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Garden to Table

Cardinal McKeefry features in the Education Gazette

September 16, 2019 By Tania Savage

By Education Gazette editors

ISSUE: VOLUME 98, NUMBER 16

Despite an earlier annihilation by rabbits, an edible Dig for Victory garden planted by students from seven Wellington schools in Parliament grounds is now on track to produce a bumper harvest.

  • Dig for Victory curriculum resource
  • Night vision
  • Education for sustainability
Checking out progress at the Dig for Victory garden at Parliament are: Kristian, Ananyaa, TJ, Sam, Eugene, Chloe-Ann from Cardinal McKeefry School.

Checking out progress at the Dig for Victory garden at Parliament are: Kristian, Ananyaa, TJ, Sam, Eugene, Chloe from Cardinal McKeefry School.

Earlier this year, students from seven Wellington schools, along with supporters from the RSA and local chefs, planted a garden in the grounds of Parliament to launch a new curriculum resource – Dig for Victory. 

Rabbits annihilated nearly the whole vege patch, leaving just the beetroot and silverbeet.

The garden has now been replanted, surrounded by a rabbit-proof fence, and the Garden to Table Trust is still on track to produce a harvest for the organisation’s 10th birthday on 14 November.

Permission to establish an edible Dig for Victory garden in Parliament grounds was given by Trevor Mallard, Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

“We planted ‘old-fashioned’ World War II-style vegetables in a very traditional garden on the lawns beside the library to show the public that anyone can grow vegetables anywhere and to inspire a new generation to start growing,” explains Victoria Bernard, Trust programme coordinator for Wellington.

Some of the produce will be given to charity when the vegetables are harvested in November. Victoria has also arranged for chef Steve Logan to use the vegetables at Bellamy’s, the parliamentary restaurant. 

“I am working on having a rabbit dish on the menu to counteract the stress of it all,” she says.

Dig for Victory curriculum resource

Initially released in time for Anzac Day, the Dig for Victory curriculum resource teaches young students about a World War II programme of the same name. At the time, rationing was in place across the country and many food products were shipped directly to troops, including
US soldiers stationed in the Pacific. 

“Dig for Victory encouraged people to grow their own vegetables at home, to be more self-sufficient,” says Victoria.

The curriculum resource was written by Victoria, who is a registered primary school teacher. 

She says the resource leads teachers and students through the history of the ‘Home Front’ in New Zealand, using historical photos and newspaper articles. 

A battleships game explores the perils of importing and exporting food across enemy seas, leading to the need for rationing. Wartime recipes and newspaper articles are analysed and then the ultimate challenge is set: to grow a Dig for Victory garden for a contemporary cause, such as climate change, obesity, mental health or food security.

Night vision

A recipe for ‘See in the Dark’ Anzac biscuits has been one of the most popular recipes to be downloaded from the Garden to Table website. 

“They are Anzac biscuits with rosemary from the garden for remembrance, poppy seeds for World War I remembrance, and grated carrot because of the ‘see in the dark’ propaganda,” explains Victoria.

“This British propaganda during World War II aimed to trick the Germans because the Brits had discovered radar and they didn’t want the Germans to know. 

“They also had a glut of carrots. It’s such a beautiful story for children – it opens up the whole history and intrigues them.”

The Garden to Table Trust hopes to use the 14 November celebration as an opportunity to challenge a mayor from the region to start a
Dig for Victory garden in Wellington and then pass on that challenge to other mayors. 

“We want it to catch on around the country, so all these civic gardens get turned into Dig for Victory gardens,” she says.

Education for sustainability

Mō tātou te taiao ko te atawhai, mō tātou te taiao ko to oranga. 

It is for us to care for and look after the environment to ensure its wellbeing, in doing so we ensure our own wellbeing and that of our future generations.

The New Zealand Curriculum focuses on 21st-century learning, ensuring learners are equipped to participate in and contribute to their own society and the wider world. An important part of this is encouraging students to consider significant future-focused issues, such as sustainability.

Structuring learning around a unifying theme such as sustainability provides opportunities for students to make connections between learning areas, competencies and values. It requires teaching and learning approaches that draw on all elements of effective pedagogy and focuses on empowering students to take action for a sustainable future.

Sustainability in Te Mātauranga o Aotearoa connects to the principle “environmental health is personal health”. This curriculum endorses a place for the school, the family, the community, the hapū, and iwi groups to focus on the place of the student in their own world. Therefore, the school-based curriculum supports holistic teaching programmes and learning pathways that enable the learner to engage purposefully with the environment.

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Root to Tip Competition

August 2, 2019 By Tania Savage

Click here to view the online article.

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Garden to Table Blessing

June 20, 2019 By Tania Savage

On June 12th Cardinal McKeefry School celebrated the 1 year anniversary of Garden to Table with a blessing of our garden and kitchen led by Cardinal John Dew. Garden to Table (GTT) is a nationwide school based initiative that focuses on teaching children the joy and skills of growing vegetables and cooking a meal to share with others. Room 2 takes part in the Wednesday morning programme with the support of Estelle our Kitchen Specialist, John our Garden Specialist, and Bridget, who is the teacher in charge of Garden to Table. GTT is also supported by a group of parent volunteers. We were delighted to have all of those who supported the creation of our Garden to Table programme there to share in our celebration.
Symbols that represented the Garden to Table programme were matched with our Marist Charisms and were placed on the prayer table.

Cardinal John shared with the children his own family’s love of gardening in his homily and linked this to our Marist Charisms of Family Spirit and Presence. He spoke about the power of generosity that can come from sharing produce and a meal. He concluded by reminding us that these experiences are truly a gift from God.

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Garden To Table – Dig for Victory

June 14, 2019 By Tania Savage

On Wednesday Nell, Austin, Ava, Bella and Alex got  to go to parliament to represent the school in a Garden to Table project.  GTT have created a garden based on a WW2 garden. When we got there we saw two rectangles of dug up earth. Each school had an assigned area. Cardinal McKeefry School had to plant red cabbage, savoy cabbage, golden cabbage and celery.

We set to work planting. There were little popsicle sticks with the names of our veggies that we had to plant. Everyone claimed 2 popsicle sticks and dug small holes with their fingers.

With all the photographers and interviewers around us we were waiting for one of them to come over and ask us for an interview.     Then a lady came up to Ava and Bella and said “Do you mind if I interview you?”

“Yeah sure!” The lady took Ava and Bella over and asked some interesting questions about GTT and why we think it’s good to have a garden in parliament.

After the planting every student gave out some poppies that R2 had helped Victoria make. Victoria disappeared for a while and then appeared with a platter of Anzac biscuits. Everyone wanted the biggest ones.  They were delicious and we were surprised to find out they had grated carrot in them. 

We think it was a successful day and we felt that we are now part of Parliament because we have left our mark and the gardens are open to the public. We hope that after the plant that people might be motivated to plant their own gardens.  By Nell, Bella, Alex, Ava and Austin.

Poppy Seed Gifts– Handmade by R2

This week Victoria from GTT asked R2 if they would like to make poppies as part of the Dig for Victory garden celebrations at Parliament. What was amazing about the poppies is that they were all made from handmade paper.  The students did a fantastic job of making the paper, cutting out the petals and assembling the poppies. The poppies were not only beautiful but the students had glued actual poppy seeds in the flowers which means that the whole flower can be planted in the garden and will actually break down and grow into poppy plants. 

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Garden to Table Update

March 23, 2019 By Tania Savage

Garden Group
This week was another fantastic week for the GTT team. We even had visitors from 1% Collective who came along with Victoria (our specialist from the Garden To Table programme who supports us and helped us set up the programme at Cardinal McKeefry).
The garden team showed them around and explained how the gardens work at our school and what a great job the students are doing (with fantastic guidance from John and Liz) growing the produce.
The gardeners were very busy weeding, doing pest control, working on the compost and planting seedlings. The harvesting this week was fabulous and made it easy to create delicious dishes for the students to enjoy.

Kitchen Group
The kitchen people were very busy this week tackling quite a few different dishes. Over the last month students have been foraging for blackberries that we have been storing in the freezer and this week some members of the team made blackberry jam. The hall smelled wonderful as the jam was cooking and everyone was very excited about the jars of jam that were created. A big thanks to the members of our school community who collected berries and brought in jars.
The rest of the kitchen group worked on preparing coleslaw and tomato salad freshly harvested from the garden. Another group of students made scones; one batch of sultana scones to have with blackberry jam and cream, and the other batch was cheese and they added fresh silverbeet. The end result was enjoyed by all. The recipe has been included in the newsletter so please remember to send along a picture of any students making GTT recipes so we can include them on our GTT page. We were also very lucky as Victoria gave us an awesome gift of some new aprons and a cookbook.

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