St. Dominic’s College
School Gardening Partnership 2024
“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.”
St Dominic’s College requested a starter pack containing the following;
– Bulk Garden Mix
– Zealandia Vegetable Seedlings
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.
