Our kitchen gardens

We have a few teachers and teacher aides in our school with green thumbs. They love spending time in the kitchen gardens with kids. It's a great place to while away* a lunch time, watering, digging in the dirt, perhaps picking a passion fruit to munch on. For some reason, eggplants love our gardens and grow ferociously - we get to have baba ganoush at least a few times a year. Kids are always so proud to serve up food cooked from something they've grown themselves.

The gardens are amazingly fertile given the soil conditions in this area - all those lunch box compostings really help. Our lime tree is heavy with fruit, the pineapples and paw paws are growing, and it won't be long before the passion fruit vine needs pruning again.

Many staff members have contributed to the gardens - there's plants and trees from home, art work, a worm farm and compost bin. And everyone looks for an excuse to walk through there.

The gardens are all ready for a new year of plantings and we have a fabulous new scarecrow to look over things as they grow. Our last scarecrow was disappointingly dismantled by vandals one weekend last year. Hopefully, this doesn't happen again. Children get so upset and disappointed when their efforts are trashed by vandals.

Our kitchen gardens are cool, tranquil and so peaceful - and this week, particularly, are soaking up some of the summer rain we've had.

The garden is a wonderful place to learn about insects, food, and companion planting. It's a great place to chat to a friend and marvel at what's growing. And I love that I can see it from my office window.

* Foot note: The phrase meaning to pass time idly is while away. It is older and more logical than wile away. But because the second phrase occurs so frequently, it is now included in many dictionaries and is rarely considered incorrect.