School Kitchen Garden Project

Crown Street Public School

As the last school term of the year started in October, Slow Food Sydney finally had a date for the beds to be built at Crown Street Public School. The design had slightly changed but three  large deep beds were constructed by a working group organized by one of the fathers. This garden bed is here to stay! It is constructed with bricks and fits perfectly with the school and surrounds.

After the cement had cured the next working bee began with the Garden Mums shoveling back all the soil which had been removed from the rather sad original garden beds. This was certainly team work with wheel barrows, shovels and rakes.

The children on their lunch break were all excited by the new feature in the play ground and all wanted to sign up immediately to help and be involved.

Planting has begun and soon we will see an abundance of salad vegetables as well as flowers and herbs before the term finishes, with more to come in the warm summer months. Watering is by hand from a rainwater tank installed with funds from Sydney City Council. With their matching grant which Slow Food Sydney successfully received it will be completed by the end of December. The grant was for $5000 with another $5000 of volunteer time to get the project up and running. With the additional generosity of the local Bunnings Hardware Store and Diggers Garden Seeds this project will be the first of many that Slow Food Sydney hopes to contribute to setting up School Kitchen Gardens.