The Kitchen Garden
Exciting, engaging and fun food education–children and teenagers work together to learn valuable life skills in our Kitchen-Garden.
The Kitchen-Garden celebrated its official opening in March 2013. Students are involved in every aspect of planting in the garden together with parent and grandparent volunteers: from mulching and fertilising the garden beds, to planting seedlings, making organic pesticide and finally harvesting the crops to use in cooking classes in the new student-kitchen.
The Planting Garden is eco-friendly: recycled water is used for irrigation; a frog bog provides a habitat for local frogs; school fruit and vegetables scraps are utilised to make compost and feed the worms and chooks; the worm farm assists in providing natural fertiliser for the vegetable beds; and the chickens supply eggs for the student kitchen.
Sustainability actions initiated by our students include growing Bidgee-widgee plants to take to Healesville Sanctuary to help feed the critically endangered Orange Bellied Parrot (there are only about 50 left in the world); Nude Food Thursdays to eliminate the need for portion packing and wrapping; and Bialik’s Indigenous Garden helps prevent soil damage and provide a habitat for local species.