This is the fun part now the hardest of the work is complete. We are just doing a little weeding here and there and keeping the water up to the plants. Have a look at how well our chickens are producing; we are selling the eggs to families and friends of the school. The tomatoes are climbing quite fast, they need to be tied up regularly and we are feeding the weeds to our happy hens.

We have entered the Junior Landcare’s ‘Pumpkin Challenge’ which is a competition for young people to enter to determine who can grow the biggest pumpkin in Australia.  The seeds were provided for us, they are the Atlantic Giant variety which are orange and grow very large if given the right conditions.  We prepared the soil with plenty of horse manure in a raised garden bed. We will be required to report the growth size of our competition pumpkin on a web site over the coming months.

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It was an exciting day and fantastic to meet with the people from Fiskars who helped make our grand project possible.

The students worked very hard to be ready for our Ribbon Cutting Ceremony, not only preparing the garden but also decorating the official cake (orange flavour), painting flower arrangements and learnt a funny song by Colin Buchannan about eating vegetables.

The students sung their song and Russell Broadbent MP cut our ribbon and told us a funny story about his brother’s “beautiful pumpkin soup.” Then we cut the cake as a group, ate a BBQ lunch and toured the garden. Everyone can see by our photos that it was a really great day.

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The students, parents and friends have been working very hard to get our permaculture garden ready for the ribbon cutting ceremony this week. The vegetables are planted, the weeds are pulled, the ground mulched, the decorative/functional garden art is in place and the chickens have started laying!

We welcome anyone who wishes to come and join us at South Coast Christian College, Wonthaggi Campus this Thursday at 11:00am.  The day will include some entertainment from the students, a BBQ lunch and party food, Russell Broadbent will join us for the official part of proceedings, Fiskars and the media, grade 6 students from our sister campus at Leongatha and many visitors who are as excited as we are to see how our project has unfolded.

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Our students have been busy painting some old kitchen utensils to brighten and decorate our kitchen garden. Some have faces of cats and owls to scare the wild birds away so they don’t eat our seedlings. We have also used plastic snakes to guard our garden from hungry wild birds.

We’ve included some progress pictures of our rhubarb, artichokes and garlic planted early in the project. There is still a lot to be planted and much of it will be done in the next week when the chickens are moved out of the pen which they’ve been tilling and fertilizing for two months.

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The students planted lots of herbs into the garden beds around the perimeter of the chicken pen. Such herbs as parsley, thyme, dill, coriander, fennel, watercress, marjoram, oregano, mint, sorrel and sage will be used in food the students will be cooking in the near future. The students also had a go at preparing and planting cuttings from rosemary and curry plants.

There is a roster for feeding and caring for the chickens so every student gets a turn, they love looking after their hens and each of the twelve have a name.

The Parents and Friends came together for a working bee and finished building garden beds and also an arbour which will have climbing plants planted so they will grow over it.

We are very excited that our ribbon cutting ceremony will be on 15^th October. We have a lot to do before then.

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The students welcomed 12 chickens (12 week old pullets) into their new home with lots of love and cuddles.  Each chicken is known by name and are expected to start laying eggs in approx. 6 weeks.

Strawberry plants were planted by the students, all the while they were talking about eating red, ripe and juicy strawberries.

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With some of our green-life voucher we purchased trees; apricot, peach, nectarine, cherry, grape fruit, olive, bay and lemon. 

The Parents and Friends of our school built garden beds around the chicken coop with knowledge that soil around it will become rich as the organic material builds up inside the pen and the rain disperses it.

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The students divided the rhubarb plants – we had 2 plants last September and now have a lovely row of 17.  In went a row of flower bulbs, these will be a surprise because we don’t know what they are!  Then the students put in a row of onions, a row of garlic, some artichokes and silver beet.  While clearing away the old pumpkin vines the students found a frog – Miss Thatcher said this is evidence the eco system in our garden is becoming good due to the work done on soil improvement and planting.

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Thank you Fiskars for our tools!  It was like Christmas had come all over again to our students when the new gardening tools and T-shirts arrived, cardboard and plastic flew everywhere with overwhelming excitement.  Since then our green life voucher arrived and the gloves too, the students gave their stamp of approval to them as well!  Presently we are working on a wish list for edible plants which will be emailed to our local Mitre 10 store this week. Thanks Fiskars!

The Parents and Friends of our Campus have been working hard on our rotation chicken coop over the past few months and now I can report it’s been completed. The chicken coop is the centre piece to our kitchen garden with the purpose of applying these permaculture principles; the chickens will fertilize and till in one side of the pen while the veggies will grow in the other. Now it’s time to order our young pullets, we will purchase these with the sales from our most recent veggie crop largely consisting of pumpkins. 

Mean while the students have worked hard painting some original garden art which will act as a backdrop to our kitchen garden beds on the outer edge of the chicken coop which are yet to be constructed from railway sleepers.

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