Sowing a Seed

1. Sowing a Seed This is the Story of the growth of a bunch of Kids, in a garden from a disused pool, at Westport North School

2. The Challenge: Junch box envy The brightly coloured packaging of Classmates “Assembled Lunch boxes” had created a severe case of “Junch box Envy” in some households Beautiful healthy homemade lunch boxes were coming home uneaten … The “Junch Boxes” out numbered the “Lunch Boxes,” appearing highly desirable filled with highly processed & packaged treat foods…oh to eat chippies every day!

3. Reclaiming the Lunch Box Our 70 year old school pool had recently been decommissioned and backfilled The 2012 Tui School Challenge was about to launch on 28th July School was looking for some lunch time activities for the kids… And… so an opportunity appeared to: Introduce kids to the garden to table concept Develop ownership of healthy eating habits Through easy to prepare, colourful, healthy food grown by themselves

4. The Garden Over Winter the kids got stuck in over 2 lunch times a week building and growing their garden A huge emphasis was put on recycling and using what we had on hand as we had a start up budget of $500 with which to source: fertilisers, tools, seeds, compost Our small budget was not a hindrance as the kids could experience that a garden was something that you could create from nothing, rather than something that arrived on the back of a truck from a store

5. The sowing of seeds Quickly the garden became a sanctuary, a place where kids could grow not just vegetables and flowers, but themselves: Boys were engaged and building Leadership skills were developing Knowledge was being acquired Creativity was unleashed Special needs or “Different abilities” were no longer apparent Barriers were broken down and new alliances forged

6. Eating everything in sight Once our vegetables and herbs came on line, the preparation of fresh and simple food began in earnest: Parsley pesto became a staple for dipping carrot & celery sticks Vietnamese rolls wrapped up crunchy goodness Sweet corn salsa simply disappeared on spinach plates Colourful salads didn’t stay around for seconds Cucumber circles were lathered with humus and pesto

7. Foraging Children now walk around the garden picking and chomping on silver beet leaves, stalks of parsley, cabbage leaves, celery sticks and lettuce leaves Nobody leaves the garden empty handed, a few prized leaves of silver beet or stalks of celery are carried home for the evening meal The worms and bird life also don’t go Hungary with worm farms regularly topped up with class collected compost & half eaten apples speared on the fence for the birds

8. Where to next? An out door kitchen & Orchard! Despite significant success & publicity with our Garden to Table concept: We went on to win the 2012 Primary School Category of the Tui School Challenge. Our prize package means we are now well resourced with Tui product We also captured the Eye of What Now who spent a wonderful morning with us filming Our popular Garden Blog site also generates significant traffic We struggle to be self funding despite considerable creativity having been employed! The kids NEED & WANT to take what they grow home, we can’t sell it.

9. Outdoor Kitchen Out Door kitchen: We have sourced a sink and coal range that we are in the process of installing The coal range suits our Coal mining heritage and will allow us to add pizza and baked potatoes to the lunch time menu The sink now allows our kids to complete the whole food preparation cycle by washing up afterwards as well! Up until now everything has been done with buckets and hoses Over time as budget becomes available we wish to add resources such as sets of chopping boards, bowls, pots and kitchen utensils

10. An A-Mazing Orchard Orchard: we have flipped an area of ground outside the walled garden that we intend to plant as a school orchard WE have plans for: a row of citrus a row of nashi, apples and plums all hedged in by feijoas and cranberry hedging The basic maze layout will make for a fun addition We have the willing labour force and the Tui fertilisers…we just need to creatively fund the purchase of fruit trees?

11. Communities This year we are running a School garden competition with an opportunity for Families to register for $5 to receive a small garden start up pack made up of seedlings we have raised and a fertiliser pack. All registered Family gardens will be judged by guest judge's in November Points will be awarded for creativity, ingenuity, presentation and results! The objective of the competition is to get the kids taking their gardening skills home and inspiring the rest of the family to eat fresh!

12. Making a Difference In the 12 months that we have created and run the school Garden we have: Raised the profile of our school considerably Grown the confidence of kids Provided opportunities for personal growth Introduced healthy raw food as a normal way of eating Provided opportunities to prepare food for themselves quickly & easily Introduced the simple pleasures of picking flowers to give away & being outdoors in a garden or their own making…

13. Sown for life We are the Lunch time Warriors At Westport North School, and thanks to one small Garden we have the opportunity to sow skills for life! Have a look at just how much we have grown in 12 months on our blog: http://westportnorthgarden.blogspot.co.nz/ We are the “Hot Shot” stars “Westport Garden Warriors” on What Now showing kids how to eat it raw: http://whatnow.tv/2011/?page_id=7372 We love to eat!