This year at St Thomas More the garden space has truly grown and been well utilised, through design of the students and enthusiasm of the whole school community. The Year 5/6 students have taken responsibility for their garden and it's thanks to their hard work and Mr Webster’s that the gardens have expanded and flourished!

The children learnt how to do permaculture style garden design; assessing conditions of garden area, designing garden beds and companion planting and have now put these designs into reality. Six new garden beds were built this year and filled with good soil and mulch (now full of crops too). A three bay compost system was also built by the students and is regularly turned and used, there is some soil now in our compost bins we can use in our garden!

As a group we talked about what we wanted in our gardens over spring/summer, ordered or collected the seeds and then sowed them. Most of these seeds absolutely rocketed and are now planted in the garden and some were sold at the PiPS stall at the Papamoa Farmers Market.

We have planted citrus and feijoas, filling the holes with rich soil and heavily mulching around the base. Every week at STM there is huge change in the garden, plants are always bigger, more bugs are buzzing around and more kids are spending time in the garden area.

Midway through 2021 I began to facilitate a lunch time garden club with the Year 3/4 students to get more of the kids involved in the garden and it has been an absolute hit! Every lunchtime more and more kids come (of all ages) and they love exploring our garden space. For some, it's the first time they have seen where their food comes from.

The work put in by students and staff this year has definitely paid off; creating a self sustaining, diverse garden space enjoyed by all.

This is Tess signing off – next year Nina will be the PiPS facilitator at St Thomas More’s garden.