Garden Club at Totara School

Kids Growing at Totara School

 A group of enthusiastic student gardeners have volunteered to be part of Kids Growing in Term 1—a programme facilitated by Waitaki Community Gardens to teach gardening and cooking skills.  They have really whipped their raised garden beds into shape, harvesting goodies from summer growth, pulling weeds, and replanting the beds with winter crops like broccoli, garlic, onions, rocket, carrots and potatoes. One highlight from Term 1 was saving the worms from drowning at the bottom of the worm farm and refurbishing their home with luxurious layers of newspaper, leafy greens and food scraps from the classroom buckets. In this photo you can see the new class buckets and freshly layered worm farm: 

Another highlight from Term 1 has been our cooking activities: broccoli soup and delicious apple crumble. Both the broccoli and apples were harvested from the school garden and orchard. We had a special guest chef, Danielle, come to make apple crumble. She recently graduated with a degree in Nutrition at the University of Otago and she answered some of our questions about a balanced diet and healthy eating.

In Term 2, each class will do a 5 week block of Kids Growing and learn about the science of germination and how seeds grow, beneficial bugs, compost, gardening and cooking. It is going to be a lot of fun, so stay tuned to what’s happening by subscribing to our Kids Growing blog at http://www.waitakischoolgardens.blogspot.co.nz/

A special thanks to our sponsor for supporting Kids Growing at Totara School in 2017: