School Garden: First Harvest for 2015


With the weather in the gardener's  favor, the Beachmere State School Vegetable Garden was able to harvest its first crop of salad vegetables today for sharing locally.

Fresh picked, no sprays, salad greens -- grown by the children --were presented to Mark Higgins to be incorporated into the Club Beachmere Boathouse Bistro menu.

The vegetable garden project  not only seeks to  foster an ongoing  partnership with the Beachmere community, but it also strives to enrich  the  children's  culinary options by engaging them in food production, harvest and preparation.  What the children grow, how they grow and prepare it,  is being  incorporated into the school curriculum.

You can support this exciting  initiative by helping out: 

  • Spear Pump: we need someone familiar with spear pump engineering  to overhaul (and maybe supervise repairs to) the pump that services the school garden.It needs repairing or replacing so the advice of some one experienced with aquifer pumps would be appreciated. Please email ratbagradio@gmail.com or phone 33331805 if you can assist or can recommend someone who can.
  • Recipe Book: More on this later...but in the meantime, if you have a favorite recipe that uses fresh produce -- akin to what can be  grown in the school garden -- please share your DIY with the school P&C to be incorporated in a cook book which will be published to accompany the garden activities.Send your recipes to ratbagradio@gmail.com.
  • Volunteer: The garden project may be a bit full-on at the moment, as we make-over the patch, but once we settle into a routine we will need folk willing to assist the children do the gardening. If you want to invest a little time each week you can volunteer and the next volunteer induction day in May 18th at 1pm in the school library. Just front up to the school office to begin the process.
In the offing: the vertical gardens will be planted out soon, the chook pen arrives (with chooks) and scarecrows and mosaics added to the gardening ambiance.