By Paul Dunlop
EATING greens is no chore for children at St James Primary School in Nar Nar Goon.
Students not only love the taste of broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, they even grow their own.
The vegetable patch at the rural community Catholic school is rapidly becoming the talk of the town — especially at dinner time.
For several years now, students have helped to plant and grow a variety of seasonal vegies as part of their environmental studies.
Principal Terry Ahern said the vegetable du jour at the school right now is pumpkin, and the plants are really taking off.
The pumpkin seedlings were planted during the Christmas holidays by local resident Harry Hermans and have been lovingly nurtured by students, Mr Ahern said.
“Everyone recycles their scraps which are fed to the school’s resident chooks and their manure is used as fertiliser. We also sell the eggs to raise money for charity.
“The pumpkins are going great guns, we also had really good tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.”
Built by parents at a working bee, the garden beds are raised off the ground and have walkways in between so the children can easily water and tend the plants.
The pumpkins will be harvested in April and stored for the school fete. From seed to plate, the children are learning all about where vegetables come from, and all that hard work has sparked a healthy appetite, too.
So the children like eating their vegies?
“If they’re grown here they do,” Mr Ahern said.