.

Getting Going

We participated in the 2021 School Vege Challenge and our environment team really engaged in the process. We feel that we could improve on our efforts from last year as well:

“We had a lot of fun last time.”

“We liked seeing how things grew.”

“We can certainly develop our skills a little more this year.”