In 2008, Kilbirnie School successfully applied to Greater Wellington’s Take Action Fund, and set up a worm farm.

 Our worm farms

Since we have had the worm farms, the senior students have been collecting food scraps at the end of each lunchtime and adding them to the bins.

In 2009 we became more ambitions, and applied again for some funds to help us establish a sustainable garden at the school. The Meridian Energy Take Action Fund generously provided a water tank, tools, compost for an empty sand pit which was to become our new garden, and advice and time from Callum, our wonderful Greater Wellington Environmental Educator.

Callum met with us weekly towards the end of 2009 to help us plan the garden project. He helped us work out where to site the garden, work out what we wanted to grow, and plan the materials that we needed to achieve our dream.

 The old sand pit that will be our new garden.

In November we moved our worm farms near to the new garden site, and a stand was constructed for the water tank. We wrote a shopping list of tools that we would need and researched the prices of them. This was followed by a trip to Bunnings one lunchtime to select them. 

 Our new water tank

On Tuesday 24 November a truck dumped 6 cubic metres of organic compost on Moxham Ave. It was moved to our new garden site within 2 hours by a small army of senior students and members of the eco warriors group.

“The seniors pushed the wheelbarrows and the rest of us carried the buckets. I was tired at the end.”  Jordon, year 1.

We didn’t started the garden immediately as the summer holidays were coming up. At the last eco warriors meeting of the year Callum gave each of us sunflower and corn seeds, and some recycled milk cartons to plan them in, and sent us home to grow them over the holidays.

At the first meeting of 2010 we brought along our plants and compared them. Sylvie grew the biggest sunflower. It was taller than she was.

We all worked to decide what to grow.

Here is a list of some of the suggestions:

• Kiwifruit
• Cucumber
• Cauliflower
• Lavender
• Tomatoes
• Strawberries
• Climbing roses
• Tulips
• Flax
• Potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Sunflowers
• Corn
• Daisies
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Blueberries

We planted the garden on 18 February. We planted:

• Lettuce – Great Lakes Iceberg
• Cabbage – Racer Drumhead
• Broccoli – Summer Green
• Carrots – Egmont Gold
• Peas
• Canterbury Bells
• Freesia – Giant Masterpiece
• Marigold – Safari Mixture