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29 October, 2020

Veges back on the menu as school garden recovers

Flagstaff Team

Digging in… Forrest Hill School garden founder Pauline Hall and pupils Bella Le, Elijah Calvert, Noah Falconer and Irene Fan at work in the garden, which is recovering – thanks partly to donations – in the wake of a raid by thieves last month.

Forrest Hill School has received donations of seedlings from the community to replenish its garden after it was ransacked by thieves last month.

School pupils were devastated by the mess left behind where vegetables and flowers had been torn from their roots.

The gardens were vandalised by two middle-aged women. They were recorded on CCTV footage at 2am one morning in September, stealing vegetables and uprooting plants.

Since then, parents of children at the school have provided lettuce and other seedlings to restore the garden and save the school’s Garden to Table programme.

Kings Plant Barn in Forrest Hill also donated seedlings. The school is still looking to replace the garden hose which was stolen, and is seeking funds to build a fence.

Deputy principal Angela White said over the last four years the Garden to Table programme, which teaches children about planting and cooking, has continued to gain traction at Forrest Hill, the first school on the North Shore to adopt it.

“School gardens can be great ways for kids to learn where food comes from and they learn all sorts of skills,” said White.

The pupils grow and harvest produce to cook healthy recipes Masterchef-style.

Prior to the theft, the school’s year-5 pupils regularly created recipes and made meals to feed around 35 people.

Last week, they could finally resume, making a vegetable stir fry with silverbeet and kale from the garden, with rhubarb crumble for dessert.

On a plate… Thomas Sun with a helping of a vegetable stir fry made with his fellow students from crops harvested from the Forrest Hill School garden

Year-5 pupil Elisabeth Parkinson said she most enjoys cooking, but the pupils will take turns gardening and cooking.

Long-time PTA member and former teacher aide Pauline Hall has spent 20 years working with Forrest Hill school and took up the chance to share her passion for gardening four years ago, when she planted the school’s first crops.

Hall is set to retire this year, with Forrest Hill resident Jimena Monreal set to keep the Garden to Table programme running.

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