VSGP Awards - Best School Garden - Winners in 2018 and 2021!
Our Garden was recognised in 2018 for ‘Best Edible Garden’ and again in 2021 winning both Regional and State Awards from the Victorian Schools Garden Program for our Garden and its program.
History of the CSPS Garden
The Kitchen Garden and Chickens program was initiated by a small group of passionate and dedicated parents at the school in 2015 who had a vision to create a magical and productive place where students, teachers and the CSPS community can come together to explore, learn and have fun.
From humble beginnings, CSPS’s garden has gone from a couple of garden beds used by the EEP Grade 3 & 4 classes to learn about gardening and sustainability to a thriving Kitchen Garden with an abundance of vegetables, fruit, citrus trees and a herb garden, not to mention a large Chicken Coop housing the school’s much loved hens.
The large Chicken Coop was generously donated by the Bowley family who are passionate about the benefits of having chickens at the school to engage the children and allow them to learn about caring for and nurturing other living things, including learning about animal life cycles and the connections between animals, people and plants.
In late 2017, CSPS became a member of the Kitchen Garden Classroom as part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation. Since that time through the support of our fabulous community we have run a very popular cooking program. This program enables students to plant, harvest, prepare, share and eat fresh, seasonal and delicious freshly prepared or cooked food.
Why have a Kitchen Garden and Chickens at School?
A Kitchen Garden and Chickens creates a fantastic authentic learning environment enabling CSPS to:
Engage children outside of the traditional classroom and allow them to learn about how fresh, seasonal and delicious food is grown in order to form positive food habits for life;
fully integrate the school curriculum or learning framework as it offers infinite possibilities to reinforce literacy, numeracy, science, cultural studies and all aspects of environmental sustainability;
deliver observable social benefits to all children, including those with special needs; and
encourage critical thinking, teamwork, an understanding of cause and effect, and increased levels of observation.
Community Involvement
Since 2015 Scicluna’s Real Food Merchants located at Tooronga Village have generously donated fruit and vegetables that would otherwise go to landfill to feed CSPS’s chickens. This supplements the grain CSPS feeds its chickens and ensures our chickens are healthy and produce great eggs. We thank Scicluna’s for their continued support of our garden.
We have also partnered with Reground, an organisation which collects and distributes spent coffee grounds and chaff within the community. Since 2019 our garden has accepted approximately 11 tonnes of enriched organic material for composting and our worm farm.
We also thank Linger Patisserie Cafe who have donated coffee grounds and egg shells which CSPS has used to improve the soil in our garden.
How can you get Involved?
There are a number of ways to get involved in the CSPS Garden.
Volunteer as a Parent Helper in the kitchen to assist students and their teacher during cooking classes.
Assist Virginia in Garden Club on Tuesdays or Thursdays. These sessions welcome students to “get their hands dirty” by cultivating, planting, fertilising, watering and weeding in the garden.
Volunteer to water and maintain the garden in school holidays and enjoy feeding the chickens and collecting the freshly laid eggs.
Join the Chicken and Garden Shareholders. With a $5 donation at the office, you buy a raffle ticket to be in the running for a dozen freshly laid eggs or home grown produce basket. This raffle is drawn every Friday at assembly and all money donated to the raffle goes towards feed and straw for the chickens.
Get involved in periodic Garden and Chicken Projects by volunteering your time or skills. The parent led garden committee is looking to continuously improve this area for the children and we have a number of ideas and projects in mind over the coming year. Eg irrigation for the Kitchen Garden, Paving around the Chicken Coop, Worm Farms and Composting, etc . The more volunteers the merrier and enables things to get done.
For those families that are time poor but would still like to contribute in other ways, we welcome donations of garden supplies such as Seasol, Watering Cans, Garden Tools, Bamboo sticks, seeds, etc etc. All donations can be made to the office.
Get involved in the BAGs led School Working Bees which are held periodically during the year to help maintain the school buildings and grounds.
Please register your interest by emailing the school and in which capacity you would like to assist. This way the Garden Committee run by a small group of parents and appointed teachers can let you know of any opportunities as they arise.
We'd love your help...
Garden Club is led by Virginia on Tuesdays and Thursdays and attended by up to 30 students. We’d love another pair of hands to help out. Click on the above button to get in touch with our garden coordinators.
