The Westport campus has this year become part of Garden to Table and runs it with the four Junior students. Garden to Table (GTT) is a charitable trust that supports primary and intermediate schools and kura to take learning out of the classroom and into the garden and the kitchen.  

The programme teaches thousands of kiwi kids knowledge and skills that have a transformative and lifelong impact on their hauora - wellbeing — and on the world around them, and is unique because it can be linked with the NZ curriculum across all subjects.

We have a well-established garden which was previously set up and has been run with many volunteer hours from Mr David Amies, who sadly passed away earlier this year. The children already have some vast knowledge, there were crops in the garden and veges ready to harvest.  

To continue to keep up the garden we run closely with the GTT calendar, which guides us through the chores for the months and seasons and gives us lots of ideas of how to use the produce we grow. 

We won 100 seedlings from Zealandia earlier this year, and a selection of seeds from Kings Seeds, and are now harvesting and selling lettuces, cooking leeks, thinning rainbow carrots and keeping the bugs away from many greens, including bok choy, different coloured cauliflowers, and broccoli, lots of spinach and kale and herbs including parsley and thyme. Each week we either care for the garden, weed, feed and plant, or we take it to the kitchen where we can turn seasonal produce into delicious food! So far, some things we have made include beetroot hummus, roast potatoes, leek and potato soup, and feijoa cordial! We always share it with whoever is at school – and take some home to our families! 

Today we held the annual bake sale in Westport and raised over $300 for our garden! Westgold supported it also, by donating 10 blocks of their delicious butter to every school involved in a bake sale. 

Now we plan to get some strawberries into the ground, fix up the polyhouse cover and start planning for the spring harvest! We love seeing the kids faces when they taste the freshly dug carrots, turn things like leeks and beetroot into yum food – and get dirt on their hands.